Title:Professor Fuses Race, History, and Performance Studies

“I became a professor because I’m so passionate about thinking with, alongside, and through artists.”

Five questions with Soyica Colbert (C’01), chair of the Department of Performing Arts, and professor of African American studies, and theater and performance studies.

You are co-teaching a new course with Professor Robert Patterson (C’02) called The Psychic Hold of Slavery. What does it cover?

We’re really trying to think about the national, international, and local contexts—specifically Georgetown’s history—and the ways that slavery still animates our presence. The most pressing and clearly ongoing legacies of slavery are the prison-industrial complex, health disparities, hierarchies that organize our culture, pay gaps, and even the way that we see blackness and value.

What are your thoughts on Colin Kaepernick’s role in social activism for Black people?

It’s useful to think about the legacy of protest in our country. Kaepernick’s role is fascinating because he is posing a challenge to the ways we organize history. Public figures are using their platform and power to criticize exploitation, and, like the women of the #MeToo movement, Kaepernick has created a watershed moment.

How do you feed your creative spirit in your spare time?

I like to watch performances—plays, sporting events, concerts, films—collectively with others. I recently binge-watched Spike Lee’s revamp of She’s Gotta Have It, which is amazing. Part of the reason I became a professor is because I’m so passionate about thinking with, alongside, and through artists.

Which artistic works resonate with you?

In graduate school, I was inspired by Toni Morrison’s work— not only as a writer, but also in the way that she carved out her space in American culture. I tell my students that James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time is a work they should certainly read before graduating. Because I’m working on a biography around her life and her work, I’d say Lorraine Hansberry’s Les Blancs. For music, I’d say Nina Simone. I’ve been listening to her a lot lately, and she and Hansberry were close friends.

How do you wish to impact students here at Georgetown?

One of the most consistent messages I tell my students is the same thing Toni Morrison told hers: “When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else.”