HTLabs: Teaching Black Studies with Chicory Magazine

 From 1966-1983, Chicory magazine published the mostly unedited poetry and art of Black working-class Baltimoreans of all ages. It was, in the words of founding editor Sam Cornish, “the magazine for people who don’t like to write but have something to say.” 

In this in-person Humanities Teaching Lab (HTLab), participants will learn about the work of the Chicory Revitalization Project to catalyze intergenerational civic dialogue around place, history and social justice. Like Chicory, this lab’s facilitators work to make spaces where regular folks can make their voices heard.

The workshop will center the Chicory Revitalization Project’s most recent work, “Soul of the Butterfly: ChicoryMagazine and Baltimore’s Black Arts Activism,” an exhibit co-created through a partnership between Rutgers University-Newark, Bard High School Early College, and two Baltimore youth writing organizations, DewMore Baltimore and Writers in Baltimore Schools .

In this HTLab, participants will: 

• Learn more about Soul of the Butterfly as a public humanities project and hear from students who were involved in its creation

• Discuss how to create public humanities projects that center community voices

• Explore Chicory as a resource for local history and Black studies through a hands-on exercise, Remix and Response, that can be used with students. For every Chicory issue, visit Digital Maryland.

• Explore poetry as a tool for examining the relationship between past, present and place

• Reenvision poetry in the classroom to emphasize its relationship to everyday life, not elite or high culture  

Please register by Monday, November 14, 2022. Indicate on the registration form if you will need parking.

Questions? Contact Viridiana Colosio-Martinez, Inclusion Imperative Associate: vcolosi1@umbc.edu. If you are unable to attend, but would like to access a recording of the workshop, please contact Viridiana Colosio-Martinez.