Founder/director, Joycelyn Moody, meets with the Fellows

Thursday, June 4, Joycelyn Moody, the founder/director of the Institute, stopped by to talk with the Fellows. Mostly, we conversed about her routes to developing the program. The Fellows also asked questions about Moody's various interests and research projects, and her collaborations with graduate students.

Throughout the session, Moody also posed questions to the students, asking them to share their thoughts on a wide range of topics. It was a lively, lovely time.  



Related:
• AALCI 2015
 
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Week #1 Readings

For the first week of the program, we covered a range of readings:

• From The Slave Ship: A Human History by Marcus Rediker

• A Notebook on slavery/liberation, which included runaway slave ads, writings by and about enslaved people

• Poetry Packet #1: Works by Opal Palmer Adisa, Lucille Clifton, Robert Hayden, Vievee Francis, Dudley Randall, Ishmael Reed, and Phillis Wheatley

• “Message to the Grassroots” by Malcolm X

• Poetry Packet #2: Works by Langston Hughes, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Hayden, Helene Johnson,  Claude McKay, and Margaret Walker

• The Black Book 

• "Behind the Making of The Black Book" by Toni Morrison

• "How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You: The BeyHive" By Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah

Related:
• AALCI 2015
 
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Notebooks and sharing

A couple of the notebooks that I gave to the Fellows

On the first day of class this summer, I gave the AALCI Fellows notebooks as well as parameters on how we might respond. Mostly, we are dedicating 3-sentence responses to our main readings. So far so good.

I have a couple of the Fellows read from their notebooks at the beginning of discussions, during the middle, and then for our closing thoughts. Limiting folks to 3 sentences helps with creativity. Having a limit allows folks to push themselves to fit the key points into that small space. 

I give folks the latitude to write in whatever form or mode that they think is appropriate. Some choose conventional prose. At least one has presented raps. Another uses phrasings that might appear in poems. Someone else provided a list. Another student responded to a poem with a short letter to the poet.
   

I rarely assign journals in classes that I teach, mostly because the enrollment sizes prevent me from giving adequate attention to all the journals. Also, students are reluctant to share journal entries, and I've learned that they often do not review their own writings.

This ongoing notebook activity for the summer allows me to move in new territory. I avoided referring to the small books as "journals" and "diaries," because I thought that might influence the students in undesirable ways. For now, I want them to be public writers, not just private writers.

I'm hoping that they view the notebooks as sketch books and as conversation starters. Later in June, we'll visit an exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum featuring excerpts from the notebooks of Jean-Michel Basquiat. So we'll have a chance to write in our notebooks about an artist's notebooks.   

Related:
• AALCI 2015
 
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Responding to Phillis Wheatley and Hayden's "Frederick Douglass"

 

Among the many poems we read during the first week were Phillis Wheatley's "On Being Brought from Africa to America" and Robert Hayden's "Frederick Douglass." I asked the students to write short responses to the poems in any form or mode of writing that they liked.

What follows are a couple of responses:

Hey Phillis,

This is an interesting poem you've written here--I can see you are talented with the pen! Although, I cannot help but to read your words as anything other than satire. Thank you for demonstrating that African American women are educated, creative, and thoughtful at a time this was thought to be untrue.
Respectfully,
Asia M.

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Reading Robert Hayden's poem "Frederick Douglass" is reassurance that Douglass's relentless efforts as an abolitionist were not in vain. In a broader perspective, it demonstrates the transcendence of appreciation for what Douglass symbolizes, which is an unwavering determination to obtain freedom and enhance the value of black lives. Douglass and others like him who were strong in their fight deserve to be respected as legends and way makers for the brave decisions they made that proved to be impactful well beyond the time periods in which they lived. --Bianca Y.

Related:
• AALCI 2015
 
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Reading slavery/liberation

We began the week by reading about slavery and liberation. We started with readings about slave ships. In particular, we checked out an excerpt from Marcus Rediker's The Slave Ship: A Human History.

A good discussion as always. We talked about about the importance of thinking about slavery and struggles for liberation, about resistance and oppression.

A couple of student comments concerning The Slave Ship readings:

The slave trade highlights the most embarrassing time period in the history of our world, where power and corruption took a front seat over human rights and basic human decency. While the masses were able to sleep well at night by closing their eyes to the atrocities of the slave trade, the profiteers rose to the highest positions in government in order to have the power to encourage the longevity of the practice. The brutal slave ship mentality that treated millions of human beings as if they were property, bought and sold, leaves us wondering if it was worth the suffering in any way, as we try to figure out how our [European] ancestors were any different from the sharks that circled the slave ships in hopes of an easy meal. --Jay H.

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"Another White man…tried to grope her”(The Slave Ship, 3).

At the intersection of race and gender in the context of slavery, the Black woman’s body is doubly possessed—first, in bondage; second, as a sexual object. Though slavery no longer exists in the incarnation that it did in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries during the transatlantic slave trade, Black women’s bodies are still up for grabs (literally) and always made a point of discussion. They are always up for comment. They are continually hypersexualized. And because of a Black woman’s features, people (outsiders) always assume they have access to her body—be it her hair, her skin, her curves. --Ayesha M.

Related:
• AALCI 2015

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Joycelyn Moody and the 2015 AALCI Fellows

On May 31st, we welcomed the 2015 class of AALCI Fellows. We have a vibrant, diverse group of rising scholars. 

Bianca Young (Jackson State University)
Fullamusu Bangura (Rutgers University - New Brunswick) 
Jay Hotrum (UC Riverside)
Jocelyn Moody, AALCI, founder & director  
Asia Mott (UC Berkley) 
Tiasha Jefferson (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville)
Ayesha Malik (University of Texas at San Antonio)

Related:
• AALCI 2015
 
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AALCI 2015

Here we are again. Our activities for this year's 6th cohort of the African American Literatures and Cultures Institute began on Sunday, May 31st, with our opening reception. We'll conclude with a closing reception on June 25. As always, I'll post entries documenting our activities and musings over the next few weeks.

Entries:
• How many questions does Bridget Drinka ask per minute? 
• Black women, posing, and selfies 
• AALCI in New York City 2015 
• Tiasha Jefferson's Poster Presentation
• Ayesha Malik's Poster Presentation
• Asia Mott’s Poster Presentation
• Fullamusu Bangura’s Poster Presentation
• Bianca Young’s Poster Presentation
• Jay Hotrum’s Poster Presentation
• Poster Presentation
• Being M.L.K.G
• A Serious Supporter: Wanda Guntz 
• Design Notes: Ayesha Malik 
• Design notes: Tiasha Jefferson
• Design notes: Asia Mott
• Design notes: Fullamusu Bangura 
• Design notes: Bianca Young
• Design notes: Jay Hotrum
• The Interlocutor, the Ghost Hunter: Joycelyn Moody   
• Scholars at Work: AALCI Fellows Visit Special Collections
• The Connector: Tara Schmidt
• Fellows Visit John Peace Library 
• Founder/director, Joycelyn Moody, meets with the Fellows
• Week #1 Readings 
• Notebooks and sharing 
• Responding to Phillis Wheatley and Hayden's "Frederick Douglass" 
• Reading slavery/liberation
• Joycelyn Moody and the 2015 AALCI Fellows

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