Gender studies has long valued theorizing embodiment in analyses of gendered, raced, and classed ways of being in the world. Women of color feminists in particular have noted the importance of centering what it means to live in a body that has been fetishized, rhetorically violenced, ridiculed, beaten, killed (Hill Collins, 1990; Moraga, 2009; Lorde, 1980; Anzaldua, 1987). In this talk, Jolie speaks about how her own experience of embodied poverty and sexual assault trauma drew her to a radical bodywork praxis. She draws on her experience teaching yoga in jails and prisons to argue for the inclusion of breath and body work in prison abolition.

Appalachian Studies Association Conference Plenary II, Black Appalachian Women: Testimonies, Environmental Justice, and Historical Reparations

Friday, March 13, 2020, 5:00pm-6:15pm in the Gatton Student Center Worsham Cinema. A panel of Black Appalachian women discuss their work in the academy, film, social justice organizations, literature, and museums.

Panelists include: Karida Brown, UCLA Associate Professor of Sociology; Kelly Navies, Museum Specialist Oral Historian at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture; Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, Co-Executive Director, Highlander Research & Education Center; and Crystal Wilkinson, UK Associate Professor of English; moderated by Jillean McCommons, UK Department of History PhD Candidate

This event is a part of the Appalachian Studies Association Conference and is a sponsored by the Year of Equity

You can’t address Appalachia without addressing addiction, namely the opioid epidemic. At Queer Appalachia, we try to shed light on the prevalence of this problem in the region and seek to emphasize that nobody— regardless of addiction status— is disposable.

With the disheartening and exponentially increasing rate of opioid abuse in Appalachia, there is nobody in the region who doesn’t play a role. As if being queer in rural regions isn’t isolating and ostracizing enough, the addition of trying to recover only further exacerbates these experiences. The numbers of opioid abuse in Appalachia increase significantly when you looking at folks with queer identities.
 

Queer Appalachia responds to our community's needs by offering Harm Reduction trainings and supplies.

Black women turn out to vote at higher rates than any other group of Americans. They are also incarcerated at twice the rate of white women, and have been incarcerated at higher rates than black men since 1980. This interdisciplinary panel explores black women's experiences at the intersection of citizenship and criminal justice from the perspectives of law, social science, literature, and lived experience.

Damaris Hill. Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and English literature in the Department of English at the University of Kentucky. Dr. Hill is the author of A Bound Woman is a Dangerous Thing, a book of poetry on black women’s incarceration, and Amazon #1 best seller in African American Poetry.

Melynda J. Price. William L. Matthews, Jr. Professor of Law at the University of Kentucky and Director of the Gaines Center for the Humanities. Dr. Price’s research focus on black women’s activism and criminal justice.

Bridgett King. Assistant Professor of Political Science and Director of the MPA program at Auburn University. Dr. King is an expert on felony disenfranchisement and black political participation.

Tanya Fogle, Alumnus of University of Kentucky, former Lady Cat, Community activist with Kentuckians for the Commonwealth.  Ms. Fogle draws on her own experiences with felony conviction and political rights restoration to advocate for the re-enfranchisement of individuals with felony convictions in Kentucky.