The 2025 Black Houston(s) Symposium, set to take place March 27-28, will convene scholars, artists and community leaders to explore the deep and evolving relationship between Black cultural expression and STEM-based research in Houston. With the theme Dark Matter: STEM and the Arts in Black Houston, this year’s convening invites participants to consider the role of Black communities in shaping Houston’s past, present and speculative futures.
The symposium builds on the legacy of Houston’s rebranding in 1961 as “Space City, USA,” a title earned through the city’s early collaborations with NASA and Rice University’s pioneering research in aerospace. These foundations have led to decades of growth in Houston’s STEM sectors, particularly in health, energy and environmental research. But the symposium asks attendees to look deeper — beyond formal disciplines — to interrogate how Black Houstonians continue to navigate, contest and shape their social, cultural and ecological environments in tandem with scientific innovation.
The Black Houston(s) Symposium continues its mission to deepen knowledge about Black life in Houston by fostering collaborative, interdisciplinary dialogue. One of its primary goals is to produce an edited volume of scholarly and creative work that documents these exchanges. Equally important is the creation of a public forum for conversation between academic researchers and community members working across Houston’s diverse cultural, scientific and activist networks.
Over two days, the symposium will offer a robust schedule of panels, performances and presentations. Sessions include “Health care, Biopolitics and Black Houstonians,” “Cultivating Black Ecologies” and “Geographies and Speculative Futures: Art and Technology in Black Houston(s).” These conversations will be held alongside presentations of new artistic work and discussions with local scholar-practitioners whose efforts bridge academic and community-based inquiry.
A highlight of the event will be the keynote tribute honoring the late Nikki Giovanni, who was originally scheduled to appear in a one-on-one keynote conversation with Rice graduate student Hassan Henderson-Lott titled “If Mars Came Here.” Following her recent passing, the symposium has reimagined this moment as a commemorative performance by Harrison Guy and Urban Souls Dance Company followed by a keynote address from Philip Butler, assistant professor of theology and Black posthuman artificial intelligence systems at the Iliff School of Theology.
The symposium is being hosted by the African American History Research Center, Gregory Campus March 27 and Rice’s Moody Center for the Arts March 28. It is sponsored by Rice’s Fondren Library, Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning, Office of the President, Center for African and African American Studies, Center for Coastal Futures and Adaptive Research and the Department of Art History.
To learn more about the symposium or to register to attend, click here.