In this conversation, Dionne Brand, Francoise Vergès, Christina Sharpe, and Tina Campt will discuss the work of The Practicing Refusal Collective and the Sojourner Project on their collaborative publication: Think/ing from Black: A Lexicon, a book that imagines a set of words, terms and practices from some of the manifold positions of blackness that locate and animate black life. They will discuss what it means for the Collective and its collaborators to undertake such a lexical endeavor, while offering their own reflection on their own contributions to the project. Think/ing from Black is at once a lexicon, a collection of definitions, and a set of practices found in and arising out of the languages and experiences that speculate on the im/possibility of living free. Consisting of long and short entries from writers and artists from around the world – North America, Europe, Africa, South America, the Caribbean, and elsewhere, these terms enunciate an evolving lexicon for understanding the modalities through which blackness sustains and regenerates itself in the face of multiple manifestations of antiblackness in times and spaces where and when black people seek to live unbounded lives. The Black Diaspora has generated many languages, and concepts that influence, shape and intervene in modernity, many terms and references. It is a work that defines some of those concepts, both as quotidian practiced and the specialized bodies of inherited knowledge. Words and concepts that may have meanings in a ‘general’ lexicon hold other meanings in a Black lexicon. In this contemporary moment such a lexicon shows the continuous inventive space of Blackness.

Presented by the Princeton Collaboratorium.

Open to the public.