“There’s a Disco Ball Between Us: A Theory of Black Gay Life”

with Jafari S. Allen, University of Miami

and discussants Sarah Haley, Columbia University & Mignon Moore, Barnard College.

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“In There’s a Disco Ball Between Us, Jafari S. Allen offers a sweeping and lively ethnographic and intellectual history of what he calls “Black gay habits of mind.” In conversational and lyrical language, Allen locates this sensibility as it emerged from radical Black lesbian activism and writing during the long 1980s. He traverses multiple temporalities and locations, drawing on research and fieldwork conducted across the globe, from Nairobi, London, and Paris to Toronto, Miami, and Trinidad and Tobago. In these locations and archives, Allen traces the genealogies of Black gay politics and cultures in the visual art, poetry, film, Black feminist theory, historiography, and activism of thinkers and artists such as Audre Lorde, Marsha P. Johnson, Essex Hemphill, Colin Robinson, Marlon Riggs, Pat Parker, and Joseph Beam. Throughout, Allen re-narrates Black queer history while cultivating a Black gay method of thinking and writing. In so doing, he speaks to the urgent contemporary struggles for social justice while calling on Black studies to pursue scholarship, art, and policy derived from the lived experience and fantasies of Black people throughout the world.” – Duke University Press

Presented in co-sponsorship with the Institute for the Study of Sexuality & Gender at Columbia University (ISSG )

REGISTRATION:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/iraas-conversations-w-jafari-allen-theres-a-disco-ball-between-us-tickets-412222397287

Event Admission Policy

General Public: Virtual /Online attendance via Live Stream

In Person: Columbia University, Barnard College & Affiliates only ;

Masks required ROOM 754 Schermerhorn Extension -ISSG Seminar Room

Room Capacity Limited. Ticket does not Guarantee admission – Room will close at capacity