WGSS Spring 2015 Colloquium | February 9, 2015

“The Pathology of Oppression” : Flo Kennedy’s Radical Black Feminist Praxis 1946-1976

In “The Pathology of Oppression” (1976), radical feminist and black power activist Florynce “Flo” Kennedy interrogated the impact of racial and sexual subjugation. This paper examines how Kennedy’s notion of “the pathology of the oppressed” gave shape to an intersectional, feminist theorization of power relations and a coalitional, radical politics.

“I did it as a shtick but I meant it”: Inheritance and Imagination in Fran Rosa’s Oreo

In this talk, I discuss African American journalist, comedy writer, and novelist Fran Ross’s understudies 1974 novel Oreo. I situate Oreo within the works produced in the 70’s publishing surge of Black women writers and argue that Ross’s performance of a series of shticks enacted Black feminist praxis.