Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

The Importance Of Black Love In Romance Novels, University Marketing And Communications, Julie Moody-Freeman

DePaul Download

For Julie Moody-Freeman, reading Black romance novels isn’t a guilty pleasure - it’s an area of study. Moody-Freeman is the director of DePaul's Center for Black Diaspora and a faculty member in the African and Black Diaspora Studies Department. On this episode, she discusses the history and importance of Black love in romance novels, which inspires her work as the host of The Black Romance Podcast. She also reflects on her conversations with Black romance writers, editors and scholars and the importance of their oral histories.

Sky Cubacub Interview, Spencer Nieto

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: Rebirth Garments are designed and made by hand by Sky Cubacub. Sky is a non-binary queer and disabled Filipinx human from Chicago, IL with life long anxiety and panic disorders. Sky first dreamed of this collection while in high school and couldn’t find a place where they could buy a chest binder as a person who was under 18, and who didn't have access to a credit card to buy one online. Sky is especially interested in Rebirth Garments being accessible to queer and disabled youth and is working on creating a program for making free/reduced priced garments …

Heather C. Lou Interview, Katie O’Reilly

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: heather c. lou, m.ed. (she/her/hers) is an angry gemini earth dragon, multiracial, asian, queer, cisgender, disabled, survivor/surviving, depressed, and anxious womxn of color artist based in st. paul, minnesota. her mixed media pieces include watercolor, acrylic, gold paint pen, oil pastel, radical love, & hope. each piece comments on the intersections of her racial, gender, ability, & sexual identities, as they continue to shift and develop in complexity each day. her art is a form of healing, transformation, and liberation, rooted in womxnism and gender equity through a racialized borderland lens. heather works in education as an administrator. …

Ada Cheng Interview, Zishuo Wang

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Ada Cheng is the host of the storytelling show Pour One Out, a monthly storytelling series at Volumes Bookcafe. She is also the producer and host of the show Am I Man Enough? a storytelling/podcasting show, where people tell personal stories to critically examine the culture of toxic masculinity and the construction of masculinity and manhood. In addition, she is the co-producer and co-host of Talk Stories, an Asian American/Asian diaspora storytelling show, along with Randy Kim, a show where they showcase Asian/Asian American storytellers and performing artists.

Raeleen Kao Interview, Beena Patel

Asian American Art Oral History Project

BIO: Raeleen Kao is a drawer, printmaker, and amateur competitive eater aka glutton residing in Chicago with a Charles Brand etching press, a red tabby, and forty plants.

Her prints and drawings have been exhibited in museums and galleries across the country most notably at the International Museum of Surgical Science, the Monmouth Museum of Art, Bert Green Fine Art, the Smith College Museum of Art, Tory Folliard Gallery, Firecat Projects, and Normal Editions Workshop. Her work has been represented at SELECT Fair New York, the Editions and Artist Books Fair in New York, the Cleveland Fine Print Fair, the …

Renluka Maharaj Interview, Steven Zych

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Renluka Maharaj grew up in the country of Trinidad and Tobago and moved to New York as a child where spent most of her life. Her Eastern and Western background wrapped with modern sensibilities is evident in her bodies of work. Her interests are centered on gender roles, sexuality, colonialism, mythology, iconography and fetishism. Some of the artists that have influenced her work are Yinka Shonibare and Yasumasa Morimura.

Ms. Maharaj completed her BFA at the University of Colorado Boulder and is currently completing her MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she received the …

Prem Sharma Interview, Ester Lee

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio [by Ester Lee]: As a co-founder of Apna Ghar, Inc. (Our Home) a shelter for surviving women and children of domestic violence was founded in 1989, Prem Sharma also helped create the Club of Indian Women and the Indo-Crisis Line prior to this. Since moving to Chicago in 1972, Ms. Sharma has been actively involved with various South Asian organizations such as Chitrahar (South Asian television show), India Tribune, The Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago, the Association of Indians in America, and the Indian Medical Association. An accomplished self-taught artist, Ms. Sharma has supported the arts and …

Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai Interview, Flor Sigaran

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai is a Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based Chinese Taiwanese American spoken word artist who fights for cultural pride and survival through how she spits and how she lives.

Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai has been featured in over 400 performances worldwide at venues including the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, the House of Blues, the Apollo Theater, Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and three seasons of the award-winning “Russell Simmons Presents HBO Def Poetry.” The author of Inside Outside Outside Inside (2004) and Thought Crimes (2005) and the CD Infinity Breaks (2006), Tsai has shared stages with Mos Def, KRS-One, Sonia Sanchez, Talib Kweli, Erykah …