Blackness as Resistance

Exploring black cultures, identities and experiences from different geographical spaces and perspectives through poetry and conversation, the Beniba Centre for Slavery Studies, the School of Critical Studies, and Thinking Culture present ‘Blackness as Resistance,’ a spoken word event at Jim’s Bar in Queen Margaret’s Union, featuring performances from Jay Bernard, Jasmine Mans, Tawona Sitholé, and Jeda Pearl, organised by Dr Malica S Willie. Delicious food from MILK Cafe will also be served.

Funded by the Ferguson Bequest. Professor Thomas Ferguson (1900-1977), Henry Mechan Chair of Public Health (1944-64), bequeathed his estate to the University, with the instruction that the money should be used to foster the social side of University life.

Jay Bernard

Jay Bernard is an artist whose work is interdisciplinary, critical, queer and rooted in the archives. They were named The Sunday Times/ University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year (2020) and are the recipient of the Ted Hughes Award (2017) for Surge: Side A, a cross-disciplinary exploration of the New Cross Fire in 1981. Something Said (2017), an exploration of Black British history, has screened in the UK and internationally, including Aestheticaand Leeds International Film Festival – where it won best experimental and best queer short respectively–andCinemAfrica. Their body of work also includes Crystals of this Social Substance (Serpentine Pavilion 2021),Joint (Southbank Centre 2022), and Far from the Start (Studio Voltaire 2023).

Jasmine Mans

Jasmine Mans is a queer Black poet and performance artist from Newark, New Jersey. Jasmine’s debut poetry collection, Black Girl, Call Home (Berkley Penguin Random House) published in 2021 to critical and commercial acclaim, and was named one of the most anticipated books of the season by Oprah, TIME, Vogue, Vulture, Essence, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Refinery 29, Shondaland, Bustle, and Reader’s Digest. The collection went on to receive the prestigious Stonewall Honor Award, as well as a BCALA Award in the Poetry category. Jasmine most recently collaborated with the Brooklyn Ballet at the storied Brooklyn Academy of Music, setting her poetry to ballet and classical scores. Jasmine was also a contributor to Nikole Hannah-Jones’s The 1619 Project and has co-hosted The Kennedy Center’sArts Across America series alongside renowned author Jason Reynolds. Jasmine began her creative journey with the acclaimed Strivers Row poetry collective, and she continues to perform to sold-out crowds, like the Sundance Film Festival, Broadway’s New Amsterdam Theater, and BAM, among many others. Jasmine can currently be heard as the voice of Ulta Beauty’s national “Muse” campaign, honoringBlack women in the hair and beauty industry. Jasmine lives in Newark, New Jersey, where she operates her award-winning business Buy W**d from Women, a cannabis multimedia and product company celebrating and advocating for women within the cannabis industry. The Buy W**d from Women book was acquired at auction by DK, an imprint of Penguin Random House, and will publish in 2026.

Tawona Sitholé

My spirit name, ganyamatope dzapasi, inspires me in shared creativity and learning. Co-founder, Seeds of Thought arts group; UNESCO artist-in-residence, University of Glasgow. Mostly i appreciate my work for the many inspiring people it allows me to meet.

Jeda Pearl

Jeda Pearl is a Scottish Jamaican poet + SFF author based in Edinburgh, and Co-director of the Scottish BPOC Writers Network, a professional development group for Black writers and writers of colour in Scotland. In 2022, she was shortlisted for the Sky Arts RSL Award and longlisted for the Women Poets’ Prize. Art installations include Windrush Legacy Creative Reflections, Caledonian Biotech Library 3033, and Acts of Observation. Her poems and short stories are published by New Writing Scotland, Open Book, Not Going Back to Normal, Shoreline of Infinity, Aesthetica, Tapsalteerie, and her debut poetry collection, Time Cleaves Itself, was published in July 2024 by Peepal Tree Press. Find her online: @JedaPearl and jedapearl.com

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