2023 ZORA! Festival Academic Conference

“What is the Spirit of Afrofuturism?”

Wednesday Session: Free and open to the public (In-person)

Friday Session: $25.00 (In-person) | $10.00 (Virtual)

WEDNESDAY SESSION

 A program of the Seminole State College of Florida Speakers Series

Free and open to the public (In-person)

Date & Time

January 25, 2023
from 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM

Location

Seminole State College of Florida
(Sanford/Lake Mary Campus Building C, 100 Weldon Boulevard, Sanford 32773)

Live Stream

Click here for live stream

Wednesday Speaker

Chesya Burke Profile

Dr. Chesya Burke

Assistant Professor of English and U.S. Literatures

Stetson University

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DR. CHESYA BURKE​

Chesya Burke is an Assistant Professor of English and U.S. Literatures at Stetson University. Her primary areas of study are in African American literature, race and gender studies, comics, and speculative fiction. She received her Master’s degree in African American Studies from Georgia State University and her Ph.D. at the University of Florida. Her dissertation, "#Hashtag, Black Girl Magic: Reimaging Black Women Fluid Artists Within the Spirituality of Womanism," situates Black Girl Magic within a theoretical continuum which examines Black women’s use of social activism to voice change and how this social activism influences social consciousness and popular culture. http://chesyaburke.weebly.com/

Presentation Title

Tell My Horse: Afrofuturism as Embodiment of Sankofa

Abstract

The Ghanaian word of Sankofa’s literal translation means that “it is not taboo to fetch what is at risk of being left behind.” Afrofuturism quite literally is the act of acknowledging the practice of Sankofa (“reaching back”) to the ancestors, while calling on histories, spirituality, and lived experiences to imagine new futures for Black people, despite the lack of representation in mainstream society. When looking at a literal act of Sankofa within Black American literary tradition, one needs only to look at Alice Walker’s act of “finding” and “bringing back” Zora Neale Hurston into modern Black consciousness. The dynamic woman known as much for her off-page antics as her on-page talent, Zora Neale Hurston is considered an important writer of her time, skilled in Southern interpretation of dialect and culture. A complicated figure, Hurston’s contribution to Afrofuturism cannot be dismissed. But as Afrofuturists, who center Black voices and lived experiences, how do we reconcile Hurston, who claimed that “slavery is the price she paid for civilization.” In this presentation, I will discuss the tenets of Afrofuturism, Sankofa and the importance of reaching back to never forget Black complex voices of the past.”

Open reception and book signing after presentation

FRIDAY SESSION

 Hosted by UCF – College of Arts and Humanities

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Date

January 27, 2023

Time

10:00 AM - 4:00 PM

Location

UCF Downtown, Dr. Phillips Academic Commons (West Wing, Rm. 106, 528 W Livingston St, Orlando, FL 32801)

Friday Speaker

Scott-French-square

Dr. Scot French

Associate Professor of History

University of Central Florida

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DR. SCOT FRENCH​

Scot French is an Associate Professor of History, Associate Director of the Center for Humanities and Digital Research, and Director of Public History at the University of Central Florida. He is author of The Rebellious Slave: Nat Turner in American Memory(Houghton Mifflin, 2004) and has published extensively on African American community history and sites of memory. Since 2018 he has curated three exhibits on Zora Neale Hurston’s ties to her “native village” of Eatonville, Florida, and published a peer-reviewed article, “Social Preservation and Moral Capitalism in the Historic Black Township of Eatonville, Florida: A Case Study of ‘Reverse Gentrification,’” in Change Over Time: An International Journal of Conservation and the Built Environment (2018). For the past two years he has taught a 1-credit course, AFA 3930: Afrofuturism & the Hurston Legacy, and curated the ZORA Festival! Academic Conference Afrofuturism Syllabus. He is chair of the ZORA! Festival’s Academics Committee and local organizer of its annual UCF-hosted conference.

Presentation Title

Moral Capitalism, Prosperity, and Visions of Community: Historic Eatonville and Black Liberation

Abstract

This talk will explore the spiritual links between the modern-day Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community, Inc. (P.E.C.) and the.Afrofuturist/Afrotopian vision of “moral capitalism” found in the Black town-building movement of the late 19th century. My research into Eatonville’s founding era (1875-1895) suggests the benefits of viewing P.E.C.’s preservationist ideology and economic revitalization plans within the context of the African American community’s “long memory.” Eatonville’s founding as a Black township in 1887 resulted from a deliberate, collaborative effort by Black community leaders and their progressive-minded White allies to mitigate/reverse the impact of racially exclusionary real estate development and to create a permanent social, political, and economic space for Black citizens who lived and worked in the area. Through their widely publicized, ideologically explicit, spiritually infused acts of place-making, Eatonville’s founders ensured that the benefits of regional economic development would not be reserved for wealthy White “gentrifiers” alone, and that the Black laboring classes – as citizens and property owners – would share in an Afrofuturist dream of freedom and prosperity through home ownership, commercial enterprise, and democratic self-governance.
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Friday Speaker

Rasheedah Phillips Profile

Rasheedah Phillips, Esq.

Director of Housing, PolicyLink

Founder, The AfroFuturist Affair

Co-founder, Black Quantum Futurism

Co-creator, Community Futures Lab

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Rasheedah Phillips, Esq.​

Rasheedah Phillips is a queer housing advocate, parent, writer, interdisciplinary artist, and cultural producer who uses web-based projects,zines, short film, archival practices, experimental non-fiction, speculative fiction, printmaking, performance, social practice, installation and creative research to explore the construct of time, temporalities, and community futurisms through a Black futurist cultural lens and experience. As the Director of Housing, Phillips leads PolicyLink’s national advocacy to support the growing tenants’ rights, housing, and land use movements in partnership with grassroots partners, movement leaders, industry, and government leaders. Previously serving as Managing Attorney of Housing Policy at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, Phillips has led various housing policy campaigns that resulted in significant legislative changes, including a right to counsel for tenants in Philadelphia, and the Renter’s Access Act, one of the strongest laws in the nation to address blanket ban eviction polices having a disparate impact on renters of color. Phillips' writing and artwork has appeared in The Funambulist Magazine, e-flux Architecture, Flash Art Magazine, Philadelphia Inquirer, Recess Arts, and more. Phillips is the founder of The AfroFuturist Affair, founding member of Metropolarity Queer Speculative Fiction Collective, co-founder of Black Quantum Futurism, co-creator of the award winning Community Futures Lab, and creator of the Time Zone Protocols, Black Women Temporal Portal, and Black Time Belt projects. Recognized as a national expert in housing policy, Phillips is a 2016 graduate of Shriver Center Racial Justice Institute, 2018 Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity, and 2021 PolicyLink Ambassador for Health Equity.

Presentation Title

“Time and Place Have Had Their Say:” The Time Binder’s Role in Black Space-Time Mattering

Abstract

In Zora Neale Hurston’s autobiography, she vividly maps out an experience she has with “the clutching hand of Time” as a thief at a young age: she was given “knowledge before its time” that left her with a known sense of fate and robbed her of childhood innocence. The visions from this involuntary act of divination would later come to pass with grim linearity, but seeds the conditions by which Hurston transforms into a Time Binder: she is able to pinpoint the hour where her wanderings – “not so much in geography, but in time” began, and, “then not so much in time as in spirit.” Hurston as griot had the powerful ability to wander through time and spirit as deftly as she could space, enabling her to bind time in an essential act of Black space-time mattering. This presentation will consider Hurston in her role as Time Binder and her work to matter Black Space-Time and spirit, making legible the ways in which Black communities subvert, re-envision, reclaim, redesign, and dismantle the material realities of the mechanical clock and historical timeline, activating Black communal space-timescapes that are alive, dynamic, and textured and where past and future dimensions of time and the no-time of the spirit can be held in superposition.
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FRIDAY SCHEDULE

Welcoming Remarks

  • N.Y. Nathiri, Executive Director, Preserve Eatonville Community, Inc.
  • Lyman Brodie, Executive Associate Dean, UCF College of Arts & Humanities
  • Bruce Janz, Co-Director, UCF Center for Humanities and Digital Research
  • Scot French, Chair, ZORA! Festival Academics Committee
  • Julian Chambliss, Curator, 2020-2024 ZORA! Festival Afrofuturism Cycle
10:00 - 10:30 AM

Keynote Address - Dr. Scot French

Dr. Scot French, Associate Professor of History, University of Central Florida

10:30-11:30 AM

Lunch

Lunch On Own - Local Options

11:45-1:00 AM

Conversation / Meet & Mingle

1:00-1:15 AM

Roundtable: Teaching Afrofuturism

  • Trent Tomengo, MFA, Seminole State  - Moderator
  • Clarissa West White, Ph.D., Bethune-Cookman University
  • Julian Chambliss, Ph.D., Michigan State University
  • Scot French, Ph.D., University of Central Florida
  • Rachel Braaten, Ph.D., Seminole State College
  • Joven “J.C.” Carandang, Seminole State College
  • Diana Reigelsperger, Ph.D., Seminole State College
  • Kathryn Steinhaus, Ph.D., Seminole State College
  • Stacy L. Tanner, Ph.D., Seminole State College
  • Neil Vaz, Ph.D., Seminole State College
1:15-2:30 PM

Keynote Address - Rasheedah Phillips, Esq.

Rasheedah Phillips, Esq., Director of Housing, PolicyLink; Founder, The AfroFuturist Affair; Co-founder, Black Quantum Futurism; Co-creator, Community Futures Lab

Presentation Title:
“Time and Place Have Had Their Say:” The Time Binder’s Role in Black Space-Time Mattering

2:45-4:00 PM

Closing Remarks / End of Conference

4:00 PM
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

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