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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
