Black Feminist Killjoy Reading Group – see you in 2018
Dear Black Feminist Killjoy Reading Group,
Thanks to all of you for reading, sharing your thoughts, laughing and dancing with us over this year. Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.
Our first reading for next year will be Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel Nervous Conditions.
Also, there’s a new series of interviews with African Feminists (including Pumla Dineo Gqola, Amina Mama and Yewande Omotso) on the Youtube channel of the African Feminist Forum.
Wishing you all the best with exams and the end of year holidays. See you in 2018.
Posted on October 26, 2017
Black Feminist Killjoy Reading 02/10
In our next meeting we will engage in creative writing, movement and performative exercises, as a way to practice creative theorisation.
Posted on October 2, 2017
Black Feminist Killjoy Reading 19/09
Our next BFK meeting will be on Tuesday 19th September at 16.30h where we will have the presence of the wonderful South Africa poet and scholar Gabeba Baderoon (thanks to Dr Lynda Spencer and her UCAPI project for making this possible). Here a text of Gabeba’s on the issue of domesticity and race in the home space and here an interview with poet and writer Matthew Shenoda and here and here some poems.
Posted on September 11, 2017
Black Feminist Killjoy Reading 15/08
Our meeting this week is dedicated to what inspires Black Feminist Killjoys, and you are invited bring along material that inspires you to discuss it with the group.
Posted on August 11, 2017
Black Feminist Killjoy Reading 01/08
In this first meeting after the break we’ll read the novel by Senegale author Mariama Bâ, So Long A Letter (original title “Une si longue lettre”, download it here) which won the first Noma Award for Publishing in Africa.
Posted on July 26, 2017
Black Feminist Killjoy Reading July holidays
Our last reading group for this term was dedicated to re-membering and playing children games, sharing different ways how to play elastics, jump-roe, hand-clapping, counting-out-rhymes, musical chairs and other games, culminating in an exciting 30-seconds match. It was amazing to see how much is shared across languages, regions and generations when re-membering games and rhymes collecively.
We’ll meet again in July to read the first novel by Senegale author Mariama Bâ, So Long A Letter (original title “Une si longue lettre”, download it here) which won the first Noma Award for Publishing in Africa. By the way, the whole of the African Writer Series can be accessed here using your university library user details.
Posted on June 1, 2017
Black Feminist Killjoy Reading 16/05
Please present text/image/video examples of feminist killjoys (from art, popular culture or else) in our next meeting. To prepare our sharing of feminist kill-joy we’ll read the conclusion of Sara Ahmed’s book, entitled “Happiness, Ethics, Possibility” which reflects about the promiscuity of the word happiness: “After all, words can bring things into existence; words can do things, even if we don’t always know what it is they will do.” (p. 200)
Posted on May 9, 2017
Black Feminist Killjoy Reading 02/05
We’ll finish reading Ama Ata Aidoo’s novel Our Sister Killjoy (prepare to share what’s your favourite passage) and will read the chapter “Feminist Killjoys” from Sara Ahmed’s book The Promise of Happiness (2010).
Posted on April 23, 2017
Black Feminist Killjoy Reading 11/04
This week we’ll have an open session where you can bring in any material you want to share with the group – what inspires/influences/supports you (around 5-10 minutes). It can be anything!
Over the holidays, we’ll finish reading Our Sister Killjoy and have a final discussion in our next meeting.
Posted on March 26, 2017
Black Feminist Killjoys Reading 28/03
In our next reading group, we’ll discuss Ama Ata Aidoo’s first novel Our Sister Killjoy, which was published in 1977. More of her work is available in the online edition of the African Writers Series (using your library login). We’re also going to watch the documentary film by Yaba Badoe The Art of Ama Ata Aidoo.
Posted on March 16, 2017
Black Feminist Killjoys Reading 14/03
We will read Ama Ata Aidoo’s short story The Girl Who Can and Yvette Abrahams article Colonialism, dysfunction and disjuncture: Sarah Bartmann’s resistance (remix).
Posted on February 25, 2017
Black Feminist Killjoys Reading 28/02
First meeting on Tuesday, 28 February, 16.30h
We will read short stories by Nawal el Sadaawi: But He was No Mule, Nobody told Her, She Has No Place in Paradise, ‘Beautiful’.
Posted on February 15, 2017
Black Feminist Killjoys Reading 2016
Texts we read in 2016
Toni Morrison. The Bluest Eye.
bell hooks. The Poetics of Soul: Art for Everyone. (In: Art on My Mind, pp. 10-21).
bell hooks. Women Artists: The Creative Process. (In: Art on My Mind, pp. 125-132).
bell hooks. Being the Subject of Art. (In: Art on My Mind, pp. 133-137).
Audre Lorde. Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power. (In: Sister Outsider, pp. 53-95).
Gayatri Spivak. Can the Subaltern Speak? (In: Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (eds.) Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, pp. 28-37).
Deepa Mehta (2005) Water [film available at RU Library, DVD Collection Level 1 Loans Desk 791.4372 WAT].
Posted on February 14, 2017
If you are interested in exploring fictional and non-fictional cultural practices of women killjoys of colour from around the globe – in order to think through our own lives, this reading group is for you.We meet every second Tuesday in the School of Fine Art seminar room at Rhodes University. For readings email Dr S. Khan: s.khan@ru.ac.za
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