Marya McQuirter

BOOK PROJECT

Technochoreographies: Bicycles, Freedoms, Movements is a cultural history of mobility and technology in the late 19th. It charts an early genealogy of one of the earliest forms of technologically-enabled mobility in the U.S. and globally, and one of the earliest technological and cultural symbols of freedom—the bicycle. Technochoreographies places blackness at the center of a history of bicycles, and the technological and cultural changes taking place in the long 19th century. I argue that the bicycle (not the car) was the first form of auto- or self-mobility experienced outside of one’s own body and the bodies of animals. And it was the affordance of the bicycle—a technological gadget only requiring desire and practice as an entry point—that offered individuals their first sense of modern mobility. It is for these reasons and more that I seek to register bicycles in black studies & what Fred Moten calls black study.

William F. Fonvielle and Techno-Religious Melodrama circa 1902

I am collaboratively producing a digital audio storytelling project centered on The Taint of the Bicycle (1902), William F. Fonvielle’s self-published genre-bending book about the incompatibility of religion and bicycling. The book is based on a popular series of articles Fonvielle wrote for the Star of Zion newspaper in 1900. In the first 17 pages, Fonvielle uses journalism to provide a historical and observational account of bicycles. In the final seven pages, Fonvielle switches to melodrama to narrate how a first lady succumbed to the evils of the bicycle, which led to her and her family’s downfall. Focusing on the melodrama section, I will mix voice narration with ambient sounds to animate the text. I’m drawn to The Taint of the Bicycle because even in Fonvielle’s critique he shows the centrality and vitality of bicycles for us in the late 19th century.  In addition to the digital audio remix, I will provide a full digital copy of the book so that folks can read it, talk back to it, and use it as productive genealogy for work on religion & digital technologies and Christian melodrama in books, film & television. 

For more info on the Crossroads Project, click here.

COMING SOON!

welcome to the 5 cyclists podcast! where I have conversations with a wide range of individuals in the diaspora who move and work with bicycles—as artists, producers, athletes, tinkerers, entrepreneurs, writers, organizers and more. The podcast is inspired by five friends—Marylou Jackson, Velma Jackson, Ethyl Miller, Leolya Nelson and Constance White—who biked from New York City to DC in 1928. They were all about friendship, athleticism, competition, style & love of the outdoors. You can find my early writing on the 5 cyclists here. Listen to an interview here.

let’s talk bicycles!

Podcast #1: Riding with me today is Nicole Jefferson Asher, a film and television creator and writer. I’m speaking with her about the bicycle scenes she wrote for Love Beats Rhymes, a 2017 film, and Self Made, a 2020 series. We end with Nicole sharing one of her favorite bicycle memories as a teen in Brooklyn.

tag me on twitter @maryamcquirter and #5cyclistspodcast

My essay, “yes. still. movement.,” in liquid blackness journal is available for free. click here!

I suggest reading it as a pdf.

If you want to invite me to do a virtual chat with your class (open to k-12, college, grad school+), book club, bike club, and more, reach out via my contact page here.

1968 in deep color (2022) is an art catalog featuring 13 color photographs from 1968. Here’s a digital version of the print catalog that I self-published using research funds from my stint at a university. I used the research funds to hire a designer and a printer. The total cost for the design & printing was $2,000. I printed 800 copies and continue to give them away for free in DC.

I created the art catalog because life is lived in color. While black & white photography can be beautiful, I believe it is often overrepresented & weaponized by white-centered media. I also wanted to show how a range of Washingtonians, including painters, poster colllaborators, photographers, jr high & high school students who produced yearbooks, and kinfolk, reveled in color in 1968.

I also created the catalog because I love ephemera & wanted to pay homage to the small art pamphlets & catalogs that I saw in DC in the 1980s and 1990s. The cover design is modeled after the cover of a William H. Johnson catalog. His name is written repeatedly in vertical formation in black on a purple background.

enjoy!

The dc1968 project highlights the art & activism & daily life of Washington, DC throughout the entire year of 1968. Using photographs, stories, audio and video, I curate a fuller, more complex and love-filled vision of DC. for the present, future & past. Click here to explore the dc1968 project.

I co-curated, with Derek Gray, DC Public Library archivist, a StoryMap on Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in DC, titled Evolutions & Legacies. It chronicles King’s movements throughout the city and how he was beloved by Washingtonians. check out the storymap here.

happy 20th anniversary! In 2003, I collaborated on the production of African American Heritage Trail Guide DC. Organized via 15 neighborhoods, it spotlights people and places across gender, class, color and sexuality. Completed in 2003, the free and popular guide is now in its 6th printing. This was one of my first forays into public history. I can’t believe it’s been 20 years. You can get a pdf version here.