Dickinson College to Host Author's Discussion of Journey Towards Self-Love

Portrait of Sharrell Luckett

Sharrell Luckett

Exploring Self-Esteem, Race, Gender and Performance

by Gabriella Farrell '21

Award-winning author, actress, director and scholar Sharrell D. Luckett will share stories about the journey towards self-love in a lecture, “YoungGiftedandFat: From Liberation to Creation,” on Tuesday, Feb. 12, at 7 p.m. in the Anita Tuvin Schlechter (ATS) Auditorium.

In her book, YoungGiftedandFat: An Autoethnography of Size, Sexuality, and Privilege, Luckett describes “performing thin” in theater as well as in real life. The autoethnography is a story of weight loss and gain that approaches the issues of self-esteem, race, gender and performance in an interdisciplinary way. Using interviews, journal entries, monologues and other creative elements, Luckett’s book explores fat as a feminist issue, a black issue and an ideological construct that exists in both the body and mind.

Luckett is director of the Helen Weinberger Center for Drama and Playwriting and assistant professor of drama and performance studies in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Cincinnati. Her scholarship focuses on acting and directing theory, black studies, performance studies and fat studies. In addition to YoungGiftedandFat, Luckett is co-editor of the award-winning book Black Acting Methods: Critical Approaches. She is also an invitee of Harvard University’s Mellon Institute of Theater and Performance Research, Cornell University’s Performance Encounters series, Northwestern University’s Mellon Program in Black Feminist Performance and the Lincoln Center Lab in New York.

The event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund. It is also part of Love Your Body Week, which is co-sponsored by the Clarke Forum; Women’s & Gender Resource Center; Student Life & Campus Engagement; Wellness Center; PALS; Psi Chi; Psych Club; The Center for Service, Spirituality & Social Justice; Access & Disability Services; The Waidner-Spahr Library; and the departments of theatre & dance, psychology, women’s, gender & sexuality studies and the creative writing program. The event is part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

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Published February 7, 2019