Organizers

  • Photo of a light skin black woman with chin length dark brown curly hair, black and silver glasses, brown lipstick, and red shoulder length earrings.

    Ianna Hawkins Owen

    Ianna Hawkins Owen is an assistant professor of English and African American Studies at Boston University. Owen’s current book project, Ordinary Failure: Diaspora’s Limits & Longings, offers new theorizations of the keyword “diaspora” through examinations of disappointment, betrayal, exhaustion, and laziness in black literary and visual culture. Owen’s research agenda also concerns asexuality studies through the lenses of race and critical eating studies. Currently a Senior Fellow at the independent Center for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies and a Marion and Jasper Whiting fellow, Owen has been a University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow, a Ford Foundation fellow, a Woodrow Wilson fellow, and an intern at the Audre Lorde Project. Owen’s writing has appeared in Feminist Review, Social Text (forthcoming), Radical Teacher, Post45 Contemporaries, and Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives.

  • Kianna/Kia sits in front of a brown table, she is wearing a black turtleneck sweater and clear-rimmed glasses. Her skin is a deep brown and her black hair is styled in a short afro.

    Kianna M. Middleton

    Kianna M. Middleton is an Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, San Diego. Her current book project proposes a Black feminist disability studies methodology toward more humanizing and complex literary and medical achival representations of Blackness, disability, and intersex in the United States from the 1940s to the present. Middleton was an Andrew W. Mellon postdoctoral fellow at University of Kansas at Lawrence from 2019-2020. Middleton was a 2020 recipient of the Friedman Feminist Press Collection research grant at Colorado State University and was a 2018 John Money Fellow for Scholars of Sexuality at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University, Bloomington. Her work appears in the College Language Association Journal, Praxis: Journal of Gender & Cultural Critiques, and Explorations in Diversity: Examining the Complexities of Privilege, Discrimination, and Oppression.

  • A photo of Tala’s profile. Her expression is serious and she is looking at the ocean. Behind her face, which is in focus, there is a rocky shore, blue-green water, and white waves as well as grey clouds and mountains in the far distance.

    Tala Khanmalek

    Tala Khanmalek (she/they) is an educator and writer based in the area of Tovaangar known as Los Angeles, CA. She is an assistant professor of Women and Gender Studies at California State University, Fullerton. Khanmalek’s first book project engages public health archives with feminist of color epistemologies, literatures, and oral histories. Currently a (virtual) Visiting Scholar at Duke University’s John Hope Franklin Institute, Khanmalek has been a Postdoctoral Research Associate in American Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies at Princeton University. Khanmalek’s writing has appeared in Frontiers, Latino Studies, and the Ethnic Studies Review, and is forthcoming in Feminist Studies and the Journal of Leadership, Equity, and Research. She serves on the American Studies Association’s Critical Ethnic Studies Committee. Please visit her faculty page for more information: http://hss.fullerton.edu/womens/faculty/faculty/t_khanmalek.aspx

Special thanks for the time, energy, & labor of:

  • Photograph of Deirdre James, white woman with short blonde hair wearing a black cardigan and an ornate metal necklace. She is sitting before a pale yellow wall and a leafy green indoor tree.

    Deirdre James

    Deirdre James (she/her) joined Boston University in 2002 and has been the Program Administrator for the African American Studies Program since 2011. Ms. James completed a MS in Arts Administration with a focus on non-profit management in the arts in 2015. Ms. James manages all operational functions of the Program including financial management and reporting, office management, graduate recruitment and advising, faculty actions, curriculum planning, alumni outreach, event planning, and training and supervising student office workers. She also serves as the main contact for the program and is the liaison between the program and university departments and external outlets.

  • A photo of Sydney, a medium brown-skinned person leaning against a metal railing, overlooking a river (Charles River). Sydney is wearing a white button-up shirt, with a blue floral tie. Sydney has short afro-styled hair with a fade.

    Sydney Adams

    Sydney Adams (any pronouns) is a current English Master's student at Brandeis University. Sydney is interested in research pertaining to the black diaspora and its resonances across time.

  • Photo of Mya Ison. She is a 22 year old Black woman with curly hair. In this photo, she is wearing a red tank top with a blue background.

    Mya Ison

    Mya Ison is a BFA Theatre Arts major and African-American studies minor at Boston University. Mya recently completed her senior thesis which was an original play called Laure that she also performed in. After completing a research fellowship at the Schomburg Center in summer of 2021, her development of the play was a synthesis of both her theatrical and research interests. Moving into her final semester at BU, she will perform as Lady M in Mac Beth and Viola De Lesseps in Shakespeare in Love. Mya is so excited to be a helping hand to the Gayl Jones Symposium! For more about Mya’s work visit www.myaison.com

  • Image of Jennifer Schorz. Administrative Support Coordinator II for Women and Gender Studies, Liberal Studies and Philosophy.

    Jennifer Schorz

    Jennifer Schorz joined California State University, Fullerton in 2006 and was Administrative Support Assistant to Women & Gender Studies, Liberal Studies and Philosophy starting in 2007 and became the Administrative Support Coordinator for Women & Gender Studies, Liberal Studies and Philosophy in 2012. Mrs. Schorz manages the daily operations of the office which includes financial management, budget reporting, scheduling, event planning and the daily work of the office staff. Jennifer Schorz is an alumnus of California State University, Fullerton obtaining her Bachelor of Arts in History in 2008. She has completed a Professional Development Certification Program and is the recipient of the Titan Excellence Award.

  • An illustrated self portrait of Melissa Donde. A digital drawing of a figure with blue skin wearing a pinkish-purple ski mask, purple eyebrows slanted inward toward the nose. A smoking yellow cigarette is stuck through the mask at mouth-level.

    Melissa Donde

    Melissa Donde is a visual artist based in Montevideo, Uruguay. Check out more of Donde’s work here.

  • A photo of Kathryn, a white woman with short brown hair, smiling at the camera. She is wearing a white fisherman sweater and square wireframe glasses.

    Kathryn Lakin

    Kathryn Lakin is an English major at Boston University. Kathryn is a member of the student staff at the Boston University Center for the Humanities, where she works to engage students with the humanities and promote dialogue across disciplines.

  • White smiling male with short brown hair in a pompadour style and wearing a white shirt standing in front of a brick wall with ivy growing up the left hand side.

    Kelan O'Brien

    Kelan O'Brien (he/him) is a passionate organizer based in Western MA. Outside of his professional job as a fundraiser, he gives his time to community organizations focused on racial equity and justice, police abolition, and broad liberation.