UA Professor to Hold Reading for ‘Crunk Feminist Collection’

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Dr. Robin Boylorn, a University of Alabama faculty member, and her co-authors will have a book reading and signing at Barnes & Noble in Tuscaloosa March 1, from 6-8 p. m.

The event, open to the public, is in celebration of the publication of their collaborative work, “The Crunk Feminist Collection.”

The book, a collection of the most popular blogs written by the Crunk Feminist Collective, aims to offer a blueprint for what feminism looks like on- and offline. The goal of the collective is to help foster community and safe spaces to talk through, think through, organize and strategize a way through the current political moment as they uphold their black feminist legacy.

“We offer a crunk perspective that is intersectional, accountable, political, conscious and informed,” said Boylorn, UA associate professor of communication studies. “We use our academic and at home voices to theorize, critique, think through and call out things we find to be problematic, oppressive or discriminatory.”

The collective has helped to initiate and cultivate a space now broadly known as “digital black feminism.” The style and voice that is present in the collective is something they have coined, “crunk feminism.”

“Crunk feminism refers to our investment in bucking at systems of injustice and unapologetically and boldly calling out systems of oppression,” said Boylorn. “We are committed to dismantling hierarchal and patriarchal systems that fail to account for the most vulnerable folk in our communities, including ourselves.”

The collective formed in 2010 when Dr. Brittney Cooper, an assistant professor at Rutger’s University, and Dr. Susana M. Morris, an associate professor at Auburn University, invited other scholar-activist feminists of color to join them in an online community collaborative.

The collective now has eight members and is actively involved in offline initiatives to make black feminism more accessible to non-academic audiences, in addition to their blog. To learn more about the Crunk Feminist Collective, or to read the blog, visit their site.