august 27, 2026  |  3:30-6:10pm

I. Introductions: The Three-Question Interview + Name Game

1. What is your name and pronouns?  
2. How do Black feminisms/cultural rhetorics relate to your work and/or aspirations?  What do you want to do and learn in this class and why?  
3. Your own question​

​II. Overview of the Syllabus, Website, and D2L

• Note the website password
• Sign-up sheets for presentations will be available in next week's class
• Any questions about the course website, its design, and issues about intellectual property and digital spaces
• When you read over the syllabus for next week, come back with questions/comments about the assessment strategies, the GenAI policy, the focus on research articles, etc

III. Two Critical Frameworks to Keep in Mind​

This course: 1) frames Black Feminist pedagogies beyond institutions/classrooms and 2) frames Black feminist rhetorics within the politics of the Black Radical Tradition and anti-racial-capitalism.

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Which of Gilmore's points seem most salient right now for you/your work and why?  What questions or comments do you have?

IV. The Caribbean Strikes the Empire Back... Or, in Other Words, an Introduction to Sylvia Wynter's "Demonic Ground"

Next week's THREE readings: a) “Beyond Miranda's Meanings: Un/silencing the 'Demonic Ground' of Caliban's ‘Woman’” by Sylvia Wynter; b) excerpts from Katherine McKittrick’s book, Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle; c) chosen text (You can read another chapter from McKittrick, more about racial capitalism and its connection to Black Diasporic and race-radical Black feminist theory, or more about Sylvia Wynter and Black Caribbean scholars' anti-colonial relationship to The Tempest)

Part I: Quick reminder of characters and events in The Tempest 

Part II: Foreshadowing for Next Week
Choose a facilitator who will write down everyone's responses and share with the whole class later.

• How and why do you think anti-colonial Caribbean activists would rewrite and critique Prospero? 
• How and why do you think anti-colonial Caribbean activists would rewrite and understand Caliban? Ariel? 
• Where do you think Sylvia Wynter will go with her rewriting and critique of Miranda (the only woman on the island coveted by all)? What's it got to do with Black feminist rhetoric?  Black feminist rhetoric from the BLACK RADICAL TRADITION? Black feminist rhetoric as anti-racial-capitalism?