Yuichiro Onishi spoke in his colloquium talk about Abbey Lincoln and the work she created while away from the U.S. Lincoln lived in Japan after her divorce to work on several albums, and in the talk Onishi addressed Lincoln's views on polygamy or polyamory, and the development of Lincoln's unique reworking and extension of African American slave art.
While others have been talking of Onishi's discussion of Lincoln's understandings of polyamory, I was curious about how the location of Japan figured in the production of Lincoln's art and music - or why it didn't - and why Lincoln was drawn to this location. Was it a particular cultural moment in which Japan-U.S. connections were strengthened? What were the connections between Japan and African American experiences? I also wonder whether Onishi could have addressed Lincoln's understandings and experiences of race and racism in Japan, and what linkages were created between the specificity of place and time in 1970s Japan and Lincoln's work.
