The Art of Social Justice

Photo of Ajuan Mance

Ajuan Mance

Images from an Online Sketchbook

by Kayleigh Rhatigan '19

Nationally recognized artist Ajuan Mance will present “The 1001 Black Men Online Sketchbook and the Art of Social Justice” at Dickinson on Wednesday, March 7, at 7 p.m. in the Anita Tuvin Schlechter (ATS) Auditorium.

Mance will present images from her online sketchbook, 1001 Black Men, a series of portraits that form a “reaction against the controlling images that have limited and defined media representations of black men.” She will include these images in a discussion of art, gender and black masculinity.

Mance is a visual artist and professor of English at Mills College. Her research focuses on race, gender and black literature and history in the United States. She is the author of several books, comics and other works, including Inventing Black Women: African American Women’s Poetry and Self-Representation, 1877-2000, the autobiographical comic Gender Studies and The Ancestors’ Juneteenth. Her work has appeared in various media outlets, including The New York Times, Buzzfeed and NPR.org. Her 1001 Black Men sketchbook has gained national attention and has been featured in galleries in the San Francisco Bay area. Her work has also been shown at the Woman Made Gallery in Chicago and the Brainworks Gallery in Los Angeles, among others.

The program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Women’s & Gender Resource Center; the Popel Shaw Center for Race & Ethnicity; and the departments of Africana studies, American studies, English, French & Francophone studies, and women’s, gender & sexuality studies.

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Published February 15, 2018