2023

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Invited Lecture: “No Time to Rest: James Baldwin’s Many Lives,” Oxford College of Emory

University, November 28, 2023.

 

Interviewer / Moderator: Colson Whitehead at UGA, Willson Center, University of Georgia,

November 16, 2023.

Invited Reading: “Anita Baker Introduced Us and Patrice Rushen Did the Rest.” Celebrating

the Singular Creativity of African American Music. University of Georgia Art Museum. November 7, 2023.

Invited Lecture: “’Any Man’s Death Diminishes Me’: James Baldwin and Martin Luther

King Together in 1968.” Franklin College Board of Advisors, University of Georgia,

March 31, 2023.

Invited Talk: “The Music of Insecure.” Screen Time Series. UGA Humanities Festival.

Atheneum. March 17, 2023.

 

2022

Distinguished Lecture: “James Baldwin, Non-Violence, and the Citizens of Pompeii,”

University of Tennessee Humanities Center, November 21, 2022.

Invited Conversation: “Call It in the Air.” With Kiese Laymon. Avid Books (on Zoom),

October 11, 2022.
 

Invited Conversation: Adrienne Rich: Radical Legacies. With Christine Cuomo. Atheneum.

Athens, GA, March 21, 2022.

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2021

Invited Speaker. “Reading and Conversation with Athens Poet Laureate Jeff Fallis.

November 17, 2021. UGA Art Museum.

Invited Speaker. Like I Was Ink: A Memoir. University of Alabama Department of English

and Department of Gender and Race Studies. October 6, 2021. Online.

Invited Speaker. “Adrienne Rich + the Radical Imagination. University of Alabama

Department of Gender and Race Studies. October 5, 2021. Online.

Invited Speaker. “James Baldwin and Music: The Gospel of His Literary Blues.” With DJ

Lynnée Denis and Imani e. Wilson. Jazz Museum of Harlem. September 29, 2021. Online.

Interview. “Antonio Michael Downing’s Saga Boy.” Word Up Books. New York City.

September 20, 2021. Online.

Invited Speaker. “Biographer’s Circle: with Peniel Joseph,” Biographer’s International

Organization, April 22, 2021. Online.

Invited Speaker. “And Maybe Courage”: The Mutual Lyric: A Poetry Master Class. Wells

College, April 20, 2021. Online.

Poetry Reading. Let It Be Broke. Wells College, April 20, 2021. Online.
 

Invited Panelist: “Celebrating Binyavanga Wainaina’s Fiction: An International

Conversation.” Boston Review. April 14, 2021. Online.

Poetry Reading. Let It Be Broke. Grinnell College, April 8, 2021. Online.

Invited Speaker. Phi Theta Kappa Spring Conference. Match 20, 2021. Online.

Poetry Reading. Bootleg Reading Series. Associated Writing Programs Annual Conference,

March 3, 2021. Online.

Launch Event. Ancestors. The Boston Review. March 11, 2021. Online.

Invited Talk. “Writing in Hard Times.” Columbia University. February 22, 2021. Online.

 

2020

Conversation with Kiese Laymon: How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America. December

3, 2020. Avid Bookshop. Online.

Invited Talk. “Don’t Sell Me a Dream I Don’t Sleep”: The American Dream is the Dream of

Whiteness. Behind the Headlines. Trinity College. Dublin, Ireland. November 1, 2020.

Conversation with Eddie Glaude. “Begin Again and James Baldwin for Our Times.” UGA

Institute for African American Studies. Sept 29, 2020. Online.

Conversation with Major Jackson. “Solitude Social Club,” Hugo House, Seattle, WA. June 5,

2020. Online.

Conversation with Kiese Laymon. Another Kind of Madness. Left Bank Books, St. Louis, MO.

April 14, 2020.

Keynote Address. “Pauli Murray: Renegade Poet.” Pauli Murray Awards. Orange County

Human Relations Commission. Goldsboro, NC. February 23, 2020.

Conference Presentation. “You pay for your life with your life: Jimmy Baldwin’s Politicized Privacy.” In a Speculative Light: James Baldwin and Beauford Delaney. University of Tennessee-Knoxville. February 20, 2020.

Organizer and Host. Panel with Val Jeanty and Ashon Crawley. DJ Summits in the Global

South. Cine Athens. February 13, 2020

 

2019

Panel with DJ Lynée Denise and Harold Pride. DJ Summits in the Global South. Ciné

Athens. October 19, 2019.

Book Signing. Another Kind of Madness. Aspen Ideas Festival. Aspen, CO. June 28, 2019.

Invited Panelist. The Art of the Story: Aretha Franklin’s Amazing Grace. Aspen Ideas Festival,

Aspen, CO. June 28, 2019.

Reading. Another Kind of Madness. Prairie Lights Books, Iowa City, IA. April 30, 2019.

Reading. Another Kind of Madness. 57th Street Books, Chicago, IL. April 29, 2019.
 

Reading. Another Kind of Madness. A Room of One’s Own, Madison, WI. April 25, 2019.

Reading / Talk. Another Kind of Madness. With Jess Row at McNally Jackson Books, Brooklyn,

NY. April 9, 2019.


Reading / Talk. Another Kind of Madness. With Adam McGee at Porter’s Square Books.

Cambridge, MA. April 5, 2019.

Book Signing. Another Kind of Madness. Associated Writing Programs Convention. Portland,

OR, March 28, 2019.

Reading. Another Kind of Madness. With Jean Paul and Umar Rashad at Quotidian Gallery, Los

Angeles, CA. March 27, 2019.

Keynote Address. “Now We See: Listening to Amazing Grace from the Shore of

Speechlessness.” Aretha Franklin Symposium. UCLA. March 25, 2019.

Reading. Another Kind of Madness. Virginia Festival of the Book. Charlottesville, VA. March

22, 2019.​​

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March 6 Another Kind of Madness Reading, Avid Bookshop, Athens GA
 

March 22 Another Kind of Madness Reading, Virginia Festival of the Book, Charlottesville, VA
 

March 25 "Now We See": Keynote Address at Aretha Franklin Symposium
 

March 27 Another Kind of Madness Reading, w Eso Won Books @ Quotidian Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
 

April 5 Another Kind of Madness Reading, w Adam McGee at Porter's Square Books, Cambridge MA
 

April 8 Another Kind of Madness Reading, w Jess Row at McNally Jackson Books, Broooklyn, NY
 

April 25, Another Kind of Madness Reading, A Room of One's Own Books, Madison, WI
 

April 29, Another Kind of Madness Reading, 57th Street Books, Chicago, IL
 

April 30th, Another Kind of Madness Reading, Prairie Lights Books, Iowa City, IA
 

 

2018

 

Invited Talk. Otis Redding & the Spiritual – Gospel – Soul Continuum. Reynolds – Lake

Oconee. Willson Center for the Humanities. October 4, 2018.

 

Fiction Reading. Lannan Foundation. Marfa, TX, July 15, 2018.

 

Reading / Craft Talk. Smith College Poetry Center. April 12, 2018.

 

Invited Lecture. “Stormy Weather, Warmings Global, and Contemporary Soul-in-Music.”

Georgia Institute of Technology. Atlanta, GA. January 9, 2018.

 

Poetry Reading. Poetry & Tech. Paper Museum, Atlanta, GA. January 9, 2018.

 

 

2017

 

Conference Presentation. “You Meaning We: Ambiguities of Address in Contemporary

Soul.” Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present, Oakland, CA, October 27.

 

Conference Presentation. “Sex, Pleasure, and Violence in Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight.”

Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present, Oakland, CA, October 28.

 

Film Interview. “James Baldwin’s Musical Politics.” Institute for New Economic Thinking.

New York City, October 11.

 

Invited Faculty Lecture. “Facing the Sound: Music and the Deep Structure of Yusef

Komunyakaa’s Lyric Thought,” Furious Flower Conference, June 18-24. James Madison University.

 

Invited Panel Participant. “James Baldwin: Freedom Struggle and the Blues Impulse,”

Oakland Book Festival, Oakland, CA, May 21.

 

Poetry Reading. “Seeing with your life.” Scripps College, Los Angeles, CA, April 3.

 

Invited Talk. “Who Can Afford to Improvise?: James Baldwin, Black Music and the Lyrical

Stakes of Political Speech.” Scripps College, Los Angeles, CA, April 3.

 

Radio Program. “Return of the Prophet: James Baldwin in the 21st Century.” Open Source

Radio, WBUR, Boston, February 23.

 

Panel Presentation. “James Baldwin’s Public Voice in Raoul Peck’s I Am Not Your Negro.”

Institute for African American Studies @ Ciné Theater, Athens, GA, February 22.

 

Panel Presentation. “Instances of the Intimate: Images of Transport in Barry Jenkin’s

Moonlight.” Institute for African American Studies @ Ciné Theater, Athens, GA, February 23.

 

Conference Presentation: “Outward in Larger Terms: Adrienne Rich’s Collected Poems.”

Associated Writing Programs Annual Conference, Washington D.C., March 8.

 

Conference Presentation: “PhD in a MFA World.” Associated Writing Programs Annual

Conference, Washington D.C., March 9.

 

 

2016 

 

 

Conference Presentation: “‘Theme de Yoyo’: The Art Ensemble of Chicago as Soundtrack

to Guerrilla House-Wifery in Les Staces à Sophie (1970).” Celebrating African American Literature: Race and Resistance. Pennsylvania State University, October 20.  

 

Poetry Reading. Hollins University. October 20.

 

Invited Talk. “ESU in Their Eyes.” Portraying & Modeling the Trickster in the African

    American Diaspora, Drexel University, October 11.

 

Invited Talk. “‘The Whole Body of the Sound’: Listening to Jimmy Baldwin Listen.” Franke

    Lectures in the Humanities. Yale University, October 13.  

 

Featured Conference Presentation. Listening Over Jimmy’s Shoulder,” James Baldwin and

Black Music.” James Baldwin International Conference: “A Language to Dwell In,” James Baldwin, Paris, and International Visions. The American University of Paris. May 28.

 

Poetry Reading. Semiotext(e) and Friends, Los Angeles Contemporary Archive, Los Angeles,

    April 2.

 

Poetry Reading. National Poetry Series Selections 2014, AWP Convention Center, April 1.

 

Poetry Reading. Bad Blood Series. Ace Hotel, Los Angeles, California, April 1.

 

Invited Talk. “Poetry, Witnessing and Civil Unrest,” Annenberg School for Communication,

    University of Southern California, March 31.

 

Panel Discussion, “Turning Into Dwelling: A Tribute to Christopher Gilbert, AWP

    Convention Center, March 31.

 

Poetry Reading. UGA Off-Site Event, The Unique Space, Los Angeles, California, March 31.

 

Poetry Reading. Poetry Flash, Moe’s Books, Berkeley, California, March 10.

 

Poetry Reading. The Poetry Center, San Francisco State University, March 10.

 

Poetry Reading. University of California-Merced, March 9.

 

Invited Talk. “Serena Williams and the (Broken) Essay Form,” University of California-Santa

    Cruz. March 8.

 

Poetry Reading. Chabot College, March 7.

 

Invited Talk. “The Poetic Politics of Black English,” Daraja Program, Chabot College, March 7.

 

Poetry Reading. The Poetry Project, St. Mark’s Church, Manhattan, February 10.

 

Invited Talk: James Baldwin and the Political Interior (1954-1957). Africana Studies Program

    and Creative Writing Program, University of Miami, January 28.