When we think about something like Black radicalism—and its historical unfolding and in its varieties—even as women sustain, nurture, envision, and engender those movements, they fall out of the official writing of it, or they’re never the representative figure. And even in other kinds of aesthetic conceptions. When we think about how the jazz ensemble functions as an emblem for Black sociality—and you and I have had this discussion or argument. How can something which is this space of overwhelming male virtuosity stand as the figure for Black social life? — Saidiya Hartman*
As part of this summer’s online PillowTalk series at Jacob’s Pillow Festival 2021, join Okwui Okpokwasili and Hartman for a “discussion about the afterlife of slavery in modern American society and other timely topics.”**
OKWUI OKPOKWASILI and SAIDIYA HARTMAN IN CONVERSATION**
Jacob’s Pillow
Friday, July 9.
1 pm on the West Coast, 4 pm East Coast.
*From “The Art of Refusal: Saidiya Hartman and Arthur Jafa in Conversation,” PARIS LA 17 (2021–2022).
From top: Okwui Okpokwasili; Saidiya Hartman. Images courtesy and © John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.