Christina Knight

Dr. Christina Knight's work examines the connection between embodied practices and identity, the relationship between race and the visual field, and the queer imaginary. She is currently at work on a manuscript, The Ship That is the Body: the Middle Passage in Time-Based Art, 1986-1994, which investigates contemporary black American performing and visual arts that reimagine the history of the Atlantic slave trade. Focusing on time-based art, the manuscript highlights practices that reframe how audiences understand themselves as historical actors, alerting them to the ways that they co-create the meaning of both black (art) objects and black subjects. She received her Ph.D. in African American Studies from Harvard University.

Publications:

• “Two South African Artists Reflect on the Memories of Apartheid.” Aperture. Spring 2023.

• “Race and Performance After Repetition” (Review). The American Literary History Online Review. Fall 2021.

• “New World or no world: Middle Passage as Arrival.” In Arrivals, edited by Heather Ewing and Michael Gitlitz. New York: Katonah Museum of Art (October 2021): 16-19.

Media Appearances/Speaking Engagements:

• “BLACK SPECULATIVE FUTURES: An Experiment In Classroom Solidarity.” American Studies Association (ASA) annual conference, Montreal, Canada. November 2023.

• “Filmmaking as Method-Making in Beatriz Santiago-Muñoz’s Cuervo and Low-Polygon Poem (2021).” The Association For The Study Of Arts Of The Present (ASAP) annual conference, Seattle, WA. October 2023.

• “Filmmaking as Method-Making in Beatriz Santiago-Muñoz’s Cuervo and Low-Polygon Poem (2021)” (invited keynote). Black Visual Culture|Black Visual Life symposium at the University of Rochester. September 2023.

Previous Organizations: 

• Haverford College

• Bowdoin College

• Amherst College

Accomplishments:

• Fellow, The Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University

• Fellow, The Center for Experimental Ethnography, University of Pennsylvania

• Visiting Scholar, The Center for Black Visual Culture, New York University

Upcoming Projects:

• Manuscript: The Ship That is the Body: the Middle Passage in Time-Based Art, 1986-1994

All of my scholarship engages with how black artists use their practice to critique injustice and practice freedom. In my art practice, whether through pedagogy or performance, I try to work with others to explore those same questions.