Reflections from Afro-Diasporic Feminisms Part IV: Black Female Self-Representation in Contemporary Brazilian Literature

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

With several panels engaging in a Pan-American look at “Nuestra América/Our America” from the perspective of Black women, we ask what is Pan-Americanism without the contributions of Black women to Latin America(n Studies)? Looking from 1600s towards 2041, 150 years after José Martí’s essay portrayed a black Latin American as "unknown and alone, singing in the dark of night, on top of a hill"… and yet another century of Black women triply-marginalized, yet ferociously alive, thriving, and beautiful, we expand Pan Americanism with a focus on Black women's perspectives of justice and inclusion.
Massachussetts, where Black women such as Maria Stewart and Latinxs from labor unions advocated for emancipation and people of colors’ rights; where Maryse Condé's fictional character Tituba lived before her return to Barbados as a maroon rebel…is an apt location to discuss justice and inclusion in Latin America(n Studies) and activism, long after slavery was “abolished” without Black women’s emancipation being established. Let us bring to the forefront the guerreras that have laid the base for collective and individual rights, from slaveships, to Haiti, to Santiago de Cuba, to Minas Gerais, to Cali, to Massachussets...
This multilingual panel and discussion focuses on creative writing and literary criticism by Black Brazilian women. The creative contributions explored here offer challenges to racism, sexism, capitalism in literature, and exclusions from the literary cannon.

Sub Track

• Afro-Latin/Indigenous Peoples

Session Organizer

• Sarah Soanirina Ohmer, Lehman College, City University of New York (CUNY)

Chair

• Sarah Soanirina Ohmer, Lehman College, City University of New York (CUNY)

Discussant

• Rhonda Collier, Tuskegee University

Individual Presentations

• Putting the Kink in Poetic: Black Female Self-Representation and Inclusive Poetry in Cristiane Sobral - Juliana C Costa

• Motherhood in Black Female Brazilian poets: challenging dominant discourses of black womanhood and engendering resistance - Luana Moreira Reis, University of Pittsburgh

• Flowers Blooming Through Cement: Black Women Making Ferocious Poetics - Franciane Conceição Silva, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais (PUC-Minas)