Welcome to the World Café an interactive structured conversation about topics that matter! We use art, discussion, and knowledge sharing to work together to solve world problems. At the Symposium on Afrofuturism and Diasporic Scholarship we (Re)member our stories to (re)shape and (re)create higher education to support the whole person and create spaces where everyone can belong. Add World Café to your schedule and register using this link
Our panel will center Black women healing through ancient practices shared across generations. Because these practices are not critical components of the mainstream canon, they are not included in conventional sources, making it difficult to research. We will discuss ways Black people can access healing through nontraditional ways of researching and sources: storytelling; ritual; in the kitchen, table talk, cooking; church, prayer, prayer groups, prayer closets, ceremonial practices; and nature, the environment which includes gardening, outdoors, walking. Our goal is to offer Black people the possibility of an Afrocentric future that adopts these practices in consideration of Sankofa and nommo.
The session, Echoes of Tomorrow: How Afrofuturism Shapes Music will showcase the portrayal of afrofuturism in music across different scenes and time periods. Different aspects of sample selection, sound selection, and sound design in afrofuturistic music can create soundscapes that can have a feeling of wonder. Afrofuturistic music from a wide number of genres will be discussed in order to showcase the unique stories and soundscapes.The workshop will also go over basic sound selection and design in order to have an interactive beat making experience.
By exploring the intersection of game design and social justice, this presentation will demonstrate how storytelling can be used to challenge dominant narratives and amplify marginalized voices. Learn about our research where Black high school students create games that draw from their own experiences and community knowledge. I will demonstrate the core principles of the program and share lesson plan examples. As part of the session, we’ll play a short game and collaborate to design a game that reflects our collective identities.
In 2009, Kid Cudi released Man on the Moon: The End of the Day, an autobiographical concept album that explores Cudi’s depression, anxiety, and isolation. Within the narrative, Cudi uses recreational drugs “escape” from depression; the transcendental drug trip as mental stimulation simulating space travel. Cudi’s concept album works in conversation with Black national identity and racist drug wars. Cudi adopts escapist imagery from Pan African nationalism and Afrofuturism, reimagining escape as a psychedelic drug trip. This paper examines contemporary practices of escapism through hip-hop music that satirizes the racism in nationalism, the space race, and the war on drugs.
Black women farmers comprise just 0.65% of all agricultural producers in North Carolina, yet their voices offer insights into resilience, representation, and advocacy within agriculture. This session highlights findings from a digital storytelling project centering the experiences of 10 Black women farmers. Attendees will explore how ancestral roots and a commitment to future generations drive these farmers despite systemic challenges. Through storytelling, this research disrupts conventional notions of scholarship, offering a participant-led approach to equity and inclusion in agriculture. The session will engage attendees in reflecting on the power of lived experiences to inspire policy, representation, and future research.
This presentation invites participants to explore the significance of home and place in shaping Black identities. Through interactive mapping exercises and storytelling, attendees will share their connections to meaningful spaces, discussing how these locations influence their experiences and sense of belonging. This session aligns with the symposium’s theme by transforming personal narratives into collective knowledge, illuminating the diverse ways Black communities navigate their environments and the cultural significance of these spaces.
The Sky People is a mixed-media art exhibit by ANU Life Global Ministries that explores creation through the lens of Afro-Shemetic Futurism. Rooted in ancient narratives from Sumerian, Hebrew, and Babylonian traditions, the presentation combines paintings, digital art, music, literature, and film to reimagine creation as a dynamic and evolving concept. Featuring tools like Hebrew language, indigenous storytelling, and interactive multimedia, The Sky People invites participants to engage with perspectives of creation that bridge esoteric, present, and futuristic contexts. Immersive and thought-provoking, this exhibit merges cultural heritage with cutting-edge innovation, offering a profound exploration of identity and possibility.
An Island for an Exiled is a multimedia installation exploring cultural estrangement and sacred exile through Afrofuturistic aesthetics. Combining stop-motion animation, photography, live performance, and immersive environmental elements, the work interrogates identity, memory, and speculative futures.
#PassTheMicYouth is a multimedia Extension program that amplifies youth voices, highlighting their civic and community engagement while providing practitioners with tools to teach social impact storytelling. Aligned with Afro-diasporic ideas of community knowledge, storytelling, and intergenerational engagement, the program transforms everyday experiences into agents of change. From TEDxYouth@ChavisWay to Pass the Mic Camp, our initiatives showcase youth-led research and storytelling. This session features an interactive community poem activity and shares research on the program's impact, inspiring attendees to uplift the familiar stories that shape our collective understanding.
This study examines the intersection of Sankofa, Afrofuturism, and womanism through storytelling within the African diaspora. Rooted in the Akan principle of Sankofa, which emphasizes learning from the past to navigate the present and future, storytelling is explored as a tool for preserving cultural memory and imagining new possibilities. Integrating Afrofuturism and womanism, the study highlights how Black women use narratives to resist oppression and empower their communities. By analyzing personal and communal stories, this research underscores storytelling’s role in identity, resilience, and transformation, offering insights into its cultural and political significance for shaping inclusive futures.
This presentation unpacks the creative process of three Black scholars using dissertation data from Black leaders and families to develop a stage play with three vignettes and community dialogue. After conducting a qualitative study on the relationship between the University of Georgia and its surrounding Black communities, we engaged in a reflective process rooted in Endarkened Feminist Epistemology. We prayed over participants’ words, revisited narratives, and identified three key themes. To honor the rich data, we condensed the stories and developed a written stage play that centered participant voices, aiming to make the findings accessible and impactful for the community.
This teach-in, facilitated by NC State researchers and librarians, will center the concept of Sankofa for participants to learn, share, and imagine new practices of archival storytelling. Facilitators will outline different approaches in personal, community, and institutional settings and will provide participants with tools to consider how to preserve their stories and artifacts by donating to or creating their own archives. In the spirit of Ubuntu, facilitators will work alongside community members to engage with questions about how this type of memory work can situate our lived experiences by drawing on the past and present to imagine the future.
Outreach and Engagement Program Librarian for Special Collections, North Carolina State University
Virginia Ferris is Outreach and Engagement Program Librarian for Special Collections at NC State University Libraries. She earned the MLS from UNC Chapel Hill (2014) and holds experience in outreach, oral history, and teaching with archives.
The Sistas in the Salon Sista Circle provides a humanizing, authentic, and community-centered space that centers on Black women's experiences, knowledge, and healing through interactive dialogue and creative expression. By reimagining the traditional academic conference format through the culturally rooted tradition of a hair salon-inspired Sister Circle, this presentation embodies the symposium's commitment to innovative, holistic learning and knowledge production.
Rhetorical Healing: Using Black English to Tell and Document Stories presentation will incorporate the history of Black English, the reasons why Black English should be considered a language, and how revolutionizing Black English as an inclusive language within storytelling art, literature, and articles will engage rhetorical healing needed for afrofuturism. Ultimately, Black English is a part of afrofuturism.
The Cyher at The Symposium on Afrofuturism and Diasporic Scholarship features poets, storytellers, dancers, movement workers, artists and more to share the history of diasporic storytelling.
We present “A MAGIC Tour of Mitchelville”, a research project being developed by faculty and students in NC State’s MADTech department in collaboration with Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park, an inspiring Gullah-Geechee heritage site on Hilton Head Island, SC. This presentation will show student prototypes done last summer to develop an interpretive scene of the new ghosted structures in the park that feature digital simulations of Gullah elder interviews, and current field research to bring NC State students to Hilton Head Island to collaborate with high-school students in the Modeling our Ancestors to Generate Influence and Change (MAGIC) docent program.
Everyone can be a rhetorician! In this 20 minute community conversation, participants will learn about Black Autistic Rhetoric and engage with materials from a developing community-led virtual archive.
This presentation connects the sociohistorical roots of Black health and wellness to current challenges while envisioning a future of health equity where Black communities thrive. Grounded in critical health, and social justice frameworks, this hybrid format blends a brief lecture and interactive “Musical Research Tables,” participants will explore historical health inequities, ethical dilemmas, and the importance of “safe” online and offline spaces. Facilitated by the Black Health Lab, this session fosters collaboration and discussion regarding strategies to advance systemic change and inspire attendees to champion health and wellness in their work.
Speculative fiction challenges traditional notions of mimetic or “realistic” representation found in literary fiction. Consequently, speculative fiction can be useful in challenging norms because it aims to disrupt reality. Caribbean Speculative Fiction, sometimes defined as speculative fiction written by authors living in or originating from the Caribbean or featuring Caribbean protagonists, often invokes Caribbean folklore, blending the familiar with the innovative. This presentation explores how Caribbean Speculative Fiction empowers writers to reimagine the worlds they know while offering insightful perspectives on culture, history, and possibility, even if those worlds are not necessarily “better.”
A celebratory closing to The Symposium on Afrofuturism and Diasporic Scholarship will feature the communal dance traditions of diasporic people. Join to learn popular and traditional line dances while learning the history of Black social dances at the intersection of Black movements and freedom projects.
