As we move into Women’s Herstory Month 2021 we are recognizing the need to assert rest as a site for liberation within our voices, bodies, and stories. The theme for NC State’s Black History Month 2021 has asked us to stop and consider rest as a place for liberation; necessary for pleasure, joy, and resistance. The NC State Women’s Center extends this theme into March as a month to explore our past, present, and future as we begin to think about ourselves as sites for a revolution at the intersection of our internal interrogation of self and identity.
Our keynote titled, An Emergent Conversation: Rest, Revolution and Liberation features Dr. Yaba Blay, Scholar-Activist, Public Speaker, Cultural Consultant, and creator of #professionalblackgirl, Natalie Bullock-Brown in NC State Interdisciplinary Studies, and student scholars Kali Fillhart and Joanay Tann. Our intention is to weave together discussions on the work of liberation and acting as sites for revolution as we learn to foreground our own joy and take action.
In addition to participation in what is set to be a deep and thoughtful dialogue, participants will have the opportunity to obtain a copy of Dr. Yaba Blay’s new book, One Drop. This book explores the extent to which historical definitions of race continue to shape contemporary racial identities and lived experiences of racial difference. Featuring the perspectives of 60 contributors representing 25 countries and combining candid narratives with striking portraiture, this book provides living testimony to the diversity of Blackness. Staff will randomly select 25 names of those that register for the Keynote and attend in its entirety. Recipients will need to be able to pick the book from the Women’s Center when notified.