FemPower Lecture Series  with Dr. Bailey Thomas 

Across the United States, Black feminist artists are increasingly targeted by campaigns of censorship, public outrage, and institutional retreat. From Amy Sherald’s canceled Smithsonian exhibition to online “content warnings” and deplatforming, Black women and queer artists are punished for creating work that reimagines freedom, gender, and the body. This talk explores how the visibility of Black feminist art has become a site of moral panic—where calls for protection or propriety mask deeper anxieties about race, sexuality, and power. Bringing U.S. debates into dialogue with transnational concerns, I examine how art institutions, digital platforms, and political actors weaponize visibility itself, turning representation into a terrain of surveillance and control.

Dr. Bailey Thomas (they/them) is the Eleanor M. Carlson Visiting Assistant Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Rhode Island. Their research bridges social epistemology, ethics, and political theory to illuminate how knowledge, power, and care intersect in struggles against structural oppression. A leading scholar of Black feminist philosophy, Thomas’s current book project, Caring Otherwise: Black Feminist Politics and the Ethics of Care, explores care as a radical mode of justice-making. They also direct the annual Roundtable for Black Feminist and Womanist Theory and are involved in organizing URI’s Mellon-supported event series on Black, Latinx, and Indigenous feminisms. Thomas holds a dual-title Ph.D. in Philosophy and African American & Diaspora Studies from Penn State University.