Wish to Live

Ruth Nicole Brown (PhD in political science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) is an artist-scholar and an assistant professor in the Departments of Gender and Women's Studies and Education Policy, Organization and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of Black Girlhood Celebration: Toward a Hip-Hop Feminist Pedagogy (Peter Lang, 2009).Chamara Jewel Kwakye (PhD in educational policy studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) is a scholar, storyteller, and performer. She is currently a Chancellor's Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of African American Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Kwakye is currently writing a book that documents the life histories of Black women in the Academy.

«Wish to Live is an insightful, intergenerational account capturing the contemporary politics and poetics of hip-hop feminism. The diversity of voices featured is matched by the multiple writing forms that take the reader from ‘extralocal’ autoethnographies to exacting popular cultural criticism. Each contributor grapples with the complexities of social identity in a ‘post’ world and takes up hip-hop as part art, activism, pedagogy, and lived reality. Editors Ruth Nicole Brown and Chamara Jewel Kwakye recommend the chapters be performed or read aloud. Its intent is to inform, incite, and transform. The stories will move you. Wish to Live breathes life into hip-hop feminism. It is because of their flesh-filled and affirming approach to describing the hip-hop genderation that this Reader will be an invaluable resource for the burgeoning field.» (Aisha Durham, Co-editor and Author of Home Girls Make Some Noise!: Hip Hop Feminism Anthology)«If I had only one wish to give, it would be that anyone who has any kind of interactions in the lives of young women of color be required to read Wish to Live: The Hip-Hop Feminism Pedagogy Reader. This creative and innovative exploration into hip-hop, feminism, and education is poised to take hip-hop feminist thought and activism – indeed the field of hip-hop studies – to the next level. The contributors in this volume prove that when and where young women of color enter the hip-hop cipher the entire game gets real and lives change! This book is a must-read – not just for hip-hop heads and educators – for anyone who claims to care about the lives of young women and girls.» (Gwendolyn D. Pough, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Women's and Gender Studies, Syracuse University)

• Contents: Dominique C. Hill: An Unapologetic Lyric: A Warrior’s Battle for Space in Education – Tanya Kozlowski: Who Wants 2 b Hard? A Lesbian of Color Critiques the Phrase «No Homo» in Hip-Hop – Darlene Vinicky: (Progressive) Hip-Hop Cartography – Zenzele Isoke: Lighting the Fire: Hip-Hop Feminism in a Midwestern Classroom – Ruth Nicole Brown: For Oya: I Love Myself Dancing… and Then Again When I Am Boxed in and Overwhelmed – Adilia James: The Black Girl Body as a Site of Sexual Terrorism – Christina Carney: The Politics of Representation for Black Women and the Impossibility of Queering the New Jersey 4/7 – Sheri Davis-Faulkner: Camp Carrot Seed: Reflections on a Critical Pedagogic Project – Chamara Jewel Kwakye: Dr. Theresa Bayarea: Dancing to Make Freedom – Shaunita Levison: Freedom Schools and Ella Baker – Porsha Olayiwola: Performance: «My legacy of imagination is not lost.». The Almighty and Most Powerful – Loy A. Webb: I Am A Woman – Tanya Kozlowski/Irene Christine Zavarsky/Christina Armstrong: Body Cypher Love: A Remix: A Hip-Hop Feminist Project – Blair Ebony Smith: Black Girl Night Talk – Durell Callier: Acting Out: A Performative Exploration of Identity, Healing, and Wholeness – Grenita Hall: Get It Girl Moments: A Reflection on Dance and Research – Sesali Bowen: The Bad Bitch Society: Discovering Love through Writing and the New Hip-Hop – Precious McClendon: Show Yo’ Self – Christina Armstrong: A Conversation with Black Artemis – Lena Foote: A Mother and Daughter Talk Hip-Hop – J. Sean Callahan: Summer Vacation in B’ham, Alabama, or Southern Fried Feminism – DaYanna Crider: I Love Music! – Kristen Smith: In the Words of Others We Find Ourselves – Sheri Lewis: Youth (Young Adult) Organizing – Jessica Robinson: Can We Be for Black Girls and against Their Sexuality? – Porshe Garner: Check-In – Taylor-Imani Linear: On Being in the Service of Someone Else’s Shine – Desiree McMillion: To the Visionary – Claudine Taaffe: Portrait of a Black Girl: Seeing Is NOT Believing.