Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture 515 Malcolm X Blvd New York
NY 10030 United States
Refund Policy
No Refunds
About this event
IN-PERSON
Join us for an evening celebrating the life and work of Black lesbian and feminist writers Alexis De Veaux and Cheryl Clarke who will join Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Schomburg Center Scholar in Residence and curator, Briona Simone Jones in conversation followed by a book signing.
The Pleasure of Rebellion exhibition gathers the work of Black lesbian and feminist writers Alexis De Veaux and Cheryl Clarke and attends to their aesthetic, artistic, and political contributions to Black Studies. This exhibition maps Clarke and De Veaux’s intellectual odysseys to demonstrate how these Black queer theorists provide a critical lens to scrutinize the contours of eroticism and freedom. Through the work of Clarke and De Veaux, The Pleasure of Rebellion insists that we can move from understanding the archive as a morgue and colonial machination to valuing it as an animate reservoir by honoring the work of the living.exhibition will be on view all evening. The exhibition is curated by Briona Simone Jones, Ph.D., a 2023-24 Schomburg Center Scholar in Residence and Curator of The Pleasure of Rebellion. Dr. Jones is Assistant Professor of English and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Connecticut. Learn more here.
5PM Reception \ 6PM Public Program (Doors Open) \ 7:30PM Book Signing
The Pleasure of Rebellion will be on view all evening.
This event is part of the Schomburg Center Literary Festival: Reading the African Diasporacelebrating authors of African descent and championing literacy and books across genres, to amplify Black history and culture. Festival programming features some of the most talented writers and influential figures in culture today. The festival is built on the foundation created by Arturo Schomburg–encouraging freedom of thought, the relentless pursuit of Black history, and the engagement of our imagination towards our collective freedom.
A selection of books by our participants will be available for purchase from the Schomburg Shop in Harlem and online at SchomburgShop.com
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
PARTICIPANTS
CHERYL CLARKE is a black lesbian feminist poet and the author of four previous books of poetry—Narratives: Poems in the Tradition of Black Women, Living as a Lesbian, Humid Pitch, and Experimental Love—as well as the chapbook, Your Own Lovely Bosom, the critical study, After Mecca: Women Poets and the Black Arts Movement, and a collected work, The Days of Good Looks: Prose and Poetry 1980-2005. With Steven G. Fullwood she edited To Be Left with the Body, a literary publication of the AIDS Project, Los Angeles. Her writing has appeared in numerous journals, including Conditions, Sinister Wisdom, Callaloo, and African American Literary Review, and in the anthologies This Bridge Called My Back: Writings By Radical Women of Color; Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology; and The World in Us: Lesbian and Gay Poetry of the Next Wave.
ALEXIS DE VEAUX is a black queer feminist independent scholar whose internationally known work is published in six languages. She has been publishing fiction, poetry, plays, memoirs, and children’s literature since 1973, and her work is anthologized in numerous collections. De Veaux is the author of Yabo and Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde; and was tenured faculty at the University at Buffalo, Department of Women’s Studies, for more than twenty years, mentoring a new generation of interdisciplinary scholars of black, feminist, and queer studies.
ALEXIS PAULINE GUMBS is an activist, critic, poet, scholar, and educator. A self-described “Queer Black Troublemaker and Black Feminist Love Evangelist,” Gumbs is the author of Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals, Dub: Finding Ceremony, M Archive: After the End of the World, and Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity, and co-editor of Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Frontlines. She holds a PhD in English, African and African American Studies, and Women and Gender Studies from Duke University and is the co founder of Black Feminist Film School, an initiative to screen, study, and produce films with a Black feminist ethic. She lives in Durham, North Carolina, and is currently at work on The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde, a biography of Audre Lorde. Learn more about Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs at her website here
BRIONA SIMONE JONES Ph.D., is a 2023-24 Schomburg Center Scholar in Residence and Curator of The Pleasure of Rebellion. Dr. Jones is Assistant Professor of English and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Connecticut. She is a multi-award-winning writer, scholar, and editor of Mouths of Rain: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought (The New Press, 2021), the most comprehensive anthology centering Black Lesbian Thought to date. At the Schomburg, Jones is conducting archival research in Black lesbian poet and scholar Cheryl Clarke’s papers to explore the personal and political contours of her work.
ACCESSIBLILITY
ASL interpretation will be provided upon availability of interpreters. Live captioning is available for streaming programs. Additional accessibility requests can be made by e-mail accessibility@nypl.org.
#SchomburgLive
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Header Image: Image: San Quentin Arts in Corrections Art Studio, 2008 Ronnie Goodman, Courtesy of William James Association
Schomburg Center Literary Festival
The Schomburg Center Literary Festival: Reading the African Diaspora celebrates authors of African descent and champions literacy and books across genres to amplify Black history and culture. Festival programming features some of the most talented writers and influential figures in culture today. The festival is built on the foundation created by Arturo Schomburg–encouraging freedom of thought, the relentless pursuit of Black history, and the engagement of our imagination towards our collective freedom. 2024 marks its sixth year and will reconvene communities of book lovers to interact with their favorite authors in Harlem, USA. The festival hosts a marketplace of local organizations and vendors, NYPL mobile library, and programs for all ages. Readings, panel discussions, and workshops at the event range from prose to poetry, comic books to young adult novels, fiction and nonfiction. Visit our website at schomburgcenterlitfest.org.
LOCATION
The festival will take place in Schomburg’s landmark building at 515 Malcolm X Boulevard, as well as outdoors on 135th Street between Malcolm X and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevards, on stage named after Adam Clayton Powell and Zora Neale Hurston.
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FIRST COME, FIRST SEATED This events are free and open to all, but due to space constraints registration is requested.
GUESTS Please note that holding seats in the Langston Hughes Auditorium is strictly prohibited and there is no food or drinks allowed anywhere in the Schomburg Center.
E-TRANSPORTATION NYPL policy prohibits electric transportation devices (e.g., motorbikes, e-bikes, e-scooters, e-skateboards) from being brought into or stored at library sites for any length of time, as this is the best way to keep our spaces & people safe.
AUDIO/VIDEO RECORDING Programs are photographed and recorded by the Schomburg Center. Attending this event indicates your consent to being filmed/photographed and your consent to the use of your recorded image for any all purposes of the New York Public Library.
PRESS Please send all press inquiries (photo, video, interviews, audio-recording, etc) at least 24-hours before the day of the program to Leah Drayton at leahdrayton@nypl.org.
Please note that professional video recordings are prohibited without expressed consent.
PUBLIC NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER
IN-PERSON | By registering for this event, you are acknowledging that an inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present. By attending an in-person program at The New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, you voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19 and agree not to hold The New York Public Library, its Trustees, officers, agent and employees liable for any illness or injury. If you have symptoms consistent with COVID-19 or suspect you have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive, please stay home.