February 6-7, 2025: Black Dolls Symposium Featuring Tiya Miles
February 6 @ 8:00 am - February 7 @ 8:00 pm
Join The National Museum of Toys and Miniatures for a research symposium on the historical significance of Black dolls in America, c. 1850-present. This symposium is part of programming for the exhibition Portraits of Childhood: Black Dolls from the Collection of Deborah Neff, on view through March 3, 2025, and will feature a lecture, “Material Culture as Archive: Finding Black Women’s History in Sacks and Dolls,” by keynote speaker Dr. Tiya Miles.
REGISTER for the keynote lecture here https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tiya-miles-tickets-978446829807
About the Keynote Speaker:
Tiya Miles is the author of eight books, including four prize-winning histories about race and slavery in the American past. Her latest work is the biography Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People. Her 2021 National Book Award winner, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake, was a New York Times bestseller that won eleven historical and literary prizes, including the Cundill History Prize and the Frederick Douglass Prize. All That She Carried was named A Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, NPR, Publisher’s Weekly, The Atlantic, Time, and more. Her other nonfiction works include Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation, The Dawn of Detroit, Tales from the Haunted South, The House on Diamond Hill, and Ties That Bind. Miles publishes essays and reviews in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, The New York Review of Books, and other media outlets, and she is the author of the time-bridge novel, The Cherokee Rose, a ghost story set in the plantation South. She has consulted with colleagues at historic sites and museums on representations of slavery, African American material culture, and the Black-Indigenous intertwined past, including, most recently, the Fabric of a Nation quilt exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Her work has been supported by a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Award, the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Miles was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, and she is currently the Michael Garvey Professor of History and Radcliffe Alumnae Professor at Harvard University.
REGISTER for the two-day symposium here https://www.eventbrite.com/e/black-dolls-symposium-tickets-1124698325969
Presenters:
Deja Beamon (University of Missouri-Kansas City), “Black Girlhood: Intersections of Theory, Memory, and Material Culture”
Marlee Bunch (University of Illinois), “How Dolls Carry Forward Stories and Oral Histories”
Wanett Clyde (The New York City College of Technology, CUNY), “Size, Shape, Textile, Texture, Color, Condition: The Physicality of a Doll”
Destiny Crockett (Rutgers University-Camden), “’Grandma Ruby and Me’: Black Age and Archiving Girlishness”
Randall K. Johnson (University of Missouri-Kansas City), “Race, Dolls and The Law”
Loren Macon (University of Missouri-Columbia), “From Play to Perception: Exploring Race, Identity, and Beauty Standards through Bratz Dolls”
Karen McCarthy Woolf (Goldsmiths College, University of London), “Were s/he inclined to speak…”
Janine Napierkowski (Girl Scouts USA), Blake Changnon (The Changnon Family Museum of Toys and Collectibles), and Connie Porter (American Girl author), “Addy Walker: Why She Matters”
Emily L. Newman (East Texas A&M University), “’What’s Hair Got to Do with it:’ CROWNing Black Dolls”
Madelyn Shaw (Independent Scholar), “Bodies of Evidence: The Material Culture of Black Dolls”
Karina Simonson (Institute of Asian and Transcultural Studies, Vilnius University), “Black Dolls in White Spaces: Navigating Cold War and Race in the Baltics”
Kipton D. Smilie (Missouri Western State University), “Black Dolls in American Public Schools: Implications of a History of Absence”
Rhoda Terry-Seidenberg (Bronx Community College), “Coconut and Bananas: Dolls from the Black Diaspora”
Sabrina Thomas (Duke University), “Zora’s Sara Lee: The First Anthropologically Correct Negro Doll”
Telia Mary U. Williams (Northern Illinois University), “Doll Story: A Fashionable Legal History of Resistance to, and Engagement with, Sumptuary Laws by Enslaved Persons in Antebellum and Postbellum America.”
Program:
*All events will take place at The National Museum of Toys and Miniatures (5235 Oak St., Kansas City, MO 64112), unless otherwise noted.
Thursday, February 6, 2025
10:30-10:50am: Opening Remarks
Petra Kralickova (Executive Director, The National Museum of Toys and Miniatures)
Natasha Ria El-Scari (Director of University of Missouri-Kansas City Women’s Center)
10:50am-12:10pm: Session I, Black Girlhood
Deja Beamon (University of Missouri-Kansas City)
“Black Girlhood: Intersections of Theory, Memory, and Material Culture”
Destiny Crockett (Rutgers University-Camden)
“‘Grandma Ruby and Me’: Black Age and Archiving Girlishness”
Rhoda Terry-Seidenberg (Bronx Community College)
“Coconut and Bananas: Dolls from the Black Diaspora”
12:10-12:20pm: Beyond Genre: A Reading of UMKC Multi-Genre Graduate Students
12:20-1:20pm: Lunch
1:20-2:40pm: Session II, Law and Education
Telia Mary U. Williams (Northern Illinois University)
“Doll Story: A Fashionable Legal History of Resistance to, and Engagement with, Sumptuary Laws by Enslaved Persons in Antebellum and Postbellum America”
Randall K. Johnson (University of Missouri-Kansas City) “Race, Dolls and The Law”
Kipton D. Smilie (Missouri Western State University) “Black Dolls in American Public Schools: Implications of a History of Absence”
2:40-2:50pm: Beyond Genre: A Reading of UMKC Multi-Genre Graduate Students
2:50-3:00pm: Break/public departs
6:00-7:00pm: Keynote by Tiya Miles (Harvard University), “Material Culture as Archive: Finding Black Women’s History in Sacks and Dolls,” UMKC Student Union Theater
7:00-8:00pm: Book sale and signing, UMKC Student Union Theater
Friday, February 7, 2025
9:00-9:25am: Coffee and pastries
9:25-10:20am: Session III, Race and Identity
Sabrina Thomas (Duke University)
“Zora’s Sara Lee: The First Anthropologically Correct Negro Doll”
Karina Simonson (Institute of Asian and Transcultural Studies, Vilnius University)
“Black Dolls in White Spaces: Navigating Cold War and Race in the Baltics”
10:20-10:30am: Beyond Genre: A Reading of UMKC Multi-Genre Graduate Students
10:30-10:40am: Break
10:40am-12:00pm: Session IV, Material Culture and Identity
Emily L. Newman (East Texas A&M University)
“‘What’s Hair Got to Do with it:’ CROWNing Black Dolls”
Madelyn Shaw (Independent Scholar)
“Bodies of Evidence: The Material Culture of Black Dolls”
Loren Macon (University of Missouri-Columbia)
“From Play to Perception: Exploring Race, Identity, and Beauty Standards through Bratz Dolls”
12:00-1:00pm: Lunch
1:00-2:20pm: Session V, Addy Walker: Why She Matters
Janine Napierkowski (Girl Scouts USA)
Blake Changnon (The Changnon Family Museum of Toys and Collectibles)
Connie Porter (American Girl author)
2:20-2:30pm: Beyond Genre: A Reading of UMKC Multi-Genre Graduate Students
2:30-2:40pm: Break
2:40-4:00pm: Session VI, Telling Stories
Wanett Clyde (The New York City College of Technology, CUNY)
“Size, Shape, Textile, Texture, Color, Condition: The Physicality of a Doll”
Karen McCarthy Woolf (Goldsmiths College, University of London)
“Were s/he inclined to speak…”
Marlee Bunch (University of Illinois)
“How Dolls Carry Forward Stories and Oral Histories”
4:00-4:10pm: Closing Remarks
When:
February 6, 2025 | 10:30AM-3PM
Keynote Lecture by Tiya Miles: 6-7PM
Book sale and signing: 7-8PM
February 7, 2025 | 9AM-4PM
Where:
The National Museum of Toys and Miniatures
5235 Oak St, Kansas City, MO 64112
Sponsors:
This program is a part of the Portraits of Childhood: Black Dolls from the Collection of Deborah Neff event series and is supported by The City of Kansas City, Missouri Neighborhood Tourist Development Fund; the Hall Family Foundation; Rainy Day Books; Shutz Lecture Series; the UMKC Women’s Center, and a generous private donor.
Image Credit: Deborah Neff Collection, c. 1850-1940, Artist Unknown, United States. Photo: Ellen McDermott Photography, New York.
