Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere

Featuring: Asha Winfield

In this conversation, Winfield discusses functions of Black popular culture as it relates to, depicts, and covers Black health issues. Black reality television often shares the complexities of Black realities and on occasion includes Black women’s health as a part of its “edutainment” or cultural pedagogy: Put in the context of race, sex, health, and class, we ask the question: who is able to share the health stories that impact Black women on large scales? What stories are they sharing and who does it impact? This discussion will focus primarily on the epidemic impacting almost 80% of African America women–uterine fibroids– using media examples seen on Bravo’s Real Housewives of Atlanta and Married to Medicine, and OWN’s Belle Collective.

This event is free and open to the public. This event kicks off Blackness 360°: Art, Culture, Health, and Futures, a series of curated experiences designed to deepen knowledge about the multiplicity and complexity of Blackness and Black experiences. The series is organized by UF Black Affairs in partnership with its 2020-21 Faculty Fellow. Support provided by co-sponsors: UF Center for Arts Migration and Entrepreneurship, UF Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies Research, UF Center for Humanities and the Public Sphere, UF Center for Latin American Studies, and The Power Lab.

https://ufl.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0lfuCsrjkrEtDQ6r-rfIaipp2PNB1i6e_7

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Asha Winfield, M.A. is a doctoral candidate at Texas A&M University in the Department of Communication where she studies the stories of Black individuals and groups occurring in the media, culture, and society. As a researcher and filmmaker, her goal is to use intersectionality, critical race theory, and Black feminist thought to frame and center the stories and experiences of Black people as it relates to audience reception, identity making, and storytelling. She is a 2012 graduate of Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, and a 2015 graduate of the University of Houston in Houston, Texas. Her dissertation, Say Her Name, Tell Her Story: Exploring Black Collective Memory, Nostalgic Narratives & Critical Representation in Black Women’s Biopics, is set to be released by the summer of 2021.