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Friday, April 10th
                Saturday, April 11th


10 AM - 5 PM
Linsly-Chittenden Hall, 102
                63 High Street         

Organized by
Meleko Mokgosi, Painting/Printmaking, Yale University
Michael Kelly, Philosophy, UNC Charlotte + Transdisciplinary Aesthetics Foundation

 Sponsored by the Yale University School of Art, Whitney Humanities Center, Council on African Studies, American Studies, Black Studies, Department of Art History, the Native-American Cultural Center, and the Transdisciplinary 
Aesthetics Foundation.




Friday, April 10, 202610:00 AM - 10:15 AM
Introductions
  • Meleko Mokgosi, Painting and Printmaking, Yale University
  • Michael Kelly, Philosophy, UNC Charlotte + Transdisciplinary Aesthetics Foundation

Session #1
10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Moderator: 
  • Kymberly Pinder, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Dean, Yale School of Art 

Speakers: 
    Antawan I. Byrd, Art History, Northwestern University + Curator, Art Institute of Chicago 
    “Being Seen Listening: Photography, Pan-Africanism, and the Public Square” 

    Tarren Andrews, Ethnicity, Race, and Migration Department, Yale University 
    “Translating Empire: The Aesthetics of Indigenous Poetics” 

    Anna Tsouhlarakis, Visual Artist, + Associate Professor of Art and Art History Department, University of Colorado, Boulder 
    “Strategic Absurdity: The Politics of Indigenous Impossibility”
Session #2
12:15 AM - 1:45 PM
Moderator: 
  • Nana Adusei-Poku, Assistant Professor, History of Art and Black Studies Department, Yale University 

Speakers: 
    Jennifer DeVere Brody, Theater and Performance Studies, Stanford University 
    “Edmonia Lewis: ‘Terms and Conditions’” 

    Robert Gooding-Williams, Philosophy Department, Yale University 
    “Du Bois and the Idea of Beauty” 

    Neil Ambrose-Smith, Artist, Corrales 
    “Honoring the land through this thing called Art”
Lunch
1:45 PM - 3:00 PM Music Session Featuring TBA
3:00 PM - 3:30 PMSession #3
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM
Moderator: 
  • Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Assistant Professor + Director of Graduate Studies in Graphic Design, Yale University 
 
Speakers: 
    Steffani Jemison, Artist, Brooklyn; Associate Professor in Art and Design at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University 
    “Same Time”

    Courtney Lewis, Cultural Anthropology Department, Duke University  
    “American Indian Agency in Current Transformations of Pop Culture”

    Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi, Curator, Museum of Modern Art 
    “Strategies of Presentness: Hamedine Kane, the Pan-African Space Station, and Pan-African Archives”


Schedule

Saturday, April 11, 2026Session #4 
10:00 AM – 11:45 AM 


Moderator: Maria De Los Angeles,  Critic and Assistant Director, Yale School of ArtPainting and Printmaking

Speakers: 
    Fumi Okiji, Theorist + Musician, Rhetoric Department, UC Berkeley 
    “Another Aesthetic Sociality” 

    Jami Powell, Curator, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth University  
    “De-centering the Colonial: Indigenizing Approaches to Curatorial Practice”

    Akeia de Barros Gomes, Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, Brown University and Center for Black History, Newport Historical Society 
    “Beyond Aesthetic: Honoring Intended Purpose and Energy in Indigenous Creation” 
Lunch
11:45 AM - 1:00 PMMusic Session Featuring TBA
1:00 PM - 1:15 PMSession #5
1:15 PM – 3:00 PM 
  • Moderator: Alexandra M. Thomas, Art History Department, Fordham University

Speakers: 
    Tavia Nyong’o, Performance Studies Department, Yale University 
    “Reckoning with Backlash: What is a Black Queer Ancestor For?” 

      Marina Tyquiengco, Independent Curator and Art Historian 
      “Looking Back and Forward: Exploring Intersections of Black and Native History at the Museum of Fine Arts Museum, Boston” 

      Alexis Salas, Arts of the Americas, University of Arkansas + Frei Universität, Berlin 
      “Yo existo, yo resisto" (I exist, I resist), Latinx Art in an Era of Hyper-Surveillance”
    Session #6
    3:00 PM – 4:30 PM
    Roundtable
    Moderators: 
    Meleko Mokgosi & Michael Kelly  

    Speakers: 
    All Symposium Participants




    *The “PanAfricanism and Indigeneity in Contemporary Aesthetics” symposium is being sponsored by the Yale University School of Art, Whitney Humanities Center, Council on African Studies, American Studies, Black Studies, Department of Art History, the Native-American Cultural Center, and by the Transdisciplinary Aesthetics Foundation.

    Yale University occupies lands whose original and rightful stewards include many Indigenous nations, among them the Mohegan, Mashantucket Pequot, Eastern Pequot, Schaghticoke, Golden Hill Paugussett, Niantic, Quinnipiac, and other Algonquian speaking peoples.

    The symposium is organized by Meleko Mokgosi, Painting and Printmaking, Yale University and Michael Kelly, Philosophy, UNC Charlotte + Transdisciplinary Aesthetics Foundation.
    © Questioning Aesthetics Symposium