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Embodied Avatars: Genealogies of Black Feminist Art and Performance

Uri McMillan
Friday, February 19, 2016
2:10-3:10 PM
Room 2238 Lane Hall Map
In this paper, Uri McMillan zeroes in on Nicki Minaj’s canny manipulation of her voice in her zesty cameo on Kanye West’s single “Monster”; her thrilling scream in that song recalling antebellum circus exhibit Joice Heth’s earlier outburst, indexes their shared wielding of grotesque aesthetics. Building off of art historian Kobena Mercer’s scholarship, McMillan restages this term in the context of black women's slippery performance work and develops this term through Minaj’s artifice-laced performance in the music video accompaniment to Kanye West’s single, a particularly fraught piece that was swiftly banned upon its release.

Uri McMillan is a cultural historian who researches and writes in the interstices between black cultural studies, performance studies, queer theory, and contemporary art. His first book, Embodied Avatars: Genealogies of Black Feminist Art and Performance (NYU, 2015) is on black performance art, objecthood, and avatars staged by black women artists. He has published articles on performance art, digital media, hip-hop, photography, and nineteenth-century performance cultures in varied arenas such as Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society, GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies, and e-misferica (all are available for download at urimcmillan.com). In addition, he has lectured at art museums, including MoMA PS1 and the Hammer Museum, and published numerous essays on black contemporary art for the Studio Museum of Harlem. His work has been supported by the Ford Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation.

Book sales available day of the event!

Ramp and elevator access at the E. Washington Street entrance (by the loading dock). There are accessible restrooms on the south end of Lane Hall, on each floor of the building. A gender neutral restroom is available on the first floor.
Building: Lane Hall
Website:
Event Type: Lecture / Discussion
Tags: African American, Culture, Lecture, LGBT, Music, Visual Arts, Writing
Source: Happening @ Michigan from Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Department of English Language and Literature