Call for Proposals: Student Art Contest for Symposiums Honoring Randall Kenan – Three Award Prizes of $333

Call for Proposals Due Immediately! 

Art Contest for next year’s symposiums honoring Randall Kenan  

The Sexuality Studies Program supported by the Provost’s Committee on LGBTQ Life 

is offering three UNC students 

$333 Awards 

Deadline Extended: Tuesday, May 18^th by 5p.m. 

In the spring of 2021, the English and Comparative Literature Department hosted the first of a series of events honoring the legacy of the late Randall Kenan. Two Wings Take Flight featured a panel of scholars, writers, and artists discussing the impact of Kenan on African American Literature and Southern Studies and particularly Black Southern gay literary traditions. In the coming year, American Studies and Sexuality Studies will continue looking at Randall Kenan’s legacy with events on Kenan’s impact on the fields of Black Geographies and LGBTQ Studies. In doing so, we want to feature the creative work of students on all event promotional and program materials honoring Kenan.   

We will award three UNC undergraduate or graduate students $333 for a winning proposal to produce a piece of visual art for next year’s symposiums hosted by American Studies and Sexuality Studies honoring the late Randal Kenan. The art will be used on event programs, flyers, and websites. 

We are soliciting proposals for art with themes from Kenan’s novels and short stories (particularly: A Visitation of Sprits, Let the Dead Bury Their Dead, Walking on Water: Black American Lives at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century, The Fire This Time) from students. In particular we ask that your work depicts what it means to carry on the legacy of critically and creatively engaging with Southern Black Queer Geographies in North Carolina. The awards will be chosen by the end of May with the final artwork due by the end of August.   

We are asking for a QUICK TURNAROUND: Please go to this link and fill out this form by Tuesday, May 18th at 5p.m.  

If you have any questions, email Jacob Lau, Director of Sexuality Studies: jrlau@email.unc.edu.