GLC@Lunch: "Revisiting June Jordan’s 'Skyrise for Harlem' (1965) and 'His Own Where' (1971) as Cultural Interventions in Poetic Form"

GLC@Lunch with Hannah Sophia Hörl

Hybrid event:

In person | Yale University Rosenkranz Hall, Room 241, 115 Prospect Street, New Haven 06511
*Note: In-person seating is limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Online | Zoom
*Use registration link above.

Hanna Sophia Hörl (GLC-Bavarian American Academy Visiting Scholar; PhD Candidate, Ludwig-Maximillans-Universität, Munich)

In her poetry, novels, essays, and visions of urban redesign, African American writer and activist June Jordan (1936–2002) challenges the public sphere to counter racial and spatial injustices. Triggered by the 1964 Harlem Riots, these issues emerge in her Esquire article “Skyrise for Harlem” (1965) and her young adult novel His Own Where (1971). “Skyrise” originally reimagined the Black cultural capital, yet it was heavily edited into a story of “Instant Slum Clearance,” which reveals deeper tensions about who gets to imagine urban futures. His Own Where, written partly in Black vernacular, subverts the dominant language and calls for action through urban redesign. This talk explores both texts as literary interventions that, literally and figuratively, create space for alternative, community-centered environments. Drawing on Edward Soja’s concept of “Thirdspace,” the talk explores how Jordan’s work unsettles dominant narratives and offers tools to rethink justice discourse in poetic terms.