3C Special Presentation Tea & Talk: Exploring Black Studies
BILLSpecial Presentation | Available
A BILL Tea & Talk with Professor Jaye Austin Williams from Bucknell University:
EXPLORING BLACK STUDIES
What is Black study in its many contours, and why is it critical to examine today, especially in the face of all that is moving to shut down any direct engagement with it? In tackling this compound question, Williams will share with the audience her background, and why she was compelled to move from her first career in the professional theatre to her my current one in academia, focusing on the intersection of the arts and Black study today.
JAYE AUSTIN WILLIAMS is an associate professor and chair of critical Black studies at Bucknell. A scholar, director, playwright, actor, teacher, writer and consultant, her work has appeared on and off Broadway and regionally over the past thirty years. She is a specialist in the melding of drama theory, cinema and performance with critical Black studies. As a scholar-artist, Professor Williams’ applied practice in academia has been through directing works that ground students’ discovery of Black drama and performance as portals into not only the psychological underpinnings of characters’ circumstances and the gesture of uplift that might be prompted by them, but also, the systemic and ongoing violence that impacts Black existence on a global scale. Jaye earned her doctorate in a joint doctoral program in drama and theatre, University of California Irvine and San Diego, her M.F.A. in dramatic writing at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and her bachelor in science in theatre at Skidmore College.
- BILL Special Presentations explore a range of topics with distinguished presenters. All BILL Special Presentations are free and open to the public; no membership is required. These programs can provide an introduction to BILL, so please, join us. Members are encouraged to invite their friends and neighbors.
Registered attendees may arrive at 3 p.m. to enjoy light refreshments and some social time before the presentation begins at 3:30 p.m.
BILL may take photos and video recordings at events, which may be used in promotional material following the event and/or shared with other audiences.