Dr. Brooks is the Audrey and John Leslie Endowed Chair in Literary Studies in the Department of English at Michigan State University and specializes in the study of Black women, genre fiction, and popular culture.  She will discuss how Beyoncé embodies the conjure woman in her iconic audiovisual work Lemonade as a contemporary revision of Zora Neale Hurston’s groundbreaking study of conjure and its place in Black women’s spirit work.