The series is co-curated by noted local African American scholars and is made possible in part by the generous support of the NC Humanities Council.ĭescribed as a willingness to press on through difficult circumstances even when the outlook is decidedly bleak, this 8-month celebration of resilience, creativity, advocacy, and determination is in the African American tradition of way-making. Registration is required.Ībout NorthStar 2022 Way Out Of No Way Humanities SeriesĮight community engagement presentations from January to August 2022 will include lectures, literary readings, and panel discussions on a variety of topics linked by an overarching theme of creativity in making a Way Out of No Way. Attendees are encouraged to make a one-time donation in support of future NorthStar programming. adrienne is also working with a large team to produce a tarot deck honoring Octavia’s wisdom.Īll series events are free and open to the public. This is currently practiced through Octavia’s Parables, a podcast in which adrienne and Toshi Reagon read Octavia Butler’s work chapter by chapter. You’ll experience words about how reparations to the descendants of enslaved Africans lead to surprising biological changes, an audio fragment from the year 2067 showing the triumph over competition and death by those who understand that ‘our roots are intertwined,’ and swirling ‘spells’ playing on the edge of poetry with directives, chants, and world-bending efforts to engage the present toward a different future.”Īdrienne has helped to cultivate work and thinking about Octavia Butler and Emergent Strategy, gathering a loose knit global network of people interested in reading Octavia’s work from a political and strategic framework. Her most beloved story, ‘The River,’ two sequels, fourteen tales, and nineteen poems explore moments of beauty, conflict, and transformation weaving deep, radical lessons into the folds of the fantastical.

Fables and Spells is “a gathering, a vibration selection of speculative works, both previously published and brand new. Her most recent title, which NorthStar’s Way Out of No Way Humanities Series will highlight, Fables and Spells: Collected and New Short Stories and Poemsis set for release by AK Press on May 17, 2022. She is the co-host of the How to Survive the End of the World, Octavia’s Parables and Emergent Strategy podcasts. ADRIENNE MAREE BROWN PRESENTS AFROFUTURISTIC WAY-MAKING STRATEGIES THROUGH REMEMBRANCE & NEW TITLE FOR BLACK FUTURES MONTH 2022Īdrienne maree brown is the writer-in-residence at the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute, and author of Grievers, Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation, We Will Not Cancel Us and Other Dreams of Transformative Justice, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds and the co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements.

Adrienne maree brown holding change