This year marks the 6th annual Roundtable for Black Feminist and Womanist Theory.  The Roundtable is a venue for scholars, activists, and artists across disciplines and professional trajectories to share work highlighting intellectual contributions of Black women, femmes, and non-men throughout the African diaspora. The aim of the conference is to create a working space for participants of various backgrounds to receive feedback on their projects that will enrich Black feminist and womanist traditions. There is no required theme for those who would like to present under the Roundtable for Black Feminist and Womanist Theory program; however, all projects must focus on/utilize at least one aspect of Black feminist theory or womanist thought.

The keynote speakers for this year are  Jasmine K. Syedullah (Vassar College) and Olivia N. Perlow (Northeastern Illinois University). See more information about their talks below.

REGISTER

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Jasmine Syedullah

Vassar College, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies

Thurs., Nov. 6, 4:30-6pm

Project Title:

"Truants Congregate in Loopholes: Methods for Surviving the Carceral Futures of Ms. Harriet Jacobs's Freedom"

Abstract:

Hiding in plain sight, Harriet Jacobs' 1861 narrative retreats from the carceral traps of modern freedom in literal and figurative ways. Both in her narrative and life, Jacobs opted to stay fugitive even once free, actively integrating the ability to appear and disappear, a truant praxis of political survival, into the public record of slavery's politic of recognition. Drawing on Black feminist and prison scholarship, Syedullah considers with Jacobs how to steal away from the unending loops of racial and gendered violence to congregate in the loopholes of the law, and what it means to get free in the dark.

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Olivia Perlow

Northeastern Illinois University, Professor of  Sociology, African & African American Studies, Latino/a/x and Latin American Studies, and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies

Sat. Nov. 8, 3:30-5 pm

 Project Title:

"Too Much Theory, Too Little Praxis: Unshackling Black Feminism from the Academy"

Abstract:

This talk examines how Black Feminism—once a praxis of resistance against racism, sexism, capitalism, and imperialism, rooted in radical movements for collective liberation—has increasingly been co-opted, deradicalized, and weaponized within academic institutions. Neoliberal logics have transformed Black Feminism into commodified intellectual capital, flattening it into theory divorced from insurgent praxis, stripping it of community and activism, and replacing it with performative gestures of inclusion that ultimately reinforce the very hierarchies they purport to dismantle. Yet, amid this containment, enduring sites of resistance persist. Through acts of refusal and radical re-imagination, scholars, activists, and communities continue to reclaim Black Feminism’s revolutionary spirit and reassert its commitment to collective liberation and transformative praxis.