Power Tools and Wax Figures: Learning and Co-Teaching with Baltimore Communities, Part 1

Description

"Power Tools and Wax Figures" is a two-event session integrated into the American Studies Association annual meeting hosted by the Center for Social Concern's Engaged Scholar Faculty and Community Partner Fellows Program.

First, Joanne Martin, founder and president of the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum, along with Jasmine Blanks Jones, executive director of the Center for Social Concern, will have a fireside chat about the founding and history of the museum within the framework of Reparative Arts in Community Engagement (RACE).

Then, under the direction of Janice Greene, Maryland's state Griot, and course co-educator, students from the Blackstorytelling: Public Health in the Black World course will perform material including short plays, monologues, poems, and readings of children's books developed in support of the museum's community education efforts. These performances will be given throughout the exhibit space over the course of the evening.

Attendees will also have an opportunity to meet with the community-engaged scholars, community partners, and select students. There will be formal and informal opportunities for dialogue and exchange, and every attendee will be given a special, hand-made Risograph zine/program—limited to an edition of 300—that will include further information about the Engaged Scholar program's nonprofit partners, best practices in the community-based learning space, and a list of suggested readings and additional resources for scholars and instructors curious about building effective, meaningful, and lasting community collaborations.

For American Studies Association annual meeting: The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum is 2.7 miles northeast of the conference site.

The community-based courses discussed over this two-part session include:

• Homayra Ziad: Never Forget: Muslims, Islamophobia, and Dissent after 9/11 (with a virtual presentation by community partner Darakshan Raja, executive director of Muslims for Just Futures)
• Victoria Harms: Through the Lens of 1968: Exploring Baltimore's Past and Present with Co-Educators, Eyewitnesses, Friends
• Anne-Elizabeth Brodsky: Listening and Practicing with Baltimore Symphony OrchKids
• Nate Brown: Build, Borrow, Repair: Writing with the Station North Tool Library
• Jasmine Blanks Jones: RACE and Blackstorytelling: Reparative Arts in Community Engagement