Viva Wakanda

• Wakanda Forever? Yeah, Let’s Talk about That – Adisa A. Alkebulan, Professor, Africana Studies, SDSU
• Searching for Africa in Wakanda – Boatema Boateng, Associate Professor, Communications, UCSD
• Wakanda as a Cinematic Maroon Colony – Zeinabu irene Davis, Professor, Communications, UCSD
• Black Panther and the Afrofuturist Dream - LaWana Richmond, Organizational Development Manager, Transportation Services, UCSD
• Nice for What?: The Dora Milaje and Black Female Rage  - A.C. Workman, Freelance Writer, Family Health Advocate, San Diego County Black Infant Health Program

Adisa A. Alkebulan teaches in the Africana Studies Department at SDSU. His areas of research include Pan-African linguistics, African and African American history. He has done research in Africa and Europe on language and colonialism. He is a major contributor to the Encyclopedia of Black Studies and the Encyclopedia of African Religions. His work appears in several disciplinary journals as well as in anthologies on rhetoric and Malcolm X. Dr. Alkebulan is an active scholar currently engaged in several research projects for publication and presents his research at conferences throughout the country.

Boatema Boateng teaches in the Department of Communication at UCSD. Her research interests include critical legal studies, critical race studies, cultural studies, transnational gender studies, and African Diaspora studies. Her research projects focus on the regulatory dimensions of knowledge and its production. She’s the author of The Copyright Thing Doesn’t Work Here: Adinkra and Kente Cloth and Intellectual Property in Ghana, which explores the ways in which intellectual property law is influenced by questions of nation, gender and race.

Zeinabu Davis teaches in the Department of Communication at UCSD.  She’s an independent filmmaker with numerous award-winning works on the Black female experience. She frequently writes and lectures on African and African American cinema.  Her latest film Spirits of Rebellion chronicles the critically acclaimed Black independent filmmakers, known as the Los Angeles Rebellion, who attended UCLA Film School between the “Watts riots” of 1965 and the uprising that followed the Rodney King verdict in 1992.

LaWana Richmond is passionate about Afrofuturism for many reasons including her enjoyment of all forms of media in the genre, and because of its value as a framework for connecting underrepresented students to STrEAM fields and underserved communities to economic and social planning and development. She recently co-organized the Afrofuturism Lounge, an after-party/counter-con event for Black comic creators, writers, artists, animators, and publishers to share their stories and wares with a diverse audience. Dr. Richmond is an organizational development manager at UCSD, where she also lectures in African American Studies and higher education administration and governance.

A.C. Workman is a freelance writer, Black creative and health equity professional. She serves as a Lead Family Health Advocate with San Diego County Black Infant Health program which works to improve African-American infant and maternal health.