"Sista Docta": Performance as Critique of the Academy

Abstract

Before I even open my mouth with these words and drummer Alli Aweusi strikes the first "PA" on the djembe, the critique of the academy has begun. sista docta was created in 1994 as seriate sketches that offer my commentary on being an African American woman professor at predominantly European American academic institutions.' This essay explores the ways performance in general, and sista docta specifically, challenges the academy's philosophy of inclusion and the academy's predilection for print scholarship. By the time I speak in sista docta, there has already been drumming, which invokes the long history of African American women in the academy. That history is a collective biography marked on the downside by exclusion, silence, and overt and covert discrimination, and on the upside by determination, courage, and achievement. While the genre of autobiography explores the singularity of experience, autobiography of marginalized peoples often serves as a collective biography, giving name to the experiences of many through the experience of one.2 In a discussion of Maya Angelou's autobiographical work, Selwyn Cudjoe explains that "the Afro-American autobiography, a cultural act of selfreading, is meant to reflect a public concern rather than a private act of selfindulgence" (1990:275). African American autobiography as collective cultural