2023-2024 Concept Learning
Imagination! Who can sing thy force?
Or who describe the swiftness of thy course?
–Phillis Wheatley
We have to imagine a black world so as to surpass
the everywhere and every way of black death.
–Kevin Everod Quashie
Over the course of centuries and continents, the capacity for Black imagination to shelter, sustain, build, and evolve its various communities and subjects has been tremendous. It has altered definitions and practices of living, surviving, and dying; aided in accessing optimism and realism over pessimism and nihilism. Black Radical Imagination has been an infinite source of power when political structures and religious faiths have been compromised; when citizenship has been destabilized; and where land, labor, and resource extraction has occurred. Black Radical Imagination has been a source of resistance and refuge for Global Black communities. Additionally, imagination has been foundational to the interdisciplinary practice of Black Studies, as well as necessary to its methodological intervention into traditional disciplines. Throughout the year, students and faculty will explore the role imagination plays in Black knowledge production, research, and experimentation, as well as its importance to Black political movements, Black entrepreneurship, and Black technological innovations through courses, symposium, and social events.