The associate professor of English and coordinator of the university's African & African-American Studies program proposed, organized, chaired and presented research in Black female resistance with Elon University senior strategic communications major Raven Bennett.
The 38th Annual National Council for Black Studies conference was hosted March 5-8, 2014, by the University of Miami in Miami, Fla.
Associate Professor Prudence Layne’s paper, “Neither Rich, Nor Free, but We are Brave! Black Female Social Entrepreneurship in Post-Apartheid South Africa,” formed part of the panel session titled “Righting/Writing Her Place in the World: Constructions of The (Thankfully) Rebellious Black Woman.”
The panel forms part of an ongoing AAASE initiative to encourage more participation among African and African-descended students in undergraduate research. As part of her ongoing scholarship on Black female resistance, Layne has spent the past year conducting research with students on various dimensions of the subject. For example, she serves as the research mentor for Raven Bennett, a strategic communications major and African & African-American studies minor whose presentation at the NCBS conference was titled “Resisting Erasure: Representations of the Fat, Black Woman in the U.S. Media.”
Layne’s NCBS paper is derived from her work in the short-term study abroad winter program she leads to South Africa and her upcoming sabbatical project to explore the life, work and industries of Black South African social entrepreneurs working in the arts.
Layne and Bennett have been invited to present their research and to discuss their collaboration at the Mico University College in Jamaica in April.
Any student interested in pursuing Black Studies research and in accessing related topics in their disciplines and fields should email playne@elon.edu.