Black Queer Studies Collection Student Awards Committee Members with 2024 undergraduate Hogan/Schell Award winner Jayden McCree (third from right) at the Department of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies graduation ceremony. Committee members pictured include (from left to right) Dr. Ashley Coleman Taylor, Isaiah Frost Rivera, Adriana Cásarez, Dr. Lyndon K. Gill (Chair), Gina Bastone and Dr. Celina de Sá. Photo credit: Robert Silver
This year’s Awards Committee honored the winners and honorable mentions of the second annual Black Queer Studies Student Awards at the Department of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies graduation ceremony on April 30, 2024.
The undergraduate 2024 Honorable Mention is Chidera Orazulike. A Radio-Television-Film major, Orazulike’s submission titled "Somayina" is a screen play set in contemporary Nigeria that examines sexuality, generational trauma and Igbo traditionalism.
The winner of the 2024 Hogan/Schell Undergraduate Award is Jayden McCree. A Liberal Arts Honors program student, McCree’s submission titled “Eden” is a collection of ten poems and four musical compositions inspired by KB Brookin's poetry collection Freedom House. This work explores in word and sound McCree's own experience of modern black transness.
The graduate 2024 Honorable Mention is Leandro Stoffels. A Ph.D. student in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese, Stoffels’ submission titled "Precarious Pop: Leona Vingativa, Social Media, and Black Eco-Transfeminism in Brazilian Popular Music" is a paper that explores a trilogy of viral videos by the Afro-Brazilian transgender comedian and artist, whose "trashy environmentalism" offers a response to environmental racism and a challenge to make something reusable out of capitalism's worst excesses.
The winner of the 2024 Roberts Graduate Award is Kyle Okeke. A creative writing MFA student in the English Department’s New Writers Project, Okeke’s submission titled "In the Image of God" is a series of sometimes surrealist, sometimes concrete poems that explore sex, religion and black history, while capturing the experience of growing up a black queer boy in America.
Dr. Lyndon K. Gill, Chair of Black Queer Studies Collection Student Awards Committee, congratulates award winners and honorable mentions at the Department of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies graduation ceremony. Photo credit: Robert Silver
Prize money for the awards comes from the generosity of UT Libraries and the award money for the honorable mentions is provided by the interdepartmental Black Queer Diaspora Studies Committee, which is funded by the Department of African & African Diaspora Studies.
The Monica K. Roberts Graduate Award: Allen Poterie, Performance as Public Practice program in the Theater and Dance Department
Allen Poterie’s winning submission, entitled “And Don’t Let Go: Scenes of Holding as a Means of Emotional Exchange between Black Men,” is a scholarly literature review that contextualizes his creative work-in-progress – a television screenplay about the lives and relationships of Black Queer men. The work cited many books and films in the Libraries’ Black Queer Studies Collection, including literary work by Essex Hemphill, films directed by Marlon Riggs and scholarship by E. Patrick Johnson.
The Hogan/Schell Undergraduate Award: Jeremiah Baldwin, majoring in Government, Rhetoric and Writing, and African and African Diaspora Studies (AADS)
Jeremiah Baldwin submitted “Caught At An Intersection The Podcast,” which examines Black Queer experiences through interviews and discussions, using Kimberlé Crenshaw’s watershed theory of intersectionality as a framework. In one episode about James Baldwin, the undergraduate senior interviews author Alejandro Heredia, whose book, You’re the Only Friend I Need, is included in the Black Queer Studies Collection.
Honorable Mentions: Alexandria Cunningham and Tolu Osunsade
Two additional submissions received honorable mentions for distinguished work. Alexandria Cunningham, a graduate student in AADS, and Tolu Osunsade, a senior majoring in Public Health and AADS, were recognized for their use of the collection. Cunningham’s submission was a selection from her dissertation “The Black Freak Nasty Magic Project™ :: Choreographies of Play, Pleasure and Sexuality.” Osunsade’s submision was the work “The Harm in Reproductive Healthcare for Black Women and Gender Non-Conforming Individuals in The United States.”
Support the Black Queer Studies Collection long into the future by giving to the collection endowment! The endowment provides sustainable, long-term funding for new books, films, and resources in the collection, as well as the monetary prizes for the Roberts Graduate Award and the Hogan/Schell Undergraduate Award.
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