Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Kiss My Black Arts

The Black Arts Movement Conference will gather at the University of California, Merced, Feb. 28, March 1-2, 2014.

Special invited guests include Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Ishmael Reed, Askia Toure, John Bracey, James Smethurst, Mike Sell, Juan Felipe Herrera, Genny Lim, Jerry Varnado, Terry Collins, James (Jimmy) P. Garrett, Belva Davis, Marvin X, Adilah Barnes, Nathan Hare, Tarika Lewis, Destiny Muhammad, Tacuma King, Earl Davis and others. 
--A Kim Macmillan/Marvin X production


Sonia Sanchez, Queen Mother of BAM

Askia Toure, Rolland Snellings, one of the BAM Godfathers






Amina and Amiri Baraka, Queen and King of BAM

Marvin X, West Coast Godfather of BAM

In less than five years, America will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Black Arts Movement.  Sonia Sanchez, one of the leading voices of the Black Arts Movement believes that “The black artist is dangerous.  Black art controls the “Negro’s” reality, negates negative influences, and creates positive images.”  These positive images of blackness were celebrated on August 28, 2013, the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington.  At the 1963 gathering, Martin Luther King’s “I Had a Dream” speech represented the pinnacle of hope of freedom for all Americans.  The question that must be asked fifty years later is “have we achieved that dream?” We must all ask, with the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Black Arts Movement, have the images of blackness in America changed?  Is blackness still seen as inferior? In Amiri Baraka’s poem “Black Art,” first published in the liberator in 1966, he writes:
Clean out the world for virtue and love,
Let there be no love poems written
until love can exist freely and
cleanly….We want a black poem. And a 
Black World.
Let the world be a Black Poem
And Let All Black People Speak This Poem
Silently or LOUD
Are black people speaking their poems, their truth about blackness? Has the Black Arts Movement created the hoped for change in how black people view themselves?
These questions and more will be explored at the International Conference on the Black Arts Movement and its influences at UC Merced, March 1-2, 2014.  The call for papers on a worldwide level is asking the larger questions beyond race, and culture  as we examine  what happened during the Black Arts Movement, and how that changed us as a nation, and as a world.  The Black Arts Movement, the spiritual twin of the Black Power Movement is noted for having changed how African Americans viewed themselves as a race.  African Americans in the 1960s and 1970s created a new vision of blackness, one that celebrated the uniqueness of black culture.  This call for papers invites scholars of all cultural and racial backgrounds to submit  work that illustrates the influence of the Black Arts Movement, both past and present.  The Chicano, Asian, Women’s, Disability Rights, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) movements were all influenced by the Black Arts and Black Power Movements, establishing new academic fields of study, and empowering those that society had marginalized.    
--Kim McMillan


Contact Kim McMillan at kmcmillon@ucmerced.edu



CONFERENCE PROGRAM
SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 2014

1ST Floor Lantern (Kolligian Library)
8:00 –  8:30 AM                        Registration, Coffee/Tea and Light Refreshments

8:30 – 9:00 AM                        Welcoming Remarks (9:00 am – 5:00 pm 

9:15 – 10:15 AM             Multicultural Panel (Lakireddy Auditorium)
                                     Belva Davis, Panel Moderator
                                     Juan Felipe Herrera, California Poet Laureate
                                     Genny Lim, Poet & Activist
                                     Al Young, California Poet  Laureate Emeritus
                                     Avotcja, Poet
 
10:30 – 11:30 AM            Black Power and Black Arts Roundtable (Lakireddy Auditorium)
                                     Nigel Hatton, Moderator
                                     Sonia Sanchez, Poet, Playwright, Teacher
                                     John Bracey, UMass Amherst
                                     James Smethurst, UMass Amherst
                                     Amiri Baraka, Producer, Writer, Activist (still waiting for confirmation)
                                     Marvin X, Playwright, Activist
 
11:30 – 1:00 PM            Luncheon
 
1:15  –   2:00 PM            Marvin X, Keynote Speaker
 
2:15  –   3:15 PM            Theatre of the Black Arts Movement (speakers TBA)
 
4:00     5:30 PM          Northern and Central California Voices of the Black Arts Movement Installation
                                  Merced Multicultural Arts Center
                                     S.O.S. – Calling All Black People:  A Black Arts Movement Reader
Discussion with editors:  John H. Bracey Jr., Sonia Sanchez, and James  Smethurst

Dinner
 
7:00  –  9:00 PM         Theatre of the Black Arts Movement
(Excerpts from the plays of Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Marvin X, Ishmael Reed, Lorraine Hansberry, and George Wolfe) Performed by Michael Lange, Adilah Barnes, and UC Merced Students
(Must have purchased ticket for this event)
 
SUNDAY, MARCH 2, 2014
           
                                    Lantern, 1st Floor Kolligian Library
8:30 – 9:00 AM          Registration, Coffee/Tea and Refreshments
 
9:15 – 10:15 AM         New Scholarship on the Black Arts and Black Power Movement(Lakireddy Auditorium)
                                    Mike Sell, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
                                    James Smethurst, University of Mass, Amherst
                                    Marvin X, Playwright
                                    Sean Malloy, University of Merced
 
10:30 – 11:30 AM       Black Studies & the Black Arts Movement
                                    Dr. Nathan Hare
                                    Sonia Sanchez
                                    Dr. John Bracey
                                    Judy Juanita
 
                                   
Lunch
 
1:15  –  2:00 PM          Ishmael Reed, Keynote Speaker
 
 
2:15  –  3:00 PM         Central Valley Voices of the Black Arts Movement
Nigel Hatton, Moderator
(Student Papers)
Give Birth to Brightness: A Thematic Study of Neo-Black Literature by Sherley Anne Williams & Somethin' Proper, the Autobiography of Marvin X
 
 

Hotel:  Hampton Inn in Merced, CA will offer room discounts to conference attendees.              

Call for Papers
A call for papers for an international conference on the Black Arts Movement and Its Influences, University of California, Merced, March 1-2, 2014
 
In less than five years, America will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Black Arts Movement.  Sonia Sanchez, one of the leading voices of the Black Arts Movement believes that “The black artist is dangerous.  Black art controls the “Negro’s” reality, negates negative influences, and creates positive images.”  These positive images of blackness were celebrated on August 28, 2013, the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington.  At the 1963 gathering, Martin Luther King’s “I Had a Dream” speech represented the pinnacle of hope of freedom for all Americans.  The question that must be asked fifty years later is “have we achieved that dream?” We must all ask, with the upcoming 50thanniversary of the Black Arts Movement, have the images of blackness in America changed?  Is blackness still seen as inferior? In Amiri Baraka’s poem “Black Art,” first published in the liberator in 1966, he writes:
 
Clean out the world for virtue and love,
Let there be no love poems written
until love can exist freely and
cleanly….We want a black poem. And a 
Black World.
Let the world be a Black Poem
And Let All Black People Speak This Poem
Silently or LOUD
 
Are black people speaking their poems, their truth about blackness? Has the Black Arts Movement created the hoped for change in how black people view themselves?
 
These questions and more will be explored at the International Conference on the Black Arts Movement and its influences at UC Merced, March 1-2, 2014.  The call for papers on a worldwide level is asking the larger questions beyond race, and culture  as we examine  what happened during the Black Arts Movement, and how that changed us as a nation, and as a world.  The Black Arts Movement, the spiritual twin of the Black Power Movement is noted for having changed how African Americans viewed themselves as a race.  African Americans in the 1960s and 1970s created a new vision of blackness, one that celebrated the uniqueness of black culture.  This call for papers invites scholars of all cultural and racial backgrounds to submit  work that illustrates the influence of the Black Arts Movement, both past and present.  The Chicano, Asian, Women’s, Disability Rights, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) movements were all influenced by the Black Arts and Black Power Movements, establishing new academic fields of study, and empowering those that society had marginalized.    
 
This conference, sponsored by the University of Merced’s African Diaspora Graduate Student Association, seeks papers that offer new scholarship on the Black Arts and Black Power Movements as well as new insights into the following areas of study:
 
◦                            Regional examinations of the Black Arts Movement
◦                           The Black Arts Movement -- national and international
◦                            Women authors of The Black Arts Movement
◦                            Male domination and the Black Arts Movement
◦                           The Politics and Art of the Black Power and Black Arts Movements
◦                           Symbology and the Black Arts and Black Power Movements
◦                            Cultural Legacies of the Black Arts Movement
◦                            Community Theatre and the Black Arts Movement
◦                           Clothing, Music, and Art of the Black Arts Movement
◦                            Race and the Black Arts Movement
◦                            The use of Poetry and Drama in the Black Arts Movement
◦                           The media and the Black Arts and Black Power Movements
◦                            The historical context of the Black Arts Movement
◦                            The Black Panthers and the Black Arts Movement
◦                        The influence of the Black Arts Movement on other cultures
◦                        The use of language as Art in the Black Arts Movement
◦                        The creation of the Black Arts and Black Power Movement
◦                        Film and the Black Arts Movement
◦                       The Intersection between the Civil Rights and the Black Power, and Black Arts Movements
 
Special invited guests include:  Sonia Sanchez, Ishmael Reed, John Bracey, James Smethurst, Mike Sell, Juan Felipe Herrera, Genny Lim, Al Young, Belva Davis, Marvin X, Adilah Barnes, Dr. Nathan Hare, and others.
 
Please send your one-page abstract and brief bio to Kim McMillon at kmcmillon@ucmerced.edu by December 18, 2013.
 
Call for Papers, Reports, and Studies:
 
The Black Arts Movement Conference invites the following types of submissions:
 
Research Papers - Completed research papers in any of the topic areas listed above or related areas.
  
Student Papers - Research done by students in any of the topic areas listed above, or related areas.
 
Case Studies - Case studies in any of the topic areas listed above, or related areas.
 
Work-in-Progress Reports for Future Research - Incomplete research in any of the topic areas listed above, or related areas. 
 
 
Presentations:
 
Paper sessions will consist of no more than four presentations in a 80-minute session.  The session will be divided equally between the presenters.
 
Workshop presentations will be given a full 60-minute session.
 
Panel sessions will provide an opportunity for three or more presenters to speak in a more open session where ideas can be exchanged.  These sessions are 80 minutes.
 
Poster sessions will last 90 minutes and consist of a large number of presenters.  The following supplies will be provided for poster sessions:
                Easel
                Tri-fold display board (48 x 36 inches)
                Markers
                Push pins
•                Tape
•                Round table
•                Chairs
 
Submitting a Proposal/Paper:
 
Make your submission by
following these directions:
 
Create a title page for your submission.  The title page must include:
 
a.              Title of the submission
b.              Topic area of the submission (choose a topic area from the list at the top of this page)
c.              Presentation format (choose one: Paper Session, Workshop, Panel Session, or Poster Session)
d.              A description of your presentation, which should not exceed 150 words in total. Please note that       you are still required to send in an abstract/paper in addition to this description.
e.              paper author(s):
f.               EACH author, should list the following:
•                Full Name
•                Department/Division
•                University/Company/Organization
•     Email Address (all acceptance/rejection letters are sent via email, so it is very important to have a correct email address for each author.)
 
g. Email your abstract and/or paper, along with the above-described title page, to kmcmillon@ucmerced.edu.  Receipt of submissions will be acknowledged via email within one week.  
 
NOTE:  Conference papers, proposal, panels, workshops, and poster sessions will take place on the University of California, Merced campus concurrently from 9-4 pm on Saturday, and 10 am – 2:00 pm on Sunday, March 1-2, 2014.  
 

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