"Black Feminist Poetics and Language Teaching"
Luana Reis
Ph.D. Candidate and Portuguese Instructor, University of Pittsburgh 

This talk discusses the inclusion of Black feminist poetic texts in language teaching. The objective is to rethink the roles of students and teachers in the classroom environment and contribute to inspiring new ideas and teaching practices. Black women's voices in poetry may promote the development of pedagogical proposals that encourage a critical reading of the world in educational practices. 

Bio: Luana Reis is a poet, educator, and Black feminist scholar. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Literature at the University of Pittsburgh, where she teaches Portuguese and conducts research on Contemporary Black Women Literature and Quilombismo/Maroonage. As founder and president of the poetry collective, "ADDverse+Poesia" (@addversepoesia), she brings writers and audiences together across the hemisphere, using the power of poetry for engaging a range of issues – particularly race and gender, freedom and refuge, and language and identity. She is a board member of Mulherio das Letras - USA chapter, a collective of researchers and creative writers whose goal is to unite the voices of women from the Lusophone world who live in the United States. She is also one of the coordinators of the "KilombaCollective," the first collective formed by Black Brazilian women in the United States. 

This event will be held in person in G25 Stimson and will also be streamed live over Zoom. Join us at the LRC or on Zoom.

The event is free and open to the public. Campus visitors and members of the public must adhere to Cornell's public health requirements for events.

Co-sponsored by the Language Resource Center, the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program, and the Institute of African Development through their respective Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language (UISFL) grants from the U.S. Department of Education.