If It's Not Afro-Centered, It's Not Feminism

Afroféminas and the March 8 Women's Marches

Join Dr. Esther Alarcon-Arana, Associate Professor of Modern Languages, as she explores the articles featured in Afroféminas, a Spanish blog created by Cuban-Spanish activist Antoinette Torres Soler. Afroféminas' motto—nuestra sola existencia es resistencia [our very existence is resistance] shows the blog's objective, to vindicate the history and existence of Black and Brown people in Spain and Latin America by challenging Eurocentric teachings that create systemic racism. This talk focuses on Afroféminas' articles about the Spanish Marches on International Women's Day and challenge white feminisms' hypocrisy for not sharing their space with Black women.

Dr. Esther Alarcón Arana is an Associate Professor of Spanish and McAuley Scholar. She is originally from Spain, where she majored in English at the Universidad de Sevilla before arriving in Philadelphia at the age of 21. Her experiences as a woman and emigrant fuel both her research and teaching interests, always questioning traditional ideas regarding national identity and feminism. She has taught courses about Hispanic displacement and analyzing cultural artifacts that address issues about patriarchy and its connections with racism and colonialism. Her past publications include Spanish Afrofeminism's challenge of whiteness as an identifying characteristic of Spanishness, and the representation of women in contemporary Spain. Her current project examines contemporary Spanish music from a feminist perspective to analyze the epistemic changes happening in Spanish society.