Art & Power in Movement

Conference Program (subject to change)

Thursday, November 18^th

4.00 pm	Melba Boyd, Wayne State University “Dudley Randall and Broadside Press” Special Collections, 25th Floor, W.E.B. Du Bois Library
8:00 pm	Randy Weston Concert—Bowker Auditorium Tickets are available at the Fine Arts Center Box Office.

 

Friday, November 19^th

8.00-8:30 am	CAMPUS CENTER AUDITORIUM LOBBY Registration, Coffee/Tea and Fruit/Pastries
8:30-8:45 am	Opening Amilcar Shabazz
Concurrent Sessions Round I
8.45-10.00am	Amiri Baraka Panel—Campus Center, Room 162 Emahunn Raheem Ali Campbell, UMass Amherst “Specters of Marxism: The Marxian Influence on Amiri Baraka’s Cultural Nationalist Poetry” Mohammad Aljayyousi, Indiana University of PA “‘Poems That Scream’: Orality/Aurality as a Form of Radicalism and Militancy in the Poetry of Amiri Baraka” Chair: Johanna Ortner, UMass Amherst
8.45-10.00am	International Panel Grace Hampton and Mark Alan Herrin, Penn State “Festac 77 - A Cultural Milestone” Elizabeth Kai Hinton, Columbia University “Nixon’s War on Drugs and the Militarization of the Los Angeles Police Force: 1968-1973” Robeson Frazier, University of California, Berkeley “The Limits of Tricontinental Solidarity” Samir Meghelli, Columbia University “The Battle From Algiers: Transnational Solidarities and the End of Black Power Abroad” Matthew Birkhold, SUNY Binghamton “Nothing But Negation: Black Power, New Communism, and the World-Economy” Chair: Jonathan Fenderson, UMass Amherst
8.45-10.00am	BAM and Genre Studies—Campus Center, Room 165 John P. Bowles, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill “The African American Performance Art Archive: Documenting Collaboration Collaboratively” Lloren Foster, Western Kentucky University “Consciousness and the Short Story” Aimee Glocke, University of Wyoming “Is the Black Aesthetic Dead?: Positing the Black Aesthetic as the Foundation for the Black Novel” Lars Lierow, George Washington University “The Black Man's Vision of the World: Rediscovering Black Arts Filmmaking and the Struggle for a Black Cinematic Aesthetic” Chair: Crystal Donkor, UMass Amherst
Plenary Session
10.15-11.45am	Forty Years of Black Music in the Pioneer Valley—Campus Center, Room 163 Randy Weston, Musician Glen Siegel, Magic Triangle and WMUA, UMass Amherst Terry Jenoure, Director, Augusta Savage Art Gallery Frederick Tillis, UMass Amherst Chair: John Bracey, UMass Amherst
Luncheon Plenary
12.00-1.45pm	Malcolm X Roundtable—10th Floor Amherst Room Sonia Sanchez, Poet, Playwright, Teacher Rickey Hill, Mississippi Valley State James Turner, Cornell University Haki Madhubuti, Poet, Publisher, Teacher Chair: William Strickland, UMass Amherst *Pre-registration required.
2.00-3.15pm	SNCC Plenary—Campus Center, Room 163 Judy Richardson, Filmmaker Charlie Cobb, AllAfrica.com and Brown University Chair: Ekwueme Michael Thelwell, UMass Amherst
Concurrent Sessions Round IV
3.30-4:45pm	Women and BAM/Black Power—Campus Center, Room 162 Zahra Caldwell, UMass Amherst “Black Power Foremother: Abby Lincoln, Music, Image, Representation and Black Womanhood in the 1960’s” Julie Burrell, UMass Amherst “A New Nation: Alice Childress Re-scripts Black Nationalism” Renee M. Kingan, College of William and Mary “‘Taking It Out!’”: Jayne Cortez’s Collaborations with The Firespitters” Luo Lianggong, Central China Normal University “Grow to Be a BAM Womanist: Sonia Sanchez’s Evolution in the Black Arts Movement” Chair: Flávia Santos de Araújo, UMass Amherst
3.30-4:45pm	Ideology, Politics, and Aesthetics—Campus Center, Room 163 Vanessa Fabien, UMass Amherst “The Black Arts Movement: The Performance of An Environmental Ethic Post Civil Rights” Donald Geesling, UMass Amherst “‘Survival Kits on Wax’: Gil Scott-Heron, The Black Arts Movement, and the Poetics of Resistance in the Age of Nixon” Gary Holcomb, Ohio University “Audre Lorde’s Queer Black Marxism: Reimagining Black Arts” Charles Nero, Bates College “The Black Arts Movement and the Black Gay Generation of 1986: The Case of Melvin W. Dixon: Poet, Scholar, Novelist” Chair: Ernest Gibson, UMass Amherst
3.30-4:45pm	Black Power, BAM, and Ethnic Studies—Campus Center, Room 165 Kedong Liu and Li Fu, Harbin Institute of Technology “Attitudes toward Tradition in North American Ethnic Literature” Matthew Calihman, Missouri State University “Ishmael Reed and White Ethnic Revivalism” Markeysha Davis, UMass “Implicating Whiteness: Black Arts Movement Poetry and the Attack on the White Ideal” Chair: James Smethurst, UMass Amherst
5:00-6:00pm	CAMPUS CENTER AUDITORIUM KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Amiri Baraka Poet, Playwright, Critic, Teacher
Social
6:00 pm	10th Floor Hadley Room Area Cash bar.
Dinner
6:30 pm	10th Floor Amherst Room *Pre-registration required. Cash bar.
8:00 pm	FINE ARTS CENTER, BLACK BOX THEATRE Theatre reading of BAM Plays. This evening of excerpts will showcase the work of seminal playwrights Amiri Baraka, Ed Bullins, and Sonia Sanchez alongside contemporary writers Lydia Diamond, Kirsten Greenridge and Lenelle Moise.

 

Saturday, November 20^th

8.30-9.00am	CAMPUS CENTER, 1st Floor Registration Desk Registration, Coffee/Tea & Fruit/Pastries
Concurrent Sessions Round V
9.00-10.15am	BP/BAM on Campus—Campus Center, Room 163 Stefan Bradley, St. Louis University “Black Student Power at Columbia University, 1967-1969” Tina Pierce, Denison University “A Call for Black Power: A Political Analysis of Black Student Insurgency at the Ohio State University from 1969 to 1970” Dexter Blackman, Loyola Marymount “‘We are men first, athletes second’: Black Student-Athletes and the Black Students Movement in the Age of Black Power” Chair: Donald Geesling, UMass Amherst
9.00-10.15am	Revolutionary Action Movement/Republic of New Afrika Panel—Campus Center, Room 101 Muhammad Ahmad, Temple University John Bracey, UMass Amherst Rondee Gaines, Georgia State University Edward Onaci, University of Illinois Askia Touré, Poet Chair: Amilcar Shabazz, UMass Amherst
Concurrent Sessions Round VI
10.30-11.45am	New Scholarship Panel—Campus Center, Room 163 Peniel Joseph, Tufts University Margo Crawford, Cornell University William Strickland, UMass Amherst Ibram H. Rogers, Rutgers University Chair: James Smethurst, UMass Amherst
10.30-11.45am	Print Culture I—Campus Center, Room 101 Jonathan Fenderson, UMass Amherst “Renovating the Black World: Afro-Modern Festivities & Black Arts Internationalism, 1966-1977” Seth Markle, Trinity College “Reading for the Revolution: Drum and Spear Bookstore, Africa and Black Power Constructions of Popular Memory” Christopher Tinson, Hampshire College “‘Harlem, New York! Harlem, Detroit! Harlem, Birmingham!’: Liberator Magazine and the Chronicling of Translocal Activism, 1963-1967” Brian Purnell, Bowdoin College “Agitate, Educate, Organize: Black News and the Intersection of Black Art and Black Power Politics” 1969-1983” Chair: Dayo Gore, UMass Amherst
Luncheon Plenary
12.00-1.45pm	CAMPUS CENTER, 11th Floor Marriott Center KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Sonia Sanchez Poet, Playwright, Teacher *Pre-registration required
Concurrent Sessions Round VII
2.00-3.15pm	Local People—Campus Center, Room 163 Candy Tate, Clark Atlanta University “Visualizing Cultural Politics: Atlanta’s Neighborhood Arts Center (1975-1990)” Rickey Hill, Mississippi Valley State “The Bogalusa Movement: Self-Defense and Black Power In the Civil Rights Struggle” Ian Rocksborough, University of Toronto “Memory, Cultural Fronts, and Black Public History in Cold War Chicago” Ashley Farmer, Harvard University “‘Working Towards the Community is Our Full-Time Focus’: Muriel Snowden, Black Power, and the Freedom House, Roxbury, MA” Chair: David Swiderski, UMass Amherst
2.00-3.15pm	Continuing the Legacy: Artists and Aesthetics of the Black Arts Movement in Dialogue with Contemporary African American Artists and Artistic Practice—Campus Center, Room 101 Lydia Diamond, Boston University Kirsten Greenidge, Playwright Marcus Gardley, UMass Amherst Djola Branner, Hampshire College Michael Simanga, Fulton County Arts Council Chair: Priscilla Page, UMass Amherst
2.00-3.15pm	Print Culture II—Campus Center, Room 162 Zachary Manditch-Prottas, Columbia University “The Revolution Will be Published: The Role of Prison Literature within the Black Power Movement” Tim Robinson, Old Dominion University “Society of Umbra and Umbra Magazine” Trevor Joy Sangrey, University of California at Santa Cruz “Politics on Paper: Origins and Uses of Pamphlet Literature in the Black Power Movement” Chair: Jason Hendrickson, UMass Amherst
Tribute to Writers & Poets Session
3.30-5:00pm	Campus Center, Room 165 Book signings by authors.
3:30-4:30pm	Campus Center, Room 163 Film Screening: “Scarred Justice: The Orangeburg Massacre 1968”
5:00-6:15pm	Plenary Panel: Legacies of Black Power and Black Arts—Campus Center, Room 163 Judy Richardson, Filmmaker Amiri Baraka, Poet, Playwright, Critic, Teacher Sonia Sanchez, Poet, Playwright, Teacher Nelson Stevens, UMass Amherst Eugene Redmond, Southern Illinois University Askia Touré, Poet Chair: William Strickland, UMass Amherst
DINNER On Your Own
Please note: No responsibility is accepted by The University of Massachusetts Amherst or organisers of the conference for any loss of property or personal injury. Participants are therefore advised not to bring valuables to the conference and to arrange their own insurance against accident and loss of property.