- This event has passed.
Annual ZORA! Festival hosts Afrofuturism Conference at UCF Downtown
January 27 @ 8:30 am - 4:00 pm
$25
The annual ZORA! Festival is in full swing! First presented in 1990, the festival is a multi-day, multi-disciplinary, intergenerational event composed of public talks, museum exhibitions, theatrical productions, arts education programming, and much, much more.
As part of the festivities, the ZORA! Festival is presenting an academic conference themed “What is the Spirit of Afrofuturism?” The event is being hosted by UCF – College of Arts and Humanities.
Speakers include Dr. Scot French, Associate Professor of History at UCF, who will give a presentation entitled Moral Capitalism, Prosperity, and Visions of Community: Historic Eatonville and Black Liberation. This talk will explore the spiritual links between the modern-day Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community, Inc. (P.E.C.) and the Afrofuturist/Afrotopian vision of “moral capitalism” found in the Black town-building movement of the late 19th century.
Additionally, Rasheedah Phillips, Esq., Founder of The AfroFuturist Affair, will give a presentation entitled Time and Place Have Had Their Say: The Time Binder’s Role in Black Space-Time Mattering. There will also be a roundtable discussion entitled Teaching Afrofuturism.
Arguably the most significant collector and interpreter of southern, African American culture, Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was the dominant female voice of the Harlem Renaissance era. In her works, she celebrates her hometown, Eatonville, as representative of the dignity and beauty of rural Southern, African-American life and culture.
The ZORA! Festival is being presented by the Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community, Inc., which promotes Eatonville’s considerable heritage, historical, and cultural resources as a means for the community’s revitalization and economic development.
N. Y. Nathiri, the association’s Executive Director said this year’s event is going to be very special. She has been pleased with the festival thus far.
“There is something for everyone,” she said. “Come out, learn about Zora’s remarkable contributions and have some fun along the way!”