Entangled Spirits brings together scholars, activists, artists and practitioners (in a variety of fields) for a series of public conversations; each of which will grapple with a tangled knot of questions and concerns that emerge from the intersection of the arts, religion, and politics. Organized by Professor Josef Sorett, Entangled Spirits is sponsored by the Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities.
The first Entangled Spirits event features a dialogue between the artist Mickalene Thomas and writer/activist Darnell Moore, moderated by Columbia Professor Kellie Jones, with a brief introduction by the series’ organizer, Professor Josef Sorett.
To RSVP for this event, please click here. Registration will close on February 4th, 2019.
Co-sponsors for this event include the Institute for Research in African-American Studies; Center on African-American Religion, Sexual Politics and Social Justice; Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life; and the School of the Arts.
Mickalene Thomas (lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) makes paintings, collages, photography, video, and installations that draw on art history and popular culture to create a contemporary vision of female sexuality, beauty, and power. Blurring the distinction between object and subject, concrete and abstract, real and imaginary, Thomas constructs complex portraits, landscapes, and interiors in order to examine how identity, gender, and sense-of-self are informed by the ways women (and “feminine” spaces) are represented in art and popular culture.
Darnell L. Moore is Editor-at-Large at CASSIUS (an iOne digital platform) and formerly a senior editor and correspondent at Mic. He is co-managing editor at The Feminist Wire and an editor of The Feminist Wire Books (a series of University of Arizona Press). He is also a writer-in-residence at the Center on African American Religion, Sexual Politics and Social Justice at Columbia University. Along with NFL player Wade Davis II, he co-founded YOU Belong, a social good company focused on the development of diversity initiatives.
Dr. Kellie Jones is Professor in Art History and Archaeology and the Institute for Research in African American Studies (IRAAS) at Columbia University. Her research interests include African American and African Diaspora artists, Latinx and Latin American Artists, and issues in contemporary art and museum theory.