Join Ada McKenzie Thomas, Asst. Professor of English, for an upcoming Faculty Research Talk, Abbey Lincoln’s Spiritual Roots.

Presenters will begin by discussing their topic, and each session will close with a question and answer segment. All presentations are virtual and free and the Zoom link will be sent the day before this discussion.

Description: In this talk, I examine Abbey Lincoln’s rootedness in spirituality as evinced in her poetry and songwriting from the latter part of her career. Her albums, Talking to the Sun (1983), Devil’s Got Your Tongue (1992), Wholly Earth (1999), as well as poems from her unpublished collection, In a Circle, Everything is Up, reveal her lifelong identity as a fervent roots-seeker, a spiritual sojourner in search of truth and understanding.

A multifaceted artist whose career traversed the Civil Rights and Black Arts Movements, and intersected with Black feminisms and Pan-Africanist discourses, Lincoln’s concerns frequently echo those of other writers and artists of the various eras through which she lived. Lincoln’s thematic eclecticism is a hallmark of her songwriting, poetry, and prose, however her work remains rooted in a deeply personal and spiritual exploration. This talk explores the motifs of this spiritual sojourn emerging from Lincoln’s latter works, as based upon the archival research that I have conducted for my manuscript on Lincoln’s life in letters, Aminata: Abbey Lincoln’s Song of Faith, to be published by Rutgers University Press.

Register