SELECTED publications

reelaviolette.
scholar. curator. artist.
founder, blackwomxnhealing
reelaviolette botts-ward is a homegirl, an artist, and a nontraditional community curator from Philadelphia, PA. Currently a doctoral candidate in African Diaspora Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, ree curates exhibitions, courses, healing circles and research for and by Black womxn. Her dissertation research explores Black women's healing spaces in Oakland as sites of radical self making and world making. She centers everyday round the way Blackgirl methodology, using Black feminist geographies as a framework to theorize Black women’s quotidian practices of creative innovation in the wake of displacement. ree received her BA in Sociology and Anthropology from Spelman College and her MA in African American Studies with an Anthropology concentration from UCLA. She has also received a certificate of Global Urban Humanities and is pursuing a Designated Emphasis in Gender, Women, and Sexuality. Her work has been supported by the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design’s Arcus Endowment Fund, the UC Berkeley Arts Research Center, the Social Science Research Council, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, and the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities, among others. Her first book, mourning my inner[blackgirl]child, was published with Nomadic Press in February, 2021. For more information on her work, visit blackwomxnhealing.com / @blackwomxnhealing on instagram.
selected publications
mourning my inner[blackgirl]child,
Nomadic Press, 2021
“Writing for My Mother: on Tone, Form, and the Slippages of Linguistic Refusal.”
Women, Gender and Families of Color, 2021
“Critical Sisterhood Praxis: Curating a Woman of Color Feminist Intervention for
Spiritual Reclamation in the Academy” with Aa Reynolds and Farima Pour-Khorshid,
The Journal of Educational Foundations, 2021
“sanctified children: on the emergence of blackgirl spirit form +
the discovery of inner wisdom.”
Arts Research Center, University of California, Berkeley. 2021.
“Healing at Home: on Self Making and Black Girl Interiors.”
ASAP/J, 2021. (forthcoming)
University of California, Berkeley. 2019.
selected panels + presentations
selected panels + presentations
Black Girlhood, Our Mothers, + Home
Jasmine Mans + reelaviolette botts-ward,
blackwomxnhealing, 2021
Black Girls, Black Voices, Black History
reelaviolette botts-ward, Zachary McRae, and Rasheed Shabazz
BAMPFA, University of California, Berkeley, 2021
Black Feminist Geographies
Savannah Shange + Brandi Summers,
Moderated by Tianna Paschel + reelaviolette botts-ward
University of California, Berkeley, 2021
Poetry and the Senses Spring 2021 Fellows
Spring 2021 Fellows, featuring + reelaviolette botts-ward
Arts Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 2021
Poetry Reading with Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Natalie Diaz, and Aja Monet
Moderated by Ken Ueno + reelaviolette botts-ward
Arts Research Center, University of California, Berkeley. 2021
Tongo Eisen-Martin, reelaviolette botts-ward,
Tyson Amir, Azariah Cole-Shephard, Joy Elan
Alameda County Public Library, 2021