Tuesday, February 14th 

AAAD Senior Research Experience Presentations

Festival Allegheny Room
Modality: In person/hybrid
Moderator: Kathryn Hobson, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Modjadji Choshi, James Madison University

Micah Swaby and Genevieve Anyimadu, “Disparities in Black/African American Maternal Healthcare”

Jeremie Petrie, “James Forten: The Shaping of Philadelphia Abolition”

Makaila Pryor, “Black Women and Love”

David Wang, “Influential Black Women in AAAD 200: Michelle Obama and Me”

Wednesday, February 15th

Conference Opening.

8:00 – 8:15 am

Presiding: Robert Aguirre, James Madison University
Dean of the College of Arts and Letters

Festival Allegheny Room
Modality: In Person/Hybrid

PANEL SESSION 1.

8:30 – 10:00 am

1a. Creating Collaborative Innovation Projects between Students from Kenya and the U.S at the Intersection of Climate and Peace. 

Festival Conference Room 2
Modality: Virtual/Hybrid
Moderator: Justin Henriques, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Brenna Matlock, James Madison University

Justin Henriques, James Madison University
Ahmed Mohamed, Garissa University
Fatha Abdirahman, Garissa University
Ahmed Osman Warfa, Garissa University
Jonathan Henriques, Indiana University

1b. Health Equity and The Color of Health:
Life’s Essential 8, Know your Numbers

Festival Conference Room 7
Modality: In person/Hybrid
Moderator: Modjadji Choshi, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Tiffany Brutus, James Madison University

Francesca Ezeokonkwo, James Madison University
Ronnicia Thomas, James Madison University
Modjadji Choshi, James Madison University

1c. Thinking Rootedness and Unrootedness in Literature

Festival Conference Room 4
Modality: Virtual/Hybrid
Moderator: Delores Phillips, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Bailey McInturff, James Madison University

Shubhanku Kochar, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi
“Climate Justice and Environmental Racism: A Reading of Zora Neale Hurston’s Short Stories”

Tejash Kumar Singh, Nanyang Technological University
“’Branches without Roots’: Fractured Double Identities of the Postbellum African-American in the publications of Chesnutt’s The Wife of His Youth and Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God”

Vinita Vincent, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, India
“Don’t forget where you from”:
Schools, Belonging, and Un-rootedness in Contemporary African American Young Adult Fiction”

Hatice Bay, Cappadocia University, Turkey
En route to Enrooting Black Nostalgia: Morgan Jerkin’s Caul Baby

PANEL SESSION 2.

1:00 – 2:30 pm

2a. Looking Back to Move Forward: Literature of the African American Women’s Literary Tradition

Festival Conference Room 2
Modality: Virtual/Hybrid
Moderator: Jennifer L. Hayes, Tennessee State University
Zoom Coordinator: Kayleigh Bishop, James Madison University

Jennifer L. Hayes, Tennessee State University
“A Walk Down Memory Lane: Natasha Tretheway’s Memorial Drive”

Rebecca S. Dixon, Tennessee State University
In the Spirit of Resistance: Zora Neale Hurston’s “High John de Conqueror”

Katrina Newsom, Tennessee State University
“’The World Has Ended’: Reading Environmentalism and Social Orders in N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season”

2b. The 6 Gs: Centering Black Leadership within Honors Courses at James Madison University

Festival Conference Room 7
Modality: In person/Hybrid
Moderator: Anastacia Martin, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Aria Browder, James Madison University

Antonio Gabriel Driver, James Madison University
Anastacia Martin, James Madison University
Aria Browder, James Madison University
Chrissy Donald, James Madison University

2c. Feminist Traditions and Counter-Traditions

Festival Conference Room 4
Modality: Virtual/Hybrid
Moderator: Megan N. Mederios, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Juhong Christie Liu, James Madison University

Elizabeth Peprah-Asare, Queen’s University (Canada)
“Shades of Misogynoir:
Mapping Black Women’s Thought and Praxis in Black British Feminism, Afrofeminism, and Womanism”

Eva Bohler, California State University, Long Beach
“The Roots of Our Struggle: Africana Womanism and Grassroots Activism”

Amina Saidou, James Madison University
“Nego feminism” and Women’s Strategies of Resistance in Sembene Ousmane’s Work

PANEL SESSION 3.

3:00 – 4:30 pm

3a. Regrounding Pedagogical Spaces and Practices

Festival Conference Room 2
Modality: Virtual/Hybrid
Moderator: L. Renée, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Carolyn Schubert, James Madison University

Tiara Saufley Brown, James Madison University
“He Looks Like Me in the Future!: Using Afrofuturism as a Teaching Tool in the Elementary Class”

Eghosa Obaizamomwan-Hamilton, University of San Francisco
“We Will Not Walk Through Rotten Orchards:
Abolition and (re)nourishing the Soil of Black Communities Through Insulated Praxis in Education”

M. Keith Claybrook, Jr., California State University, Long Beach
“African Deep Thought in Africana Studies: African Proverbs, Riddles, and Narratives as Pedagogy”

3b. Exploring Opportunities to Publish with the Gandhi Center’s International Journal on Responsibility

Festival Conference Room 7
Modality: In person/Hybrid
Moderator/Zoom Coordinator: Taimi Castle, James Madison University

Taimi Castle, James Madison University
Howard Carrier, James Madison University
Sylvia Whitney Beitzel, James Madison University

3c. Resistance and Memory

Festival Conference Room 4
Modality: Virtual/Hybrid
Moderator: Kwyn Townsend Riley, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Megan N. Medeiros, James Madison University

Inayah Avant, Tufts University
“Silence and Sound: Exploring the Harmonics of Black Women’s Resistance in Toni Cade Bambara’s The Salt Eaters“

Tatiana Konrad, University of Vienna
“Food, Black Authenticity, and Structural Racism from the Times of Slavery to the Present”

David Magill, Longwood University
“’The Ground Together’: Re-Rooting Civil Rights in August Wilson’s American Century Cycle”

Randi Gray Kristensen, The George Washington University
“Sixo as Maroon Memory and Prophecy in Toni Morrison’s Beloved”

Thursday, February 16th 

PANEL SESSION 4.

8:00 – 9:30 am

4a. CANCELLED – The Impact of Racial Identity Development on Sense of Belonging at a Predominantly White Institution

Moderator: Quentin Alexander, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Juhong Christie Liu, James Madison University

Quentin Alexander, James Madison University
Erica Brown-Meredith, Longwood University
Edna Reid, James Madison University

4b. Maternal Imaginaries

Festival Conference Room 2
Modality: Virtual/Hybrid
Moderator: Kwyn Townsend Riley, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Zenobia Lee-Nelson, James Madison University

Rambisayi Marufu, Goldsmiths College, University of London
“On Mothering: Threading Circles of Care and Collaboration through Hair”

Kelly Franklin, Texas Christian University
“Root Dreams: An Evaluation of Mothering and Daughtering in the Afterlife of Slavery”

Rebecca M. Peter, Florida State University
“Reimagining Family Trees:
Matriarchal Ancestry, Fabulative Histories, and Dream-Work Geneaology in Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day”

4c. Transnational Branchings

Festival Conference Room 4
Modality: Virtual/Hybrid
Moderator: Kofi Akpabli, Central University, Ghana
Zoom Coordinator: Kayleigh Bishop, James Madison University

Isabella Villanova, University of Padua
“Anglophone African Feminist Literature: Themes and Literary Tropes”

Rachel Bheecham, New York University
“The Shaping of Cultural Identity in the Caribbean: An Exploration of Kamau Braithwaite’s “Nation Language” & Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place.”

Radhia Meddahi, Hassiba Ben Bouali University of Chlef
“Diaspora as an Epic Journey, the Diasporic as the Epic Hero”

Shruti Sareen, Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi
“Dystopias of Power and Marginality:
Monica Mody’s Kala Pani and Suniti Namjoshi’s Conversations of Cow”

PANEL SESSION 5.

12:30 – 2:00 pm

5a. A Miserable Revenge: Recovering 19th-Century Black Literature from the Shenandoah Valley

Festival Conference Room 4
Modality: In person/Hybrid
Moderator: Mollie Godfrey, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Tiffany Cole, James Madison University

Mollie Godfrey, James Madison University
Brooks Hefner, James Madison University
Jeslyn Pool, James Madison University
Evan Sizemore, James Madison University

5b. Trans-Atlantic Practices of Identity

Festival Conference Room 2
Modality: In person/Hybrid
Moderator: Sombo Muzata, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Siân White, James Madison University

Yathrip Abdelgadir, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
“’Who are we? Sudanese!’: Sudanese Revolution and National Identity Formation within the Sudanese American Diasporic Community”

Noah Ndhlovu, The University of the Cumberlands, Kentucky
“Community Building in the African Diaspora” 

Sharika Crawford, United States Naval Academy
“The Patriarch of the Afros in Ghana: The Experiences of Dr. Robert E. Lee, an Early Black American Expat to Nkrumah’s Ghana” (Virtual presentation)

5c. Building Bridges with Refugees and Local Voices: Community Engaged Pedagogy Focused on Race, Place, and Equity at the University of Virginia

Festival Conference Room 7
Modality: In person/Hybrid
Moderator: Lilian Feitosa, University of Virginia
Zoom Coordinator: Megan N. Medeiros, James Madison University

Anne Rotich, University of Virginia
“Breaking Barriers and Building Bridges with Refugee Immigrant Communities in Charlottesville”

Shilpa Davé, University of Virginia
“Origin Stories and Local Voices: Introductions of Racial Legacies and Local Spaces in the Classroom”

Lilian Feitosa, University of Virginia
“Back in the Picture:
Teaching UVA First Year Students about the University’s Enslaved Laborers in Collaboration with their Descendants”

PANEL SESSION 6.

2:30 – 4:00 pm

6a. Origins, Pre-Histories, and Black Temporalities

Festival Conference Room 2
Modality: Virtual/Hybrid
Moderator: Bethany Nowviskie, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Abiodun Stephen Ijeluola, James Madison University

 RaShelle R. Peck, Borough of Manhattan Community College/CUNY
“The Roots of Afrofuturism: Black Futurity’s Embrace of the Everyday Blackness”

Ada McKenzie Thomas, Wheaton College
“Abbey Lincoln’s Spiritual Roots”

6b. Embodied Interventions

Festival Conference Room 5
Modality: In person/Hybrid
Moderator: Lara Sapp, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Megan N. Medeiros, James Madison University

Karen Wallace, Independent Scholar
“Every Picture Tells a Story: Contemporary African Art through a Feminist Lens”

Parker Brookie, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
​“Time Tunnels: A Genealogy of Black, Queer Temporality in Contemporary Brazil” (virtual presentation) 

Kevin A. Blanks, George Washington University
“Black Disabled Ancestors: Futurity & Rooting for Everybody Black” (virtual presentation)

Cornel Grey, Western University
“Black Queer Flesh and The Pursuit of Intimacy” (virtual presentation)

6c. Knowledges and Practices of Citizenship

Festival Conference Room 7
Modality: In person/Hybrid
Moderator: Steven Reich, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Modjadji Choshi, James Madison University

Christopher Ndubuizu, University of Texas at Austin
“A Nation of Othering: Unpacking the Racialization of U.S. Citizenship”

Ryan Poll, Northeastern Illinois University
“Plots of Resistance: Grounding Black Citizenship in a Plantation Economy” (virtual presentation)

Kofi Akpabli, Central University, Ghana
“VIP Sentiments: Textual Footprints of Dignitaries at Ghana’s Slave Castles”

Egbule Philip Onyekachukwu, The University of Delta, Agbor
“Climate Change Impacts: African Indigenous Science as a Workable Prospect for Mitigation”

6d. Grief and the Job

Festival Conference Room 4
Modality: Virtual/Hybrid
Moderator: Rachel Torres, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Taimi Castle, James Madison University

Rachel Torres, James Madison University
Graciela Perez, James Madison University

Friday, February 17th

PANEL SESSION 7.

8:00 – 9:30 am

7a. Affective and Biological Ecosystems in Literature

Festival Conference Room 5
Modality: Virtual/Hybrid
Moderator: Besi Muhonja, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Bethany Nowviskie, James Madison University

Ashasmiti Das, University of Hyderabad
“Geological Monstrous and Affective Knowledge-Making”

Hannah Regis, University of the West Indies
“Tongues in Trees and Sermons in Stones”: Jason Allen Paisant’s Ecopoetics in Thinking with Trees”

Jennifer Muchiri and Tom Odhiambo, University of Nairobi, Kenya
“Of Shaken and D(r)ying Roots: Imbolo Mbue’s How Beautiful We Were”

7b. Sources and Formations of Political Agency

Festival Conference Room 7
Modality: In person/Hybrid
Moderator: Etana Dinka, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Kayleigh Bishop, James Madison University

Melinda Adams and Katherine Presutto, James Madison University
“Women’s Inclusion in Peace Processes: A Case Study of Women’s Peace Movements in Cameroon”

Stephen C. Poulson, James Madison University
“Black Activism on Campus: How Activism by Howard University Students Changed the Culture and Policies of Predominantly White Colleges in Virginia”

Ojo Afolabi, Morgan State University
“Western Medicine and African Medical Actors in Colonial Southwestern Nigeria, 1888-1935”

7c. Afrocentric Genealogies 

Festival Conference Room 3
Modality: Virtual/Hybrid
Moderator: Modjadji Choshi, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Delores Phillips, James Madison University

Stephanie Diane Tsakeu Mazan, University of Virginia
“Ubuntu: African Hospitality and Scramble in Literature”

Khedidja Chergui, Teachers’ Superior College for the Letters and Humanities in Algiers
“A Summum Bonum: On ‘The Spirit of Pulling Together’ in Afrophone Ubuntu Thought”

Angela Ramsoondur, University of Mauritius
“Honouring the African Self: Humans and Nature in Ngugi Wa Thiongo’s The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi (2020)”

PANEL SESSION 8.

10:00 – 11:30 am

8a. Crosshatching Diasporas

Festival Conference Room 5
Modality: Virtual/Hybrid
Moderator: Kofi Akpabli, Central University, Ghana
Zoom Coordinator: Delores Phillips, James Madison University

Fiona Quast, University of Giessen, Germany
“How to Address the Diaspora? Media and Communication in Ghana’s Year of Return”

Charmane M. Perry, San Diego State University
“’Nou pa pale Fransè isit la’: The Haitian Diaspora and Practices of Kreyòl on Social Media”

8b. Tilling Cultural Histories

Festival Conference Room 2
Modality: In person/Hybrid
Moderator: Liana Bayne-Lin, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Miriam Ismail, James Madison University

Michael Reid, Virginia State University
“Genealogy, Literary Affiliation, and the Roots of ‘Double Consciousness’”

Brian Flota, James Madison University
“Black Biography in Early US Comic Books, 1941-1969”

Mopelolade Ogunbowale, University at Buffalo, New York
“What is Afrobeats Music: Attempting a Conceptualization of an Afro-Atlantic Music Form”

Yakubu Naporo, Northern Illinois University
“Revolution of Kola Nut Trade during the 19th century West African Economy”

8c. The Past in the Present

Festival Conference Room 3
Modality: Virtual/Hybrid
Moderator: Megan N. Medeiros, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Demetria Henderson, James Madison University

Larissa Runyan, University of Arizona
“Civil Rights’ Prehistory: Confessional Literature and U.S. Culture”

Daniel Silver, Mohammad Ala-Uddin, Jessica Eldridge, and Holly Weaver, James Madison University
“Reinforcing Dominant Narratives: The Hegemony of White Culture in Genre Filmmaking”

Konstantina Kliagkona, University of Portsmouth, UK
“By Erasing My Past, You Erase My Future: Exploring ‘Un-rootedness’ in African-American ‘Traumascapes’”

Gursheen Guron, Tufts University
“I remember, and I recall”: Mapping the Space of Memory in Zong! and Daughters of the Dust

PANEL SESSION 9.

12:30 – 2:00 pm

9a. Policy as Possibility

Festival Conference Room 2
Modality: Virtual/Hybrid
Moderator: Demetria Henderson, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Courtney R. C. Swartzentruber, James Madison University

Stephen Magu, Norfolk State University
“The Most Vital Propositions of All – To Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women”

Anwar Ouassini, Delaware State University, and Mostafa Amini, Harvard University
“The AU’s Sixth Region: Expanding Engagement, Perspectives, and Capabilities for an African Liberal Order”

Martin P. Felix, Fashion Institute of Technology, NYC
“Grenada: Seachange”

Orlandrew E. Danzell and Edna Reid, James Madison University
“Cybersecurity Resilience in Developing Countries:
Assessing State-Level Cybersecurity Responses to Rogue Actors and Extremist Groups”

9b. Hard Histories

Festival Conference Room 3
Modality: Virtual/Hybrid
Moderator: Konstantina Kliagkona, University of Portsmouth, UK
Zoom Coordinator: Steven Reich, James Madison University

Elizabeth Gritter, Indiana University Southeast
“A Matter of Black and White: The John Gaston Hospital Controversy in Memphis, Tennessee”

Willie Hurst, Emory University
“Esteban: Between a Rock and a Hard History”

Anna Henderson, Northern Illinois University
“’Lively and Resolute at Anything He Undertakes’:
Mobility, Agency and Self-Liberation among Elderly Enslaved People in Antebellum North Carolina”

Matt Plishka, Vanderbilt University
“Threats to the Smallholder: Banana Blight, Ecological Crisis, and Racialized Paternalism in Late-Colonial Jamaica”

9c. Reading Cultural Flows through Literature

Festival Conference Room 5
Modality: In person/Hybrid
Moderator: Megan N. Medeiros, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Delores Phillips,  James Madison University

Akua Bobson, University of Ghana
“Reading Trauma Resulting from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Selected Works”

Alvaro Ramón García Benavides, Universidad Nacional de Colombia
“Through the Meanders of the River: A Reading of Cultural Borders”

Hayley Wilson, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
“Uprooting Eden: Myth, Culture, and Nature in Autobiography of My Mother

PANEL SESSION 10.

2:30 – 4:00 pm

10a. From Unified Roots Diverse Visions Grow: North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University’s Visual Arts Faculty

Festival Conference Room 2
Modality: In person/Hybrid
Moderator: Amy Schwartzott, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
Zoom Coordinator: Tiffany Brutus, James Madison University

Leah Junquera, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
“Incorporating Foraging Practices into the Visual Arts”

Lindsey Youmans, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
“Mental Health Concerns and Advocacy at HBCUs”

Marvette Aldrich, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
“My Philosophy of Teaching”

Amy Schwartzott, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
“Grassroots Peace: How Artists in Mozambique Transform Weapons into Peacekeeping”

10b. Literary and Cultural Antecedents

Festival Conference Room 5
Modality: Virtual/Hybrid
Moderator: Amanda Gerber, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Delores Phillips, James Madison University

Alexandra Omogbadegun, Howard University
“Black Female Corporeal Cartography in Octavia Butler’s Kindred (1979), Pauline Hopkins’s Of One Blood (1902), and Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)”

Amanda Walker Johnson, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
“Genealogies of Francophone Black Women’s Anthropology in and of the Caribbean” 

Austin Anderson, Howard University
“Of One Blood and the Upside-Down Black Skyscraper”

10c. Grafting Personal and Social Histories

Festival Conference Room 3
Modality: In person/Hybrid
Moderator: Megan N. Medeiros, James Madison University
Zoom Coordinator: Liana Bayne-Lin, James Madison University

Ivy Moraa, James Madison University
“Queering Ukenya and the Film Rafiki“

Erica Cavanagh, James Madison University
“‘We Shall Overcome’: the Legacy of a Black Catholic Church in Late Twentieth Century, Rochester, NY”

Joëlle Simeu Juegouo, Cornell University
“’Alive Inside’:
A Meditation on Roots and Tending to One’s Humanity through Mama’s Plant in A Raisin in the Sun”