Black Studies Summer Seminar - A Talk w/Katherine McKittrick

This presentation will attend to black methodologies, paying specific attention to the practice of textual accumulation (the gathering and gluing together of various creative, sonic, and intellectual items and narratives). The conversation is especially interested in thinking about how the aesthetics of black miscellanea, and the engagement with overlapping and conflicting texts that are affixed, uncovers moments or slivers of clarity that complicate typical conceptualizations of opacity. The moments of clarity unravel as lessons, cautionary tales, and secrets, with the aesthetics of black miscellanea signaling an experiment in, and the potential politics of, dynamic collaboration. The creative work of Frank Ocean (“Dear April”) and Krista Franklin (Under the Knife) will inform the presentation.