VCU news

By Brian McNeill

Virginia Commonwealth University scholars will discuss the smash hit film “Black Panther” at a forum Monday.

The event, “Critical Perspectives on ‘Black Panther,’” is sponsored by the Department of African American Studies in the College of Humanities and Sciences and will be held from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at VCU School of the Arts’ The Depot, 814 W. Broad St. It will be free and open to the public.

Panelists will include:

• Tressie McMillan Cottom, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology who publishes widely on issues of inequality, work, higher education and technology. She is the author of “Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy” (2017, The New Press), which has received national and international acclaim.
• Brandi Summers, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of African American Studies, whose research and teaching interests focus on race, gender, urban aesthetics, fashion, media studies and visual culture. In particular, her work interrogates identity, memory, place and history and how planning and urban design practices are implicated in the spacialization of race and racism.

The forum will be hosted by Chioke I’Anson, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of African American Studies who studies Africana philosophy, and who also produces podcasts and serves as a voice for underwriting for NPR.

“The thing about a piece of media that everyone sees is that it becomes a common language. Not everyone has read this theory or that article, but if everyone has seen a movie, you can use it as a common frame to share ideas that might not otherwise be dispersed so easily. Like ‘Get Out,’ the movie ‘Black Panther’ gives us a chance to reflect upon Africana concepts with a wide audience,” I’Anson said. “Also: Wakanda forever!”