Reclaiming Time: Race, Temporality, and Black Expressive Culture

The Africana Studies Fall 2025 Black Studies Speaker Series presents: Dr. Isaiah Matthew Wooden, Associate Professor and Department Chair, Swarthmore College

Reclaiming Time: Race, Temporality, and Black Expressive Culture examines works by contemporary Black artists in multiple media—drama, film, performance art, and photography—that trouble dominant conceptualizations and normative configurations of time in relation to race in the twenty-first century. Isaiah Matthew Wooden explores the ways in which an intentional and sometimes ludic engagement with time and temporality has enabled these artists to probe urgent questions and themes concerning the conditions of contemporary Black life.