Teaching to Transgress Speaker Series: Liberatory Pedagogies and Imaginaries

With Dr. Juliane Okot Bitek, in Black Studies with joint appointment in English & Gender Studies; & Dr. Vanessa Thompson, Black Studies

Dr. Okot Bitek is a poet and scholar. She teaches in Black Studies & Gender Studies & holds a joint appointment in English. She is the author of A is for Acholi (2022), a poetry collection, by Wolsak and Wynn. Her 100 Days, a collection of poetry on how to remember the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, won the 2017 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry & the INDIEFAB Book of the Year (Poetry) Award. It was also nominated for several writing prizes. She is an Assistant Professor in the Black Studies Program at Queen’s University, joint appointed in Gender Studies & English.
 
Dr. Thompson is an interdisciplinary social scientist cross appointed to Black Studies & Gender Studies at Queen’s University. Her scholarship & teaching explore the relation between state violence, racial capitalism, politics of (un-) breathing, black transnational resistances & abolitionist feminist worldmaking. Grounded in traditions of activist scholarship, anti-colonial theories & black feminist methodologies, she engages with black social movements in & beyond Europe, transnational connections, and relations as well as the many forms of alternatives developed & rehearsed by activist collectives and movements. She is Assistant Professor and Distinguished Professor in Black Studies & Social Justice.