Khalid Long, PhD candidate, gets published in the inaugural issue of Continuum journal

Khalid Yaya Long’s article, “Mourning, Orature, and Memory: Cultural Performativity as Historiography in Pearl Cleage’s A Song for Coretta” was published in the inaugural issue of the peer-reviewed online journal Continuum.Click here to read the article

Khalid Yaya Long’s article, “Mourning, Orature, and Memory: Cultural Performativity as Historiography in Pearl Cleage’s A Song for Coretta” was published in the inaugural issue of the peer-reviewed online journal Continuum; The Journal of African Diaspora Drama, Theatre and Performance

Click here to read the article

Abstract

This essay explores how Pearl Cleage’s play, A Song for Coretta, engages with certain paradigms of cultural performativity, namely mourning, orature, memory, and history. In doing so, the play is explored through theatre, performance, and cultural theories. Analyzing the play in this manner, it can be critically seen how Cleage joins fellow playwrights in their use of playwriting as historiographical method to document the African American experience.

Khalid Yaya Long is a PhD student in the Theatre and Performance Studies program at the University of Maryland, College Park. His research focuses on African American/Diasporic theatre history, drama, and performance; intersections of race, gender, class, and sexuality; directing and acting. Currently serving as the graduate student representative for the Black Theatre Association (ATHE), Khalid’s intended dissertation project traces the development of Black feminist aesthetics through the life and work of Glenda Dickerson.