SELECTED publications

reelaviolette.
scholar. curator. artist.
founder, blackwomxnhealing
reelaviolette botts-ward, PhD, is a homegirl, an artist, and a nontraditional community curator from Philadelphia, PA. Currently a Postdoctoral Fellow with the REPAIR Project at UCSF, ree brings radical Black feminist healing arts to healthcare and medical science spaces. As founder of blackwomxnhealing, ree curates exhibitions, courses, healing circles and research for and by Black womxn, and values communal care as a foundational ethic for engaging somatic, ancestral, and spiritual wellness. She remains invested in making her academic work accessible to community audiences, using art, poetry, and digital humanities as tools of translation.
Her first book, mourning my inner[blackgirl]child (Nomadic Press, 2021), uses poetics as praxis to explore embodied trauma, ancestral grief work, and spiritual healing. She has also published articles, book chapters, and creative works with the Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, Routledge Press, and the University of Arizona Press, among others. Her work has been featured with platforms like Elle Magazine, NAACP, and The Griot, and supported by the California Black Women’s Health Project, the UC Humanities Research Institute, and the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities, among others.
She received her PhD in African Diaspora Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, her MA in African American studies from UCLA, and her BA in Sociology and Anthropology from Spelman College. She has also taught courses in the African American Studies department at Merritt College and the University of California, Berkeley, and a course called #BlackFeministHealingArts in UCSF’s Medical Anthropology department. For more on ree’s work, visit blackwomxnhealing.com / @blackwomxnhealing / @dr.reelaviolette on instagram.
"curating #blackgirlquarantine: on collage making, collective mourning and ancestral rememory"
Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 2023
“Healing at Home: on Self Making and Black Girl Interiors.”
ASAP/J, 2022
“#blackgirlquarantine chronicles: on womanist artistry, sisterhood, survival and healing.”
Lavender Fields - University of Arizona Press, 2022
mourning my inner[blackgirl]child,
Nomadic Press, 2021
“#BlackWomxnHealing: An Intergenerational Healing Space
for Round the Way Girls in Academia.”
Building Mentorship Networks to Support Black Women - Routledge Press.
“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
University of California, Berkeley. 2019
selected panels + presentations
selected panels + presentations
Choreographing Sacred Movement w. Amara Tabor-Smith
University of California, San Francisco, 2023
University of California, San Francisco, 2023
The UCSF REPAIR Postdoctoral Fellows
University of California, San Francisco, 2022
Black Futures Month, Keynote Speaker
University of California, Davis, 2022
Museum of the African Diaspora
ft. reelaviolette botts-ward, 2022
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