Imagining Black Girl Futures: A Discussion of Light and Legacies: Stories of Black Girlhood and Liberation- 7/24/2023

Conversation Overview

Putting Black girlhood scholars and community practitioners Janaka Bowman Lewis, Joy Davis, and Michelle Meggs in conversation with writer and instructor Lacoya Katoe-Gessesse, this conversation uses Lewis's new text, Light and Legacies, to discuss what an imagination of Black girlhood differently offers to contemporary audiences. Drawing from examples of Harriet Jacobs, Assata Shakur, Gwendolyn Brooks' Maud Martha, Angie Thomas's Starr Carter in The Hate U Give and even Shuri of Black Panther, we ask how Black girlhood shifted for the author/narrators and what it opened up for their support and ultimately, their genius.

You can order your copy of Light and Legacies the University of South Carolina Press here: https://uscpress.com/Light-and-Legacies.

Janaka Bowman Lewis, Ph.D. is Interim Chair of the Department of Writing, Rhetoric & Digital Studies (WRDS) and Associate Professor of English at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte.  She is the author of several book chapters and articles on 19th Century African American women's writing and material culture, two children's books (Brown All Over and Bold Nia Marie Passes the Test) and edited a third, Dr. King is Tired, Too!! and two based on her research on Black women and girls, Freedom Narratives of African American Women (McFarland 2017) and Light and Legacies:  Stories of Black Girlhood and Liberation.  Her current scholarship is on representations of black girlhood in American literature and film.

As a scholar, Black Feminist-Womanist, and academic, J. Joy Davis, MBA has worked as an adjunct professor in the Department of Communication Studies since 2017. She is a Ph.D. Candidate in Curriculum and Instruction (Urban Education) at UNC Charlotte, and a Holmes Scholar with a multidisciplinary intersection including woman’s studies, education, and business.  Her research interests include the pedagogy of High Achieving Black/AA women, specifically female collegians, Black Girlhood, and Soul Labor as Course Work: self-care and women of color in the academy. Joy’s two most recent research contributions were published in Films as Rhetorical Texts: Cultivating discussion about race, racism, and race relations” by Lexington Books and an upcoming anthology, Mamas, Martyrs and Jezebels published by Black Lawrence Press. Her column, “Hello Queen” is published quarterly and featured in CEOMOM Magazine where she has published covers featuring actresses such as Kim Fields. Prior to entering academia, Joy had spent just shy of two decades working with multi-location entrepreneurs, investors, luxury retailers, and Fortune 500 companies on the Business Development, Corporate Sales, and Relationship Management sides of the table. Yet, her greatest joy is being a mother to her teenage son, Nolan.

Dr. Michelle Meggs (she/her) serves as the Executive Director of the Women + Girls Research Alliance at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Dr. Meggs’ publications, work, and research centers around expanding the authentic voices of women and girls in academic research and she uses scholarship to embolden the work of local leaders so their efforts can have a long-lasting impact. She is the co-author of “Da Rona and a Virtual Kitchen Table Politics of Community” in Black Women and Da Rona: Community, Consciousness, and Ethics of Care (University of Arizona Press, April 2023).

LaCoya Katoe Gessesse, MFA is a devoted member of the AULA community. She received her BA in English from Lake Forest College where she focused her studies on African American women writers. Since completing her MFA in Creative Writing, she has held a variety of instruction and support roles at AULA, as well as worked as a non-profit program coordinator, teaching artist, and curriculum developer.

Currently, she serves as Faculty for the Undergraduate Studies Department, an Academic Writing Mentor and Specialist, the Independent Studies Coordinator and Director of the AULA Teaching and Learning Center. Her teaching covers a range of writing, business, and education classes, covering topics such as composition, language, research, literature, and creative writing, as well as workplace communications. LaCoya most enjoys helping AULA students from diverse backgrounds learn to navigate the higher education system.