New Speaker Series Examines Global Blackness and Current Events
The first event of "Beyond Borders" will focus on Black women's reproductive rights around the world.Monday, December 5, 2022 09:22 PM
A new 2022-2023 speaker series, Beyond Borders: Global Blackness and Current Events, begins this week at Muhlenberg.
Sponsored by the Africana Studies and Latin American and Caribbean Studies Programs, the series will focus on expanding conversations around Blackness beyond the United States. The events will celebrate Black cultures around the globe and examine current events affecting Black populations around the world.
The recent Roe v. Wade crisis in the United States has sparked discussions about the role of race in conversations around women’s reproductive rights. The first event in this series, "Black Women's Reproductive Rights Around the World," will feature a panel of faculty members from Muhlenberg and the University of Texas at Austin. The panel will be followed by an open discussion with the audience.
This virtual event will take place 5:30 – 7 p.m., Wednesday, December 7. It is free and open to the public. Registration is required, using this link, by 2 p.m. on December 7.
Panelists
- Nessette Falu, assistant professor of African and African diaspora studies, University of Texas at Austin
Falu has a forthcoming book entitled, Unseen Flesh: Black Lesbian Worth Making and Gynecological Trauma in Bahia (2023, Duke University Press). Her Black Queer Reproductive Justice Lab under development bridges research, multi-media resources and community engagement. She was a physician assistant for 17 years in neurosurgery, internal medicine, HIV-specialty, and hematology-oncology. Dr. Falu earned her Ph.D. in socio-cultural anthropology from Rice University. - Jacqueline Antonovich, assistant professor of history, Muhlenberg College
Antonovich teaches the history of medicine, race, gender and politics in the United States. Her most recent publication, “White Coats, White Hoods: The Medical Politics of the Ku Klux Klan in 1920s America,” was published in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine in 2021. She is currently working on a book with Rutgers University Press on the history of women physicians and reproductive surveillance in the turn-of-the-century American West. Antonovich earned her Ph.D. in history from the University of Michigan. - Sarah Runcie, assistant professor of history, Muhlenberg College
Runcie teaches a broad range of classes on African history, including courses on pre-colonial Africa, African liberation movements, and the history of medicine on the continent. Her current research focuses on decolonization and public health in Cameroon, with particular focus on how Cameroonian doctors negotiated enduring colonial legacies of medicine and international health programs while building a national health administration in the first decades of political independence. She earned her Ph.D. in African history from Columbia University. - Elena FitzPatrick Sifford, associate professor of art history and the director of the Latin American & Caribbean Studies Program, Muhlenberg College
FitzPatrick Sifford's research examines issues of race, representation and cross-cultural exchange in the art of Colonial Latin America. She earned her Ph.D. in art history from The City University of New York. - Emanuela Kucik, assistant professor of English literatures & writing and Africana Studies and the director of the Africana studies program, Muhlenberg College
Kucik's research and courses explore the intersections of literature, genocide, race and human rights violations. Her forthcoming book, The Black Blood of Genocide, focuses on how Black populations have used the concept of genocide to write about anti-Black violence. Black Blood will be released as part of a new publishing partnership between Columbia University Press and Howard University. Kucik received her Ph.D. in English from Princeton University.
