Seminole State Speaker Series and Zora Festival host Dr. Regina Bradley
Thursday, January 28, 2021
Written by: Mark Richardson
Seminole State’s ongoing Speaker Series hosted its second event of the 2020-21 academic year on Wednesday, Jan. 27. In partnership with the 32nd Annual Zora Neale Hurston® Festival of the Arts and Humanities (ZORA!® Festival), the Speaker Series presented a Zoom webinar with Dr. Regina N. Bradley, author of Boondock Kollage: Stories from the Hip Hop South.
Dr. Bradley discussed the cultural significance of hip hop, with emphasis on the Atlanta based hip hop duo OutKast, André "3000" Benjamin and Antwan "Big Boi" Patton, and how they used hip hop starting in the mid-1990s to expand definitions of southern Blackness and their representations of a consistently evolving performance of race, region and identity.
"For me, Hip Hop was an access point for me in understanding what the civil rights south was about. The book is not a biography about OuKast, it’s not a play-by-play of OutKast, so to speak, but more so thinking about how we can theorize OutKast’s body of work to conceptualize an understanding of southern blackness after the southern civil rights movement,” said Bradley. "But ultimately what I think the Hip Hop South represents is there are multiple networks of intersecting southern experiences, multiple impacts on the civil rights movement so the south isn’t monolithic, there’s not one way to be southern.”
The presentation included a Q&A session.
Seminole State’s Speaker Series is co-sponsored by Addition Financial. All Speaker Series events are free and open to the public. The views expressed by speakers are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Seminole State College of Florida, its Board of Trustees, employees, students, alumni or partners.
For more information, please visit seminolestate.edu/speaker-series
Founded in 1937 by 23 educators, Addition Financial serves more than 150,000 members. With more than $1.74 billion in total assets, Addition Financial offers its members an array of financial products and services at 22 full-service branches, nine high school branches, and more than 40 ATMs. Anyone who lives, works, worships, volunteers, or attends school in Orange, Seminole, Osceola, and Lake Counties may become a member. Qualified businesses and other entities may join as well. Addition Financial is the Official Financial Institution of the UCF Knights and owns the naming rights to the Addition Financial Arena on the University of Central Florida campus. Addition Financial is also the Preferred Credit Union for Seminole State College.
About the Speaker SeriesEach year, the Seminole State Speaker Series welcomes speakers representing diverse views and interests. With a wide range of speakers and topics, the Speaker Series contributes to the College's mission by enhancing the cultural vitality of our community. For more information and to view a list of previous speakers at Seminole State, visit seminolestate.edu/speaker-series.