Kyle T. Mays, assistant professor of African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), will present Bucknell’s 32nd Annual Black Experiences Lecture with a free, public talk entitled “‘We Still Here’: Indigenous Hip Hop, Resisting (settler) Colonialism, and the Politics of Possibility” on Tuesday, Sept. 25 at 7 p.m. in the Elaine Langone Center Forum.
There will also be a a lunchtime colloquium with Mays on Wednesday, Sept. 26 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Willard Smith Library, Room 125, Vaughn Literature Building. Please RSVP to Martha Shaunessy at mshaunes@bucknell.edu or 570-577-1360 by Sept. 17 if you plan to attend and would like to have lunch at the event. Mays will discuss “Black Belonging, Indigenous Sovereignty: Black and Indigenous Encounters in Unexpected Places.”
Mays is a transdisciplinary scholar and public intellectual of indigenous studies, critical ethnic studies and indigenous popular culture. He is author of the book Hip Hop Beats, Indigenous Rhymes: Modernity and Hip Hop in Indigenous North America (SUNY series, Native Traces), which explores how indigenous hip-hop artists challenge settler colonialism and construct modern, indigenous identities through hip-hop culture. Also working on two future books, Mays’ talk will examine how race, settler colonialism and gender operate among today’s indigenous hip-hop artists in four locations across the Americas: Detroit, Michigan, Oaxaca City, Mexico, Toronto, Ontario and Winnipeg, Manitoba.
The event is co-sponsored by The Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Gender and the University Lectureship Committee.