Department faculty members facilitate bringing renowned poets to campus for 'Going to Mars,' an 'intergenerational dialogue'

By Jillian Kaplan

In a community-wide event that takes place during the month of October, Florida State University’s Department of English, along with FSU’s African American Studies department and Civil Rights Institute, is hosting “Going to Mars With Nikki Giovanni and Fred Moten.” This immersive event features several opportunities to meet and to be a part of an intergenerational conversation between renowned African American poets Nikki Giovanni and Fred Moten.

Giovanni and Moten both hold doctorates in their fields and are esteemed for their groundbreaking work in poetry, Black studies, activism, and cultural theory. Two dedicated FSU English faculty members, Assistant Professors Alison Sperling and L. Lamar Wilson, have been instrumental in orchestrating the event, making "Going to Mars" a reality for the FSU community.

English department chair and Caldwell Professor of English Andrew Epstein says the gathering is a “rare dialogue” and organizers have described it as a “once-in-a-generation conversation.” The events, which are free and open to the public, offer attendees a unique opportunity to engage with these literary giants as they discuss Black artistic expression and activism.

Moten kicks off the event series on Thursday, Oct. 10, with a featured talk beginning at 3 p.m. at FSU’s Conradi Theatre, which is located on campus in the Williams Building. That night a sold-out screening of the Sundance-winning Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project takes place at the Fogg Planetarium, previously named the Challenger Learning Center Planetarium, in downtown Tallahassee.

Giovanni and Moten are scheduled to take center stage on Oct. 24 at FSU’s Student Union Ballroom E for a conversation, offering audiences the rare opportunity to witness an exchange between these two literary icons.

While Giovanni and Moten are the central figures of “Going to Mars,” the conversation and planning for the event has been in the works for over a year and a half. The vision and execution of Moten and Giovanni's visit are owed to Sperling and Wilson.

In early 2007, while an editor at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Wilson met and interviewed Giovanni, who was in town promoting her collection, Acolytes.

Wilson says she “called me into the fold” immediately after the interview ended, “hearing in the cadence of my voice and my attention to detail the posture of a poet.”

Giovanni urged Wilson to apply that spring to Virginia Tech, where she served as a distinguished professor for nearly four decades until her retirement in 2022. Wilson answered the call letting him know he'd been admitted, ironically, on April 16, the same day the campus suffered its greatest tragedy to date: a mass shooting that took 32 lives and left the southwest Virginia mountain town of Blacksburg—and the stunned, onlooking world—shaken.

Wilson watched Giovanni on CNN deliver her rousing “We Are Virginia Tech" to a packed auditorium crowd, including then-President George W. Bush, just days after the tragedy, and he knew he had to say yes to the opportunity to study with her and others.

Over the next three years, he earned his Master of Fine Arts, then continued his doctoral studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where he began several years of study with Moten, then a professor at nearby Duke.

“They're actually my intellectual parents,” says Wilson of his relationships with Giovanni and Moten. “Nikki helped me understand the kind of thinker I want to be on the page, and Fred's invention inside his sentences—at once philosophical and improvisational—challenged me then and compel me now to find my own way to sing and rail and transform what we call ‘critical theory,’ what he calls the ‘Black radical tradition.’”

For the past 18 months, Sperling and Wilson have worked diligently to bring their original idea to life and to bring Giovanni and Moten together.

Once they solidified their idea for a visit, Wilson contacted Moten, while Sperling reached out to Giovanni’s agent. Wilson says Moten agreed within minutes, and discussions with Giovanni’s agent progressed swiftly. By the next day, Wilson and Sperling had drafted a proposal to present to the English department for approval.

We're excited to facilitate this intergenerational conversation. It's crucial to support and invest in Black art and thought at this moment in history. This event additionally demonstrates, I hope, that this kind of organizing work is still possible within our institution, and I know it will be a beautiful experience for everyone.

— Alison Sperling

This semester, Wilson is on research leave, but he has not been on leave from planning with Sperling, who has diligently worked to finalize their long-time-coming plan.

“We're excited to facilitate this intergenerational conversation,” Sperling says. “It's crucial to support and invest in Black art and thought at this moment in history. This event additionally demonstrates, I hope, that this kind of organizing work is still possible within our institution, and I know it will be a beautiful experience for everyone."

Wilson agrees with Sperling’s sentiments.

“We’re creating a space for four generations of thinkers to discuss what it means to be human,” he adds. “We have our students, represented by you and your peers, and then the two of us, who are of the generation above you and are currently teaching you.”

Epstein speaks with high praise of the work and planning that Wilson and Sperling have carried out.

“Dr. Sperling and Dr. Wilson have done a tremendous amount of work dreaming up, planning, and organizing this event,” he says. “Hosting an event of this size is a major undertaking, and they have been working tirelessly for a year to bring their vision to fruition. We are thrilled to that the English department has the opportunity to showcase the work of these two groundbreaking writers.”

Epstein adds that Sperling and Wilson also arranged a series of on-campus “lead-in events” in preparation for the main events.

“Our community will have been immersed in the work of our guests for the opening two months of the semester, which will very much enhance the Moten and Giovanni event itself,” Epstein says.

With the planning process nearing completion, Sperling and Wilson both speak with pride and admiration for each other and for others who have contributed their time to the considerable efforts to promote the event over the past few months.

“While this is an event that all three programs in the English department have collectively supported, I would add that it's been an honor for me to have Lamar’s trust as co-organizer for bringing in two important figures who are also his mentors,” Sperling says. “That feels really important to me. It’s been very cool to become friends through a shared admiration for Giovanni's and Moten’s work and through our vision for ‘Going to Mars.’”

As he reflects on the past two years, Wilson expresses his certainty about the positive impact Giovanni and Moten will have at FSU.

“I know that, having been taught and mentored by these two individuals for nearly two decades, they have made me a better teacher and a better human," he says. "I am confident they will have the same impact on our students, even if it's just for two days.”

For those interested in attending Moten’s presentation “a forward thrust of blackness,” the event will be held in the Conradi Theater, located in the Williams Building. The screening of Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project at the Fogg Planetarium is sold out. More information about the Oct. 24 event will be announced soon.

Please contact Sperling or Wilson for more information.

Jillian Kaplan is an English-Editing, Writing, and Media major, with a second major in media communication studies.

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