Literature Program, Historical Studies Program, Difference and Media Project, Dance Program, Center for Civic Engagement, American and Indigenous Studies Program, and Africana Studies Program Present
Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics During World War II
Monday, October 24, 2016
Campus Center, Multipurpose Room
4:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
4:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
A Lecture by Farah Jasmine Griffin
Farah Jasmine Griffin, William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African-American Studies at Columbia University"Her body in the air looked like an abstract sculpture," Griffin writes of Pearl Primus's dance in the 1840s.
"In her book “Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics During World War II,[2013]” Farah Jasmine Griffin, a professor at Columbia University, delves into a largely underexplored aspect of Harlem’s rich history: the years just before, during and immediately after World War II, a period of optimism, creativity and turmoil. Moreover, Griffin uses the lives of three female artists — the choreographer and dancer Pearl Primus, the writer Ann Petry and the composer and pianist Mary Lou Williams — as signposts through an era, in a work that paints the “greatest generation” in a much less flattering light than do the usual jingoistic accounts." ~The New York Times
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].
Time: 4:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Location: Campus Center, Multipurpose Room