Building the Fugitive Academy
Building the Fugitive Academy: Communication, Culture, Media, & Rhetoric Scholars on the Work of Transformation
In this ongoing moment of global consciousness and uprising about racism, classism, sexism, ableism, and other forms of oppression, collaboratively creating theories and tactics to dismantle violent institutions and create liberatory worlds is necessary and urgent work. This conference is focused on the cooperative historical, theoretical, and skillbuilding portions of transformation, specifically in the context of the disciplines of communication, media studies, cultural studies, and rhetoric. It is intended to respond to multiple exigences, including ongoing conversations about structural whiteness across disciplines. We hope that this event will help to ease the burden of doing inclusion, diversity, equity, and access work in professional organizations, by supporting coalition building and community support. In using the term fugitivity, we take inspiration from and pay homage to Fred Moten and his transformative work in Black Studies. Practicing fugitivity is an urgent and necessary act.
We have organized a conference that has two parts: 1) seminars, with conventional panel discussions and 2) workshops, that emphasize skillbuilding and deliverables. While we will not record seminars, we will record workshops. Workshops will be made available to the public after they have been edited and closed captioned.* Seminars will be live captioned but they will not be recorded or transcribed. We are enthusiastic about meeting as many access needs as possible. Accordingly, we will be providing CART Services for all workshops and seminars. Please do not hesitate to contact us at the email below about additional access needs.
We have imagined this conference ambitiously, as a place for individuals to coalesce and connect around building a progressive academy and learning new histories, theories, and skills. We encourage all participants to ask difficult questions and challenge one another to work more diligently toward inclusion, equity, diversity, and access. While we recognize that the digital format produces opportunities and challenges, we hope that you will join us in the space that we were able to create, in these Zoom webinars as well as the Discord channel that we will use for three months during the conference. We invite you to this conference with a spirit of generosity and grace, as well as mindfulness about the need for an ethic of respect for structurally marginalized groups. We have, you’ll notice, centered people of color and other structurally marginalized groups in these conversations. We recognize that being in a minority white space with a commitment to inclusion will be uncomfortable for some people. However, we hope that everyone will embrace that space, with a sense of openness and humility. While we understand that inadvertently triggering and hurtful comments happen, we will abide by a zero tolerance policy for racist, xenophobic, sexist, queerphobic, transphobic, ageist, fatphobic, classist, and ableist language. We aspire to create a space in which participants feel comfortable showing up as their whole selves, without fear of being demeaned or harassed.
We thank you in advance for joining us in this vision, with these values. Please don’t hesitate to contact us at CMSTConference at gmail dot com if you have questions or concerns.
Land Acknowledgment
Though we are not gathering in the same space, the Building the Fugitive Academy Organizing Committee recognizes that histories of settler colonialism nonetheless mark the lands on which we all live and work. Our recognition reaffirms our commitment to supporting Indigenous rights and expresses our gratitude for all that these lands have provided. We have made a donation to the Warrior Women Project as a meaningful contribution to supporting Indigenous People across the world. We ask you to consider donating to this or another organization of your choice in order to materially support the project of decolonization.
Attendee Recording Release
As an attendee of Building the Fugitive Academy (“BFA”), I understand and accept that all workshops that I attend will be recorded and photographed and that the resulting recordings and photographs (collectively, the “Recordings”) may include my name, voice, performance, likeness, image, and/or words.
I understand and agree that BC and its co-sponsors (“BC”) may make the Recordings from this available to the BC community and general public through Zoom and other media and may use the Recordings for non-commercial, educational and training purposes in perpetuity and throughout the world in any and all media, whether now known or hereafter devised.
I agree not to record or to use any video or audio devices to capture the voice, performance, likeness, image, or words of those participating in any part of the conference or related social activities (this provision shall not be understood to prevent social media posts, so long as they do not contain video or audio recordings). I understand that any person caught recording or photographing co-organizers, speakers, or participants without their express, written consent will be asked to take down the video and/or audio recordings and/or leave the conference, as co-organizers deem appropriate.
Finally, participants acknowledge that they use the BFA Discord channel at their own discretion and risk. This is a space created for BFA participants, without public access. However, while the co-organizers of Building the Fugitive Academy are offering that space for conversation, they will not moderate, manage, or mediate it in any way.
The Building the Fugitive Academy Organizing Committee
Our Sponsors
