GSU hosts author Joan Morgan as part of grant-funded project on intersectionality in the South
Intersectionality, a term first coined by scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in the mid-1980s, considers how identity influences how people in society are seen through the perspective of race, class, gender and location.
At Georgia State University, a funding grant provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will support a three-and-a-half-year project towards intersectional studies, which will include a focus on symposia, workshops, guest lectures, roundtable discussions and the creation of a podcast focused on internationality in the American South.
On this edition of “Closer Look,” Georgia State University associate professor of Africana studies Dr. Lakeyta Bonnette-Bailey discusses the reason for exploring the depths of Southern identity. On Tuesday, Bonnette-Bailey will host a conversation featuring author Dr. Joan Morgan on the future of the South through the view of intersectionality and “hip-hop feminism.”
“A lot of times when we think about intersectionality … one aspect of our identity is what it’s like to be a Southerner. There hasn’t been this emphasis to look specifically at the South and the fact that regionalism plays in our identity as well,” said Bonnette-Bailey. “We’re looking at women; we’re looking at black women, we’re looking at indigenous populations … and the various ways in which their identities have created a certain experience for them.”
The project also explores how the popularity and growth of music produced in the South, specifically hip-hop, can contribute towards positive and negative perspectives on race, identity and feminism.
“Hip-hop feminism, as described by (author and journalist) Joan Morgan, is this complex type of feminism, it’s this idea that you can enjoy hip-hop, but you can still be critical of the genre, to see the various ways in which sexism and misogyny are presented in hip-hop,” said Bonnette-Bailey. “You can be able to critique it but also be one that still loves the genre.”
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