Community Film Screening - Plenum

Join us for an evening of conversation, entertainment, and food as we screen Plenum, a new short film by director Charlene A. Carruthers. The screening will be followed by a thoughtful conversation on creative process, liberation, and activism. A meal will be provided during the program.

More about Charlene
Charlene A. Carruthers (she/her) is a writer, filmmaker, and community organizer, and a Black Studies PhD candidate at Northwestern University whose work centers on telling more complete stories of Black freedom-making, the Black Radical Tradition, and Black feminist abolitionist thought. A 2020 Marguerite Casey Presidential Freedom Scholar and Mellon Interdisciplinary Cluster Fellow, she brings over 15 years of organizing experience across racial, gender, and economic justice movements, including serving as the founding national director of BYP100. Her short film The Funnel received the Queer Black Voices Award at the 35th Annual aGLIFF Prism Film Festival, and she is the author of the bestselling book Unapologetic: A Black, Queer and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements. Charlene’s work has been featured in major national outlets, she is a highly sought-after speaker at institutions across the country, and she has received numerous honors recognizing her influence and leadership.

More about Sanford
Sanford E. Gaylord is an actor, writer, and creative LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS activist who has contributed to Chicago’s Black and LGBTQ+ communities since the mid-1990s. A co-founder of A Real Read, an African American LGBTQ+ performance ensemble inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame, his work spans theater, film, journalism, and public health advocacy, including award-winning projects such as Kevin’s Room and Living With Pride: Ruth Ellis @ 100. An accomplished writer and educator, Gaylord has received numerous honors for arts, journalism, and community service, and has played key roles in HIV research, prevention, and education initiatives, including serving as project director for the CDC-funded Project POWER. He is also a founding member of Black Alphabet NFP, continuing his lifelong commitment to storytelling, visibility, and collective liberation.

More about Cathy
Cathy J. Cohen is the D. Gale Johnson Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago, where she has held numerous leadership roles, including inaugural department chair, chair of Political Science, Director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture, and Deputy Provost for Graduate Education. She is the author of The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics and Democracy Remixed: Black Youth and the Future of American Politics, co-editor of Women Transforming Politics, and co-editor of an Oxford University Press book series. Founder and director of the GenForward Survey Project and the Black Youth Project, Cohen is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a recipient of major honors including an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship and the APSA Hanes Walton Career Achievement Award. Alongside her academic work, she has been deeply engaged in political organizing and movement building, serving in leadership and advisory roles with numerous social justice organizations and initiatives centered on racial, gender, and queer liberation.