From Minneapolis to Havana to right here in Baltimore, political uprisings and social movements are reshaping our world. This season’s first Baltimore Butterfly Session features Dr. Jordie Davies, an Agora Institute postdoc in political science who focuses on the process of social movement mobilization. Dr. Davies’ keynote will help us understand the conditions necessary to ignite political participation in the movements of our time. Featuring music, poetry, readings and civic dialogue, we’ll leave inspired to make change and mobilize our communities.
This event is free, please reserve your seat by clicking book tickets above.
Dr. Jordie Davies, Keynote Speaker
Dr. Jordie Davies is a postdoctoral scholar in the P3 Lab at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. She received her PhD in political science from the University of Chicago. Jordie’s research and writing interests include Black politics and political thought, social movements and Black feminism. Her research agenda focuses on the influence of social movements on political attitudes, activism and political participation. Jordie’s dissertation, “From Adherents to Activists: The Process of Social Movement Mobilization” proposes the framework “Alienated Activism” to describe social movements and political participation in response to crises in legitimation and neoliberalism, especially the Black Lives Matter movement. She is developing her dissertation into a book project. Jordie’s research has been supported by the Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, Berkeley’s Center on Democracy and Organizing, the Ford Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, the Diversifying Faculty in Illinois Fellowship and the APSA Minority Fellows Grant. Jordie holds a Master of Arts in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago and received a BA in Political Science from Emory University, in Atlanta, GA, with a minor in Educational Studies.
Outcalls, Band
“Behold the vocal prowess of Britt Olsen-Ecker and Melissa Wimbish.” -Baltimore Magazine
The vocal pop duo Outcalls has been dubbed the “electronic opera queens” of Baltimore. Led by Olsen-Ecker and Wimbish, both classically-trained musicians, Outcalls creates genre-defying pop music that counters the tired narratives pervading much of today’s popular songs. “Mother,” their last single, was featured on Baltimore Magazine’s “Big Baltimore Playlist” while “Keep Falling Over” was voted the #1 song of 2018 by WTMD 89.7 FM radio listeners.
Outcalls has toured throughout the United States and internationally. They have opened for national acts such as Wolf Parade, Chicano Batman, Khruangbin, Robyn Hitchcock, Y La Bamba, San Fermin, Bent Knee, and paris_monster. Their forthcoming album is due in 2022.
Slangston Hughes, Poet
Slangston Hughes is a National Slam Champion based out of Baltimore, Maryland. Director of Youth Poetry at Dew More Baltimore and lead coach of the world champion (2016 & 2018) Baltimore City Youth Poetry Team. His work has been published in the Poets ‘ America anthology via the Kratz Creative Writing Center. Slangston published his first collaborative literary work “Writers’ Alchemy with prosaist Devlon E. Waddell as part of E.M.B.O.D.Y. Most recently Slangston Hughes(Victor Frantz Rodgers 2nd) released a collection of his poetry that spans nearly the past 2 decades. “Slanguage Arts & Griot Glimpses” is both a chronicling of one individual’s growth as a writer over a 15-year period (2002-2017) of poetic evolution as well as a record of some of this era’s most pressing sociopolitical issues and happenings as witnessed and responded to in arguably some of the most radical and profoundly truthful incantations ever written down via the medium of poetry in a manner where the political and personal merge. Slanguage Arts & Griot Glimpses is very much “a research guide for the soul.” In addition, founder of Speak Out: Slammageddon. Slangston was also a member of the Slammageddon Baltimore slam team that won the 2016 National Poetry Slam and Southern Fried Slam in 2017 2018 & 2019 As well as Ink Slam 2019
“I have told him that if he was around when the Last Poets first started he could’ve rolled with us!” -Umar Bin Hassan of The Last Poets…
The Baltimore Butterfly Sessions: A civic dialogue series at BCS
Inspired by Citizen University’s Civic Saturdays, The Baltimore Butterfly Sessions will bring together music, poetry, literary excerpts and thought-provoking keynote addresses to catalyze conversation and build awareness around today’s most pressing issues. Tapping into some of the brightest voices around the nation and in Baltimore, each Butterfly Session will convene artists, activists, organizers and thinkers to unpack a civically resonant topic. Through the Baltimore Butterfly Sessions, BCS aims to create a space for civic dialogue & fellowship across differences and stay firmly rooted in our local community. Come for the music, come for the poetry, come for the conversation.
Why “The Baltimore Butterfly Sessions”?
A symbol of growth and emergence, transformation and borderless migration, butterflies remind us that tiny shifts in one place can set profound change in motion. Butterflies also have a special resonance in Baltimore. You may or may not know that the city of Baltimore is sometimes referred to as a “Black Butterfly and White L.” According to Dr. Lawrence Brown of Morgan State University, “Baltimore’s hypersegregated neighborhoods experience radically different realities.” Typically, Black neighborhoods fan out to the east and west resembling the shape of a butterfly while white neighborhoods run down the center of the city in the shape of an “L.”
Through the Baltimore Butterfly Sessions, BCS aims to create a space for civic dialogue & fellowship across difference and stay firmly rooted in our local community.
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