Johannesburg, South Africa Exchange and Seminars

In collaboration with University of the Witwatersrand faculty member Mhlambi Innocentia Jabulisile, the Racial Justice Institute is developing an international symposium about “Women’s Liberation and Protest through Transnational Musical Storytelling,” which will take place in Spring 2023.

The weeklong academic workshop and symposium at the University of the Witwatersrand will bring together a cohort of Georgetown and South African scholars and artists to investigate how music, language, and community activism coalesce in the production of transnational liberatory musical works based upon women’s experiences. The proposed 2023 workshop will bring artists and scholars together to discuss methodologies for defining processes of transnational political theater from a women’s liberatory perspective. Musical works, classical and vernacular, transcend language boundaries, allowing for international flows of political resistance.

This endeavor in South Africa will culminate in the publication of a co-authored volume about women’s liberation and protest through transnational musical storytelling. Because of its history, as well as our own, South Africa has unique knowledge to contribute to our understanding of creating real interventions in White supremacy.

All three Racial Justice Institute co-founders will attend this symposium and use the research and inspiration they gain from this project to develop a future Georgetown event (2023-2024 academic year) about “Transnational Interventions in Racial Inequalities.” This two-year series of symposia and colloquia will look at legal, health, and storytelling interventions resisting autocracy and White supremacy.