Jillian Hernandez will discuss her book, Aesthetics of Excess, examining how bodies of women and girls of color are racialized through cultural discourses that mark them as sexual “others,” and how in turn, aesthetic value is generated through the presentation of their bodies. Through innovative relational readings, she shows how notions of high and low culture are complicated when women and girls of color engage in cultural production and how they challenge the policing of their bodies and sexualities through artistic authorship.

The event will also stream live online. See the event website for details.

Jillian Hernandez is a scholar, community arts educator, curator, and creative. Her work is inspired by Black and Latinx life and imagination, and is invested in challenging how working-class bodies, sexualities, and cultural practices are policed through gendered tropes of deviance and respectability. Dr. Hernandez received her Ph.D. in Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University and is an Assistant Professor in the Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies Research at the University of Florida.