This session draws inspiration from the work of M Jacqui Alexander, Dora Silva Santana, and other scholars and activists situated in afrotransfeminismos to understand the ways that Black transness travels between, within, and outside the logics of capital, empire, borders, racialization, and ability to shape, not only those who embody shared trans and/or travesti identities in the African Diaspora, but how the “shifting I” – of embodiment and identity - reflect and shape deeper relationships of engagement.

Assigned Readings:

Gumbs, Alexis Pauline. 2018. “A Note.” M Archive: After the End of the World. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822371878.

Tinsley, Omise’eke Natasha. 2018. “Two: Mache Ansanm.” Ezili’s Mirrors: Imagining Black Queer Genders. Duke University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv120qt3w.

Warren, Calvin. 2017. “Calling into Being.” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 4 (2): 266–74. https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-3815057.