08 May 2008

France Noire – Black France:
The Poetics and Politics of Blackness
June 6-7, 2008 - Paris, France
http://history.berkeley.edu/faculty/Stovall/conference/

In Memoriam: Aimé Césaire, Michel Fabre, and Ousmane Sembène

Conveners:
Tyler Stovall, Trica Danielle Keaton, Marcus Bruce

Keynote Address:
Friday, June 6, 2008 - 17h00 –18h00
Madame Christiane Taubira
Member of Parliament
Députée de Guyane

Introduction by Fred Constant
Professor of Political Science, Université des Antilles et de la Guyane
(France) and
French Minister of Foreign Affairs

Opening Remarks by Tyler Stovall
Dean and Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley

Closing Tribute to Aimé Césaire by Abiola Irele
Professor of African and Afro-American Studies and Romance Languages and
Literatures at Harvard University
http://www.theroot.com/id/45959

Conference Location:
Columbia University Institute for Scholars
Reid Hall
4 rue de Chevreuse
75006 Paris
Metro: Montparnasse
For more information, please contact the conveners:
tstovall@berkeley.edu; tkeaton@umn.edu; mbruce@bates.edu

Colloquium Mission
The last few years have seen an extraordinary flowering of Black
consciousness in France. Individuals and collectives have organized
around questions pertaining to the memory of slavery, “race” and
anti-black racism, the Black condition, and what it generally means to
be Black in contemporary French society. At the same time, there has
been a new wave of scholarship on Blacks in Europe and a (re)theorizing
of “blackness” in the African diaspora relative to European society and
history. Paris, in particular, has always been a center of Black life
worldwide, from the Négritude movement of the past to the myriad
formations of Black empowerment specific to this moment. On June 6 and
7, 2008, a gathering of leading international scholars will meet in
Paris to examine what we identify here as "Black France," that is, the
Black presence and condition in French society. Madame Christiane
Taubira, the esteemed member of the French Parliament whose very name is
now synonymous with legislation that recognizes slavery and the slave
trade as crimes against humanity—The Taubira Law—will deliver the
keynote address as the prelude to an exciting and stimulating series of
discussions. We encourage all those interested in the African diaspora
and French society to join us for what will be an historic event.

Colloquium Schedule – June 6-7, 2008

Friday, June 6, 2008
9h00 – 9h25
Opening Remarks
Tyler Stovall – University of California, Berkeley

Session I - Theme: Black Ontology in Formation
Questions & Answers at Conclusion of Session
9h30 – 10h30
Hortense Spillers – Vanderbilt University
"The Idea of Black Culture"

Elisabeth Boyi – Stanford University
“Identité problématique et identitification productive”

Allison Blakely – Boston University
"Black Identity in France in a European Perspective"

10h30-10h40
Pause

10h40-11h40
Michelle Wright – University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
“Reconsidering Paris: The Physics of Blackness in the Postwar Era”

Arlette Frund – Université François Rabelais, Tours
“Site-ing Black France: discourses and the making of identities"

Brent Edwards – Columbia University
“The Unheard Voice of Black Paris”

Chair: Trica Danielle Keaton – University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Lunch

Session II - Theme: Black France: Presence, Protest, and Prosperity
Questions & Answers at Conclusion of Session
13h30-14h30
Abiola Irele – Harvard University
"Black France in the Thirties"

Jennifer Boittin- Pennsylvania State University
"The Militant Black Men of Marseille and Paris during the Interwar Years"

Gary Wilder - Pomona College
"Federalism as the Future Past of Black France: Revisiting Senghor's Postwar
Vision"

14h30-14h40
Pause

14h40-15h40
Marcus Bruce – Bates University
"The New Negro in Paris: Booker T. Washington, The Paris Exposition of
1900, and The American Negro Exhibit"

Tracy Sharpley-Whiting- Vanderbilt University
“Bricktop's Paris: African American Women Expatriates in the Jazz Age”

Bennetta Jules-Rosette – University of California, San Diego
"Reflections on the Future of Black Paris: Hues of the Rainbow in a
Global Village"

Chair: Denis-Constant Martin - Senior Research Fellow, CEAN-Sciences Po
Bordeaux-FNSP

17h00 –18h00
Keynote Address
Christiane Taubira

18h30-19h30
Opening Reception

Saturday, June 7, 2008
Session I - Theme: The Social Significance of Race, Racialization, and
Racism
Questions & Answers at Conclusion of Session
10h00-11h00
Mamadou Diouf – Columbia University
TBA

Eric Fassin – Ecole Normale Supérieure
“France in Black and White? The Emergence of Racial Categories in the
Color-Blind Republic"

Tyler Stovall – University of California, Berkeley
“No Green Pastures: The ‘African Americanization’ of France”

11h00-11h10
Pause

11h10-12h10
Jean-Paul Rocchi - Université de Paris VII
"Frantz Fanon, the Masquerade of (Anti) Racism, and the Discipline of
Jouissance - A Reading of Conservatism"

Patrick Lozès – Conseil Repréntatif des Associations Noires (le CRAN)
TBA

Rémy Bazenguissa-Ganga - Centre d'études africaines- EHESS
TBA

Chair: Ramon Grosfoguel - University of California, Berkeley

Lunch

Session II - Theme: Black Exclusion - Black Belonging: Contemporary
Questions and Dilemmas
Questions & Answers at Conclusion of Session
14h00-15h00
Fred Constant - Université des Antilles et de la Guyane
“Black France and the debate over 'discriminations positives”

Dominic Thomas – University of California, Los Angeles
“BLACK FRANCE: Immigration and National Identity”

Michel Giraud - École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
“Memory of Slavery among the French Antilleans: Silence or Amnesia”

15h00-15h10
Pause

15h10-15h50
Veronique Helenon - Florida International University
“Poetics of Hip Hop”

Fatimata Wane-Sagna - Journaliste à France 24 Chaîne d'actualité
internationale
" La question noire dans les médias en France depuis les émeutes en
banlieue de 2005"

Chair: James Cohen - Université de Paris VII

Session III - Theme: Black France: The Writers’ Landscape
Questions & Answers at Conclusion of Session
16h30-17h30
Daniel Maximin: Award-Winning Novelist, Poet, and Essayist
TBA

Barbara-Chase Riboud: Award-Winning Novelist and Artist

Alain Mabanckou : Award-Winning Novelist, Professor- The University of
California-Los Angeles (UCLA)

17h30-17h40
Pause

17h40-18h20
Jake Lamar: Award-Winning Novelist

Simon Njami: Award-Wining Novelist, Art Critic, and Curator

Chair: Geneviève Fabre - Université de Paris VII, Director of the Center
of African American Research.

19h00-20h30 – Closing Remarks and Reception
Abiola Irele – Harvard University


A Colloquium Sponsored by
-The Ford Foundation;
-African American and Diaspora Studies; The Center for Ethics, and The
Robert Penn Warren
-Center for the Humanities "Black Europe" Seminar at Vanderbilt University;
-The Office of the Senior Vice The President for System Academic
Administration and the Office of the Vice President and Vice Provost for
Equity and Diversity at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities;
-Office of the Dean of Faculty at Bates College

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06 May 2008

what you would call a two-fer

Sheila and Julian (with whom I used to work many years ago--lovely man)?! They're at the High Museum talking about Sheila's current exhibition, Young Americans.

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01 May 2008

That They Might Be Lovely


I'll Fly Away, 2007. Color Photographic Print.
8 x 10 inches. (20 x 25 cm.)



"(Re)calling and (Re)telling."
New Photographs by Kesha Bruce.

May 24 - July 5, 2008.
Opening Reception:
Friday, May 30, 6-9pm
Meet and greet all the artists of New Works #11 at En Foco's Opening Reception, open to the public. Bring friends!

Artist Talk:
Saturday, May 31, 1-3pm
Gain insight into the work of New Works artists Kesha Bruce, Adriana Katzew and Donald Daedalus



En Foco
New Works #11
El Taller Boricua Gallery
1680 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY

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30 April 2008

new artists, new sites

Check out these two young Los Angeles-based black women photographers.


Glynnis Reed

I have been working in photography and photo based media for over ten years and with digital imaging for about eight years. In my work I explore issues of identity and place and I am interested in the ways social environments shape our notions of the self. I have photographed and been inspired by the imagery of cities for some time. I investigate urban landscapes as sites for revealing complexities in social interactions and relationships. I also explore dynamics of intimate relationships, investigating how gender, race, sexuality, and power figure into people’s experiences
within the physical and social geography of the city.





Ancel S. Hall


Ancel S. Hall is a recent graduate of Brooks Institute in Santa
Barbara, CA. Her specialty is portraits and fashion (check her site for a more detailed bio).


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29 April 2008

Aperture West Book Prize


The Aperture West Book Prize was generated as an opportunity to to highlight artists living and working west of the Mississippi. An esteemed group of tastemakers in the west each nominated up to five artists who they thought would be worthy of an Aperture publication. Those 103 nominees were invited to submit work; over 70 responded. From that diverse and strong pool the ten portfolios featured here were chosen, with the final book project Prize going to Hank Willis Thomas.

Look for Hank's first monograph, Pitch Blackness, from Aperture this year.

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A Knowledge beyond Text. Looking at each other, sharing interrogations
14-20 November 2009 - Paris, Musée de l'Homme

Presentation in English / Presentation en français

CALL FOR PAPERS / CONTRIBUTIONS

The Comité du Film Ethnographique is organizing an International seven-days Conference to be held in Paris in November 2009. This Conference is to honor the scientific and cinematographic work of Jean Rouch, his founding father and leader.

Our purpose is to explore the many research works and investigations pursued to improve the imagetic languages for anthropology in the fields Jean Rouch has pioneered and initiated.
This call for contributions is open to filmmakers, critics, teachers, researchers, and students concerned with the different ways to experiment and to translate the "real" through various audiovisual languages.

Propositions have to focus on one of the chosen topics:
• The colonial ordeal and a contemporary's anthropology.
• The "real" as imaginary, the fiction tells the world.
• A shared anthropology.
• Direct cinema and a making of the "real".
• A new Anthropology, a today's anthropology.

Abstracts of 1500 characters maximum have to be sent electronically to the Comité du Film Ethnographique, together with the applicant information form, by September 15th 2008. The definitive programme will be set on November 1st, 2008. All accepted participants will be expected to submit a full draft of their paper (text and audiovisual documents for a 20 minutes maximum length) by 31st of May, 2009, to allow their circulation among Conference participants.

Please find attached the applicant information form and a detailed presentation of the Conference purpose, partners and proceeding.

Important Dates:
September 15, 2008; Deadline for abstracts
November 1st, 2008; Notification of acceptance
May 31st, 2009: Submission of Final Papers
September, 2009: Conference programme

Contact :
Comité du Film Ethnographique
Musée de l’Homme
17 place du Trocadéro – 75116 Paris – France
Tél. : 33 (0)1 40 79 36 82 - 33 (0)1 47 04 38 20
colloquejeanrouch@...
www.comite-film-ethno.net


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Accra Shepp
The Tobacco Project



May 8 - June 7, 2008
Gallery 138 West 17th Street, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10011
(212) 633-0324
contact@gallery138.com | http://www.gallery138.com
Opening reception
Thursday, May 8, 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Accra Shepp reads from his book Atlas
Wednesday, May 21 from 6:00 - 8:00 pm

ACCRA SHEPP
The Tobacco Project

Exhibition Dates: May 8 – June 7, 2008
Opening Reception for the Artist: May 8, 2008, 6:00 – 8:00 pm

Gallery 138 is pleased to present The Tobacco Project, a mixed media installation by Accra Shepp, opening on May 8, 2008. In this new series, Shepp investigates the cultural contradictions of tobacco by documenting the lives of tobacco plantation owners and migrant workers on farms in Kentucky, Georgia, and North Carolina. The exhibition includes life sized photographic portraits printed on tobacco leaves grown by the farmers, photographs of the interior and exteriors of the farms, jars of dirt from which the tobacco was grown, and tobacco ashes in tins of chewing tobacco.

Shepp’s work addresses the relationship between the natural world, science, and urban civilization. As a little boy, growing up in a concrete city, Shepp had no idea there was earth under his feet. It is not coincidence that the materials of his installation are leaves, dirt and ashes: to Shepp, they represent the cycle of life. Accra sees the leaf as a unit by which we measure nature. Tobacco is a cash crop made from this unit of measure.

“Tobacco is not ambiguous,” Accra says. “Guilty pleasure, deadly vice, no other substance has a similar array of known hazards, yet people smoke. Tobacco has a long and complicated history, from its cultivation through the labor of enslaved people during the founding of this country to its modern cultivation with the use of migrant labor.”

Despite this statement, Accra explores the world of tobacco without didactic malice or blame. Like a Buddhist monk, it is his intention that we see tobacco, and ourselves, more clearly.

Accra Shepp received his B.A. from Princeton University and his M.A. from New York University. His work has been recently exhibited at The African American Museum in Philadelphia, The Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., The Whitney Museum / Philip Morris, and the Jamaica Art Center. He has been the recipient of Fulbright and NYFA fellowships. His work is included in the collections of renowned museums such as The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney, The Art Institute of Chicago, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Gallery 138 is located at 138 West 17th Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10011, (212) 633-0324. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm. Closed for holidays. For additional information, please contact Brookie Maxwell at 633-0324, contact@gallery138.com.

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I vote no...



...on this photo series in which Malcolm X's troubled grandson, Malcolm Shabazz, recreates some of his grandfather's famous photographs:

http://www.giantmag.com/content.php?cid=1413

What do you think (thanks, Lauren, for the link)? There's also an interview/article.

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Autograph ABP in association with The Centre for the Study of Human
Rights at the London School of Economics presents:

DOCUMENTING DISAPPEARANCE:
Algeria, state terrorism and the photographic image

Panel discussion
Thursday 15 May 2008 6.30 – 8.00
at the New Theatre, LSE, East Building, Houghton Street
London, England

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Barkley L. Hendricks
Find the new video on YouTube

YouTube still
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9IvTZJj0CA








The Barkley L. Hendricks exhibition and related programs are sponsored in part by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art, the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation and the North Carolina Arts Council with funding from the State of North Carolina.

Nasher Museum exhibitions and programs are generously supported by the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, Mary D.B.T. Semans and the late James H. Semans, The Duke Endowment, the Nancy Hanks Endowment, the K. Brantley and Maxine E. Watson Endowment Fund, the James Hustead Semans Memorial Fund, the Marilyn M. Arthur Fund, the Victor and Lenore Behar Endowment Fund, George W. and Viola Mitchell Fearnside Endowment Fund, the Sarah Schroth Fund, the Margaret Elizabeth Collett Fund, the North Carolina Arts Council, the Office of the President and the Office of the Provost, Duke University, and the Friends of the Nasher Museum of Art.

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