Staging Black Girl Utopias: A Sweetwater Tribute

Ruth Nicole Brown is Associate Professor in Gender and Women's Studies and Education Policy, Organization and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is author of several books on black girlhood, including Hear Our Truths: The Creative Potential of Black Girlhood (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2013) and Black Girlhood Celebration: Toward A Hip-Hop Feminist Pedagogy (New York: Peter Lang, 2009). Correspondence to: Ruth Nicole Brown, Gender and Women's Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 911 S. Sixth Street, MC–494, Champaign, IL 61820, USA. Email: rnbrown@illinois.edu.

Durell Maurice Callier is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. An interdisciplinary scholar–artist, his primary research interests explore the relationships among blackness, queerness, performance, and power. Correspondence to: Durell Maurice Callier, Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 351 Education Building, 1310 S. Sixth Street, MC–708, Champaign, IL 61820, USA. Email: callier2@illinois.edu.

Porshe R. Garner is a doctoral student in the Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her primary research explores the storytelling practice of black girls in Saving Our Lives Hear Our Truths (SOLHOT). Correspondence to: Porshe R. Garner, Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 351 Education Building, 1310 S. Sixth Street, MC–708, Champaign, IL 61820, USA. Email: pgarne3@illinois.edu.

Dominique C. Hill is a Heanon Wilkins postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Educational Leadership in the College of Education, Health & Society at Miami University. Critical educator, dancer, lover, body-activator, black girl, she is an interdisciplinary scholar who focuses on sociocultural issues in education, black girlhood, and the body as a site of cultural production, imagining, and a vessel for inquiry. Her work sits at the intersection of gender and sexuality studies, performance studies, and social and cultural foundations. As a scholar–artist, she aims to create scholarship that is vulnerable, embodied, community accountable, artistic, and transgressive. Correspondence to: Dominique C. Hill, Department of Educational Leadership, College of Education, Health & Society, 304 McGuffey Hall, Miami University, 501 E. High Street, Oxford, OH 45056, USA. Email: domhill7@gmail.com.

Porsha Olayiwola—black, dyke, poet, lover, hip-hop feminist, womanist friend—is a performance artist who believes in pixie dust and second chances. A resident of Boston, by way of Chicago, She is the 2014 Individual World Performance Slam Champion and Haley House co-founder. Her intention is to speak, love, and maintain a cypher that is undocumented, uncontrollable, and just plain ol' dope. She is also a teaching artist who loves the young folks. Email: polayiw2@gmail.com.

Jessica L. Robinson is a doctoral student in the Department of Educational Policy, Organization and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and works with the SOLHOT organizing collective. She is a lover and fighter from the Midwest (Chicago by way of St. Louis, MO). From the age of 14, she has worked as a reproductive justice community working in various capacities. Her current research interests include cultural politics and representation in visual and sonic digital spaces, performance studies, reproductive justices, girls' studies, and community organizing. Correspondence to: Jessica L. Robinson, Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 351 Education Building, 1310 S. Sixth Street, MC–708, Champaign, IL 61820, USA. Email: jrobins5@illinois.edu.