Christen A. Smith, Dána-Ain Davis, and Sameena Mulla on Cite Black Women

Imagine Otherwise by Ideas on Fire

Centuries of Black feminist intellectuals have demonstrated how knowledge production is always deeply political, revealing whose labor and lives we value. Publicly citing and generously engaging with the contributions that others have made to our thinking is a crucial way we remake the world.

In episode 135 of Imagine Otherwise, host Cathy Hannabach interviews Christen A. Smith, Dána-Ain Davis, and Sameena Mulla, the three co-editors of the recent ground-breaking special issue of Feminist Anthropology, which focuses on the Cite Black Women movement that honors Black women’s transnational intellectual production.

The Ideas on Fire team has been privileged to copyedit the Feminist Anthropology journal from its inception, and the Cite Black Women special issue is a superb illustration of the powerful political and ethical transformations this journal and the Cite Black Women movement bring to academic publishing and everyday life.

In the conversation, Christen, Dána, Sameena, and Cathy discuss the pleasures and challenges of overhauling academic publishing workflows and norms so that they can embody an intersectional, transnational feminist praxis.

They also chat about what it means to honor our intellectual and communal forbearers, which this special issue does in the form of a tribute to the late Dr. Leith Mullings from colleagues, friends, comrades, and former students whose intellectual and personal lives were forever changed through her lifelong commitment to racial, economic, and gender justice.

And finally, they close out the conversation with reflections on why making room for marginalized people to speak, write, and publish is a key way we all think and live knowledge production otherwise.

Transcript and show notes: https://ideasonfire.net/135-smith-davis-mulla