Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute Research Colloquium Series

ZOOM LINK

Meeting ID: 918 8978 7950
Passcode: 363060

Acting Free: Black Girl Performances of Play

Speaker: Aja Reynolds, PhD, Assistant Professor, College of Education, Wayne State University

Child/adolescent developmental theorists promote “play” as necessary engagement for children to develop linguistic, cognitive and social skills, as well as general personality development. Brown (2014) explores this concept, drawing heavily on disciplines lodged in performance studies and her own research with Black girls to examine “play” in the form of Wreckless Theatrics. Brown (2014) conceptualizes “play” as a site for “opportunities to tell multiple truths of those typically unheard, and, when spoken out loud, and the act of telling feels a lot like freedom” (36). The act of play and expressions of joy and laughter are radical acts for Black girls in a culture that heavily polices their behavior and appearance. Black girls in the U.S. are systematically adultified, dehumanized, and have no right to defend themselves (Spillers, 1987). Dr. Reynold’s talk will apply an intersectional analysis to look at the loss of childhood for Black girls in Chicago and will center their narratives, expanding the narrow ways we discuss the possibilities of play. She will also center the politics of play as a site for radical imaginations to manifest, not only for young people, but adults as well.