About the participants:

Vanessa Agard-Jones is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University, where she also serves on the Executive Council of the Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality and is affiliated with the Institute for Research in African-American Studies.

Rizvana Bradley is Assistant Professor of History of Art and African-American Studies at Yale University.

Dionne Brand is a renowned poet, novelist, and essayist. She is currently Professor of English at the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph, Ontario.

Tina Campt is Claire Tow and Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Africana and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College. She is also Director of the Barnard Center for Research on Women.

Aimee Meredith Cox is jointly appointed as an Associate Professor in the departments of African American Studies and Anthropology at Yale University.

Denise Ferreira da Silva is a Professor and Director of The Social Justice Institute (the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice) at the University of British Columbia.

Saidiya Hartman is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.

Zakiyyah Iman Jackson is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Southern California.

Grada Kilomba is an interdisciplinary artist and writer, born in Lisbon and currently living in Berlin.

Lorraine O’Grady is a New York–based conceptual and performance artist and a critic.

Okwui Okpokwasili is a New York–based writer, performer, and choreographer.

Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts is an American writer and historian currently based in New York.

Christina Sharpe is an author and Professor in the Department of Humanities at York University, Toronto.

Françoise Vergès is a French political scientist, historian, author, and feminist.

Simone White is a poet based in Brooklyn. She is the winner of the 2017 Whiting Award in Poetry.

Loophole of Retreat: A Conference