Goyland Williams to Give Talk on His Scholarship

Goyland Williams, a candidate for the Jackie McLean Fellowship nominated by the School of Communication, will give a talk on his scholarship Thursday, March 18 at 9:55 a.m.-10:55 a.m. All at the University are welcome to attend this event at this link on Blackboard Collaborate. 

Goyland is a PhD candidate in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst where he is a R.E.A.L Fellow (Research Enhancement And Leadership Fellowship) and a recipient of the W.E.B. Du Bois Graduate Fellowship at the Du Bois Center.  

Specializing in Rhetoric and Performance Studies, his research is situated in Black studies, social movement rhetoric, Africana critical theory, cultural criticism and performance theory|(auto)ethnography. Goyland’s dissertation theorizes what he calls Black Interruptions as a way to think more about the ways that conditions of daily life, of everyday oppressions–both quotidian and extralegal–, of survival, and of Black affect (Black joy and sorrow) both structure and undergird African American expressive life and cultural imagination. Using “Interruptions” as his theoretical and methodological approach, his research probes the persistence and viability of these disruptions as a basis for organizing and being together in the Black community.  

Goyland’s public facing scholarship and lectures have been featured in The Art of Voting, Race Baitr, The Black Teacher Project, SXSW Interactive Festival, the Health Equity Lab Summit, Texas State University Philosophy Dialogue Series, and “Let’s Talk With JMO.” His academic research has been published in The Journal of the Speech and Theatre Association of Missouri and is forthcoming in Argumentation and Advocacy and #Verzuz and Club Quarantine: Sustaining Black Music and Black Culture During COVID-19 which will be published by Lexington Press. 

His scholarship has examined the special challenges and opportunities of teaching Black students, and of teaching as a Black person.  Contact Jack Banks at jbanks@hartford.edu for more information about this event.