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I most appreciated Dr. Thompson’s talk for her remarkable ability to weave humor into a discussion of the complexities of Black womanhood and motherhood; subjects that are often incredibly heavy and filled with trauma. She seamlessly wove humor into her performance, creating a space where the audience could engage with a difficult subject matter in a way that felt both accessible and deeply impactful. Her approach reminded me of how essential joy and comedy are when navigating conversations about hardship and resilience. Often times, discussions about Black experiences (particularly those of Black women and mothers) focus solely on struggle, pain, and survival. While these realities should never be ignored, it is just as important to acknowledge the moments of levity, love, and laughter that sustain people through difficulty.

As I have explored in my "Black Inner Lives" class with Professor Miller, no person or community can exist in a perpetual state of resistance. Living only in survival mode is unsustainable. There must be room for joy, for reprieve, and for the fullness of human experience; which certainly includes humor. Many within the Black community turn to laughter as a form of healing, as a way to process the weight of their experiences, and as an act of resistance against a world that often ignores Black humanity. Dr. Thompson’s talk fully reflected this by demonstrating that humor does not diminish the gravity of an issue but can actually enhance the discussion by making space for both the difficult and the joyful. She impressively struck a balance, ensuring that her humor never overshadowed the very real vulnerabilities, fears, and anxieties that Black women and mothers face every day. Instead, her performance reinforced the idea that laughter and struggle are not mutually exclusive; they coexist, and in many ways, they depend on each other.

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One difficulty that Thompson explores in her articles is balancing the roles of both artist and scholar, particularly as a Black woman in academia, where these identities are often seen as separate or even conflicting. Additionally, she explores the issue of Black women's representation in media, and critiques how mainstream narratives often overlook the ways Black women uniquely navigate race, class, gender, and sexuality.

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One difficulty that Thompson discusses in her articles is the difficulties and possibilities of being both a creative writer and an academic, arguing that the academy often discourages or marginalizes those who refuse to conform to a singular disciplinary identity. She also reinforces the need for a more nuanced portrayal of Black women and womanhood in literature, media, and academia, challenging the limited narratives that often define them.

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Thompson writes about her experiences as what she calls a Black feminist artist/scholar: someone who both teaches/works in academia and creates art in the public sphere. She notes that this phenomenon of Black artists/scholars is not new--citing such examples as W.E.B. Dubois and Toni Morrison. Thompson brings up the issue of "dancing on the line," which is to acknowledge that there is an intersection between art and academia, and that any one person can exist in both spaces at the same time. She highlights the ways in which our society criticizes Black women and expects them to not be able to "dance on the line." Thompson is concerned with the issue of representation for Black women, and seeks to have nuance for their portrayals.

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Thompson explores the need for adequate representation of middle-class Black women in media as they navigate the complex intersections of race, gender, and sexuality, emphasizing their right to control their narratives and live freely. She also discusses how Black women can integrate their identities into their scholarship and art to challenge rigid disciplinary boundaries and create work that reflects their authenticity.

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Thompson discusses the reality of trying to live "seamlessly" and the difficulties that arise in response to her efforts to both work and showcase her work within the rigid spaces of the academy and the theatre. She also celebrates the richness of black culture as a site of artistic inspiration while engaging with the absence/restricted presence of black women within dominant media.

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One difficulty that stood out to me from Thompson was the juxtaposition she felt while trying to navigate being an artist and an academic. She wrote on how she had to "slash" between both worlds that don't "understand" each other. This navigation between two worlds in my opinion transcends just art and academia and can be seen throughout all aspects of Black life. How many institutions aim to curb Black progress.

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Part 1

Thompson is examining several complexities of Blackness. Thompson explores the challenges Black women authors face in portraying Black-middle class female sexuality. She discusses how societal expectations and stereotypes often pressure these authors to conform to restrictive narratives, that limit authentic expressions and identity. Thompson is also addressing the internal conflict writers experience as they navigate the tension between personal expression (dancing, performance) and communal responsibility (academia, authorship, teaching).

Part 2

Dr. Thompson's lecture has me considering how the Black body navigates white spaces. And how often it compels Black and Brown individuals to engage in performative behaviors, suppressing authentic expressions and thoughts to avoid discomfort and prejudice from others. The phenomenon, or "code-switching" serves as a survival mechanism enabling Blacks to adapt their speech, appearance and demeanor to align with dominant cultural norms. It reminds me of Beloved, particularly Sweet Home and the daily persona they must create in order to survive. More so, did Halle have to pretend (act) not to the witness Sethe's torture in order to survive? It seems to be implied. It ties back to Thompson's "dancing on the slash".

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Part 1:

A difficulty Thompson expresses in the Epilogue of Beyond the Black Lady is that societal expectations fail to accommodate the dynamic being that is the Black woman. This limitation stems from legacies of racism, sexism, and historical objectification, which have shaped stereotypes that confine Black women to rigid roles, denying them complexity, agency, and full personhood. As she highlights, there is a lack of "representations of black women suffering existential angst" (Thompson 138). This absence is directly tied to the "angry Black woman" trope, which reduces expressions of existential pain to labels like aggressive or bitter, simply for being honest in her emotions. This connects to Dancing on the Slash, where Thompson explores the battle of twoness, citing DuBois' concept of "double consciousness." She explicates the paradox of Black women's inner lives: existing in a cruel world while being both intelligent and deeply affected by oppression. If Black women cannot be both intellectually profound and emotionally vulnerable without being misrepresented or dismissed as "angry" or "bitter," their depth, pain, and resistance are invalidated. This imposed limitation erases their existential struggles, forcing them into a constrained existence where their complexity is ignored, leaving little room to fully embrace and express their humanity on their own terms.

Part 2:

I think the most important lesson I got out of Dr. Thompson's talk is that in the end, it is ok to show up as who you are, as you are. While this is obvious, the feeling that you either have to be more or less of who you are is part of the existentialism I discussed in part 1. I appreciated the quotes she plugged reminding us of this. When it gets tough, when it gets depressing, and when you even stop feeling like there is a point to anything, there is an opportunity to create instead of surrendering to the weight of expectation or self-doubt. It's in those moments that you can reaffirm your existence and find purpose, even when it feels elusive. Creation, in any form--whether it’s through art, writing, conversation, or action--is an act of resistance in itself and to be creative you must dare to be the fullness of who you are. That is exactly what Professor Thompson emulates not only through her work, but through her being and through what I got to learn about her philosophy talk.

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I pondered the question of intersectionality and competing identities throughout high-school. I was really focused on equating myself, so that every aspect of me was equal. It made me wonder, is there a way in which the multiplicities of the self can be fully equal? Dr. Thompson address’ the multifaceted aspects of one’s identity. She identifies as a woman, but also a Black woman. She also identifies as an artist/scholar. In both instances, she regards both nouns as truth. In her article “Dancing on the Slash: Choreographing a Life as a Black Feminist Artist/Scholar,” she explores how her identities intersect and often can compete with one another. This raises the question of whether multiple identities can be fully ingratiated within each other and what does that look like. In her article she brings up Toni Morrison’s outlook on her many roles. Morris son’s perspective was rooted in how she only had one job which was a study and practice of books. “I teach books. I think about books. It’s one job.”(3) Morrison takes the perspective of how her multiple interests and fields actually work symbiotically and are not all that separate. Contrastingly, dancing on the slash implies that there are two separate identities that maintain a shared existence, that sometimes feels parasitic. I am not sure whether it is possible to have two separate identities that exist separate of themselves, I feel that Thompson sort of addresses this in her other article “Beyond the Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class.” Too often we relegate the lived experience of Black women to be the same as the media portrayed version. Because my understanding of intersectionality lies in multifaceted individuals facing different sort of risks and pressures because of their complicated identities and vice versa, I find it tricky to say that there are ways to be fully separate in those identities without the influence of the others. When Thompson writes “ Where were the witty, quirky, and clever African American characters?…where were the representations of black women suffering existential angst? (139) it is that this phenomenon is not just rooted in my own questioning but reflected in media. There is a shared experience of seeking to singularly define one’s identity. I really appreciate how Thompson was able to stand in opposition to this limbo and reject typical classifications. By being an artist/scholar she eliminates the need to be approach contrasting identities as parasitic but looks to a more mutualistic integration of identity.

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Dr. Thompson’s talk and more so her entire discography speaks to an intern connection of age and the black female identity. That through these ages and eras of life we connect to different aspects of black female womanhood physically and emotionally. I especially found her sentiment closer to the end which reflected on the women and the people in her life that have been with her through many milestones. She spoke about how through age you find these people and it made me reflect on my own friendships and the people around me. I feel that through the inter generational bond that Beloved, Seethe, Baby Suggs, and Denver—you can see a reference to the same exploration Thompson engages in.

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My favorite part of the presentation was the excerpt from Black Feminist Guide to the Human Body. She spoke so beautifully about aging and the acceptance of old age and death. She used really rich language that created a powerful image. I think this presentation connects to Toni Morrison primarily in the way she speaks about nuanced representation of Black women. Morrison, as we know, was also concerned with representing Black women for who they are as human beings—complex and unique—and not who they are / their story in relation to white people.

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I thought her final presentation on appreciating the Black female body at all stages of life, especially as it ages, was a beautiful reclamation of the traditional dehumanizing and oversexualizing narrative. The way she tells the story of aging shifts attention away from the typical focus on curves and volume and instead highlights features like wrinkles, gray hairs, and sagging skin, universal markers of time that every human experiences. So often, narratives about white women aging center on appreciating the visible signs of age in their skin and hair, rather than sexualization, an acknowledgment rarely afforded to Black women. Morrison’s writing carries a similar intentionality in both how and what she chooses to describe about her characters. She connects their features and desires to the natural world, and in her depictions of sex and sexuality, she employs soft, deliberate descriptions that capture the complexities of their experiences.

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What I appreciated most about Lisa Thompson’s talk was how she didn’t just talk about her work—she embodied it. You could feel the emotions she wanted you to feel through her words, and I could feel that sense of connection she talked about, the idea of hearts beating together in the theatre. It was one of those moments where you could tell the entire room was holding on to their every word, feeling the weight of her words in real-time.

One thing that kept coming to mind during her performance was Morrison’s idea of making change where you are. Thompson is doing exactly that—writing plays that push back against mainstream expectations, telling stories that don’t fit neatly into dominant narratives, and making space for the kinds of voices that are so often ignored. It reminds me of how Morrison talked about writing for the Black community, not catering to the white gaze, and I see that same energy in Thompson’s work. She’s using theatre as a tool for change, showing that storytelling—whether on the page or the stage—can challenge the way we see the world.

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I thought that Lisa Thompson's talk was that how clear it is that her work is an extension of herself. In each of the 3 plays she sampled, it was easy to understand that each story was taken from an aspect of her life. The sample that stood out to me was the sample from the mamalogs. The time she spent describing how the old mother's wrinkles and scars are something that we should be grateful she wears so proudly, because in the future we will be the ones that bear those scars was something I thought about. Thompson took the pain and again of a Black woman and highlighted how truly beautiful and magical it is. I have read works before that write about the magic of Black women, this was different and more impactful than any book or article that I have ever read. Hearing this in spoken word, let me use my imagination. I believe that by Dr. Thompson living in the slash of art and education allows for her to be something very special. Something that can impact people in a far deeper way.

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Dr. Thompson's difficulties that she had faced navigating both art and academia and how academia pushes that narrative of one should have a sole focus however Dr, Thompson reveals that she is her testament that she does not have to follow these norms. As she is not just an academic who teaches and studies black feminism but also creates art on the subject based on her passion for creative writing and stage productions she also exclaims that other prolific black scholars like WEB DuBois and Toni Morrison were people who also had to navigate these ideas as well!

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Dr. Thompson’s talk was wonderful and insightful, as she talked about the experience of black womanhood and its beauty and complexities. The way she introduces aging, milestones, life, and death in such a wonderful narrative and explains the impactful parts of life was amazing to see and witness. There were so many connections that I got from Dr. Thompson and the connection of Morrison is the way she explains the final stage in life as an elderly woman and how one gains so much knowledge and wisdom and remembers the village you made. It reminds me so much of Baby Suggs as she is a matriarch and a huge figure within all the characters' lives in Beloved and earlier in the community of Cincinnati but also how Morrison views elderly black women as timekeepers of history and cultural heritage and mystical presence within the black household as somebody who is always able to keep the unit together. Overall Dr Thompson's talk was a spectacular portrayal of the meaning of life for black womanhood and life in general.