Podcast

“From Spectacle to Politics”       

Broadly speaking, my artistic/academic work contributes a cultural studies methodology to existing conversations by asking how embodied practices— performance, dance, singing, physical gestures, and timed rhythmic structures— communicate, and in turn, generate: political knowledge. Specifically, my grandmother's art first inspired me to pursue a Ph.D. because it revealed how political knowledge could be communicated beyond language. Over time, I came to understand that for many Black women born in the mid-twentieth century, producing public knowledge through embodied practices was often both an artistic choice and a historical necessity. This realization led me to ask: where are the political and intellectual contributions of marginalized communities when they have historically been excluded from government institutions, legal systems, academic institutions, and other traditional sites of recognized political thought? 

I found one answer to this question in the performance space and, increasingly, in the digital archives through which these performances now circulate. It is here that I became interested in developing a vocabulary rooted in digital ethics that enables scholars to interpret these embodied practices as sites of political knowledge. Through the resources and interdisciplinary collaborations of this work, I hope to further develop this vocabulary so that it contributes to Black feminist performance scholarship .

In 2018, My Colorful Nana launched as a podcast, fostering a community of "Generous Thinkers" celebrating self-expression. Over the past 7 years, My Colorful Nana has remained central to my intellectual and creative trajectory. It is a 28-episode podcast series, sparked by my undergraduate experience at New York University and deepened through international travel to Senegal as a Fulbright ETA and my graduate research at Columbia University in African and African American Studies, identity politics, and performance studies. With over 7,500 downloads, the digital humanities project serves as a platform for my budding public-facing scholarship, teaching experiences, and other creative endeavors.