Michelle Habell-Pallán on "Plurifeminisms Across Abya Yala"

Michelle Habell-Pallán from The University of Washington's Simpson Center presents "Plurifeminisms Across Abya Yala," in a spotlight by the CHCI Public Humanities Network. This video was co-organized with Co-Project Investigator Cricket Keating (Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies) and Collaborator Sonnet Retman (American Ethnic Studies). The video features clips from a performance at the event by Gabriela Cano aka Black Mama (Hip hop artist, Chachi, Ecuador).

At the upcoming CHCI 2023 Annual Meeting in Santiago, Chile, Habell-Pallán will present a conversation titled, "Possibilities and Challenges of Interpretation and Translation across Languages Spoken within the Continent of the Americas in Public Humanities Scholarship," as a part of our conference's Breakfast Conversations program.

As the Director of the Certificate for Public Critical Race Scholarship, which was developed within the University of Washington Simpson Center for the Humanities, I propose to lead a conversation about the possibility and challenges of supporting public humanities scholarship’s interpretation and translation across languages spoken within the continent of the Americas. How can studies of the humanities in European and non-European languages generate collaborations that acknowledge the mutual benefit of plurinational and intercultural relationships between music, art, literature, philosophy, and social media? I am eager to connect with members who are curious about these questions and possibilities. have been working with my UCLA colleague Maylei Blackwell (who is an invited speaker for this year’s symposium in Chile) on these questions and we are hoping to open this conversation to others. I will be sharing my own experiences of my five-year collaboration with Black and Indigenous-identified feminist musicians from Ecuador who theorize in Spanish, Kichwa, and English with the goal of prompting others to share their own experiences and insights.

Michelle Habell-Pallán, is Professor of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington (UW) Seattle. She holds appointments in the School of Music and Department of Communication as well. She was past Director of the UW Simpson Center’s Certificate for Public Scholarship and is now the current Director of the Certificate for Public Critical Race Scholarship for the UW Center for Communication, Diversity, and Equity. She co-directs the UW Libraies Womxn Who Rock: Making Scenes, Building Communities Oral History Archive. In partnership with the Smithsonian Institution, she co-curated/authored the exhibit & book American Sabor: Latinos in U.S. Popular Music. She recently authored “’Girl in a Coma” Tweets Chicanafuturism: Decolonial Visions, Social Media, & Archivista Praxis,” and creates community music with the Seattle Fandango Project. She received the Barclay Simpson Prize for Scholarship in Public in addition to the 2021 UW Award for the Advancement of Learning Communities. Her current in-process manuscript includes Chicanxfuturism which examines the sound of futurity produced by feminista musicians across Abya Yala.