The UC Santa Cruz Academic Senate is delighted to invite you to the 57th Annual Faculty Research Lecture Featuring Professor Gina Athena Ulysse, Feminist Studies Department:

The Whole Time…
A Redwoods Rasanblaj Epic Poem
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Inspired by Sinéad O’Connor and 11^th Hour’s caffeine chronicles, this epic stream of consciousness ethnographic poem meditates on origins, a theory of everything, the dark arts, shadow work in the upside down of arboreal classrooms in these redwoods on Indigenous Land of the so-called holy cross…

Lacing ancestral chants, cosmos spaciousness, history with misfit tales, and popular song, this non psychedelic surrealist journey explores the contours of linear and all-around time in search of aliveness on scorched earth while ruminating on the impossibility of all sentient beings everywhere experiencing peace among the plantocracy with their disdain for brilliance where praxis is a floating signifier and our humanity is routinely questioned. Improv dance by Linda Isabelle Francois Obas.

Gina Athena Ulysse is a Haitian American feminist artist-scholar. In the last three decades, her decolonial work as a cultural anthropologist has engaged in crossings and dialogues between the arts, humanities, and the social sciences. Her practice is rooted in what she calls rasanblaj – a gathering of ideas, people, things, and spirits. Her latest book is an abridged compilation A Call to Rasanblaj: Black Feminist Futures and Ethnographic Aesthetics (Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, 2023) edited and with an interview by Penelope Papailas is translated in Greek by Vangelis Poulios. Her visual art has been featured on the covers of Frontiers, Feminist Formations, Meridians, and Feminist Studies. Over the years, she has performed at The Bowery, Bluestockings Bookstore, The British Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Cabaret Voltaire, Gorki Theatre, LaMaMa, Marcus Garvey Liberty Hall, MoMA Salon among other venues. She was an invited artist in the Biennale of Sydney in Australia in 2020. She will be participating in the Biennale of Dakar, Senegal, Spring 2024.

Linda Isabelle Francois Obas is an internationally known Haytian choreographer, performer and sociocultural activist. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of XPression Ayiti (2017) a dance company that is based on Haitian traditional dances. She was professionally trained in Haiti with JeanGuy Saintus, Jean Rene Delsoin, Gerald Florestal in classical techniques, modern dance, jazz and other forms. Her solo and company performances have been presented in colleges, concert theatres and festivals in Barbados, Benin, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Jamaica, Japan, The United States and Trinidad to name a few. She is developing Thera-LakAy, her holistic dance teaching pedagogy that relies on Haitian spirituality and traditional dance.

Event Details

• This event is free and open to the public. Seating will begin at 5:30 p.m.
• Parking permits will be available for purchase for $5 in lot 101 at Hahn Student Services, ”A” permits are required during the week until 8 p.m. Park Mobile options are available in this same lot. Please follow the event signage at the base of campus and a parking attendant will assist you.
• The lecture will be held in person and also available to view via livestream.

Questions? Please contact the University Events Office at specialevents@ucsc.edu