Topics

Lannan Literary Programs

2008 SYMPOSIUM TOPICS

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Go to I, II, III, IV

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SYMPOSIUM I

Art and Democracy in the King Years and Beyond: Scholarly Assessments

9:30 a.m. – 11:45 a.m., Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Copley Formal Lounge, Georgetown University

Joanne Gabbin, Aldon Nielson, Sandra Shannon, Valerie Smith, Ekwueme Michael Thelwell, Eleanor Traylor. Facilitator: Jabari Asim

Topic
One distinction that might be made is between the practice and reception of the arts during the Civil Rights Movement and the historical study of the arts of the period from the perspective that time and changed social and political circumstances afford. Which artists are now considered to be the defining voices of the Movement? And why is that? Since the decade of the 1960s, abundant and fruitful developments have occurred in the fields of literary criticism and theory, not the least pertinent of which has been the definitive articulation of a cluster of themes, devices, traditions, and forms that characterize African-American cultural production. How does African-American art theorize freedom? In connection with the arts of the Civil Rights Movement, scholars may wish to place special emphasis on the dynamics of resistance and liberation, as these forces become legible in the artistic practices of the era. But they might also wish to consider a more theoretical inquiry, on the subject of those mechanisms of vision and intervention which are peculiar to the arts as such, and which, in times of social and political crisis, are mobilized towards public engagement. How did the arts nurture, sustain, advance, and augment the Civil Rights Movement?

Inquiry
Among other themes, panelists might address one or more of the following questions: If we think of the Civil Rights Movement as uniquely American, what in the arts of the period might be called specifically American? How did artists use language, music, and visual image in liberatory or revolutionary ways? Why were some genres more successful than others? Why, for example, was so little fiction produced? One might also consider the function of art in sustaining communal memory: What is remembered, and inherited, from Movement Days, and what is not? Are there particular forms especially suited to remembering? Has the Movement been fetishized, patronized, or sentimentalized in problematic ways? Finally, the role of the academy in remembering the Civil Rights Movement is of interest. This aspect may be divided into two parts; one concerning teaching, the other concerning criticism. What has been the experience of asking students to attend to the study of material that seems purely historical, static, or monolithic? How does one teach the cultural productions of the Movement? What types of critical discourse have served the arts of the Movement?

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SYMPOSIUM II

Creativity, Resistance, Liberation: Forms of Political Engagement in the Arts of the 1960s

1:00 p.m. – 3:15 p.m., Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Copley Formal Lounge, Georgetown University

Sonia Sanchez, E. Ethelbert Miller, Amiri Baraka, Barbara Ann Teer, Haki Madhubuti. Facilitator: Soyica Diggs

Topic
One might wonder how political and social upheaval influences the forms that art takes at a given moment in history. Writers are no doubt citizens subject to the pressures and realities of the communities to which they belong. Writers are also seen as leaders who give voice to communal dreams, critiques, desires, & protests—they represent the community in the sphere of public discourse. In tension with this presumed public function, however, is the idea of creativity as a private gift enjoyed by the artist, a special talent or a way of life to be protected from the fracas of political action. Is art tainted if it is political? Is art tainted if it is not political? This symposium proposes to explore the relationship between politics and art, public life and private imagination, during the years of the Civil Rights Movement. What type of liberation is achievable through the arts? For whom? It is hoped that panelists will speak from their own personal experience as artists and cultural workers in a time of crisis.

Inquiry
Among other themes, panelists might wish to address one or more of the following questions: Has art been an effective vehicle for political engagement and resistance in the United States? How so? How so not? Are some genres—poetry, fiction, drama, music, or painting—more successful than others as forms of political engagement? Why is that? What is the role of tradition—historical, cultural, and literary—in the arts that foster political critique, social mobilization, and resistance? In addition to poetry, drama, and fiction, what other creative productions furthered the goals of the Civil Rights Movement and were meaningful to you—for example, creations by graphic artists and photographers whose images are now iconic? Is there a “pedagogy of liberation” to be derived from the art of the Civil Rights Movement?

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SYMPOSIUM III

Living History: Activists on Art and Social Justice

9:30 a.m. — 12:00 p.m., Thursday, April 17, 2008
Copley Formal Lounge, Georgetown University

Lawrence Guyot, Ivanhoe Donaldson, Charles Cobb, Walter Fauntroy, Dorie Ladner, Ruth Harris. Facilitator: Maurice Jackson

Topic
This symposium features activists from the Civil Rights Movement who will share observations about the importance of art to their life and times. How did art nurture and fortify the participants in the Civil Rights Movement?

The contribution of art to the energy of the Movement was sometimes surprising. One of Julian Bond’s short poems depicts an unnamed young activist at a moment of enjoyment, managing to suggest in two lines the wide variety of personalities and moods occasioned in the struggle:

Look at that girl shake that thing;
We can’t all be Martin Luther King.

Bond’s poem seems to have been written at the instant of seeing, during a hiatus from political action. What does it mean to live history? The poem preserves a record of an anonymous personality, but it also shows the activist (Bond) engaged in an act of observation, imagination, reflection, and speech—an act of poetry—that radiates vitality and promise.

Inquiry
And so one might go on to ask more broadly about the energies put into circulation by the arts at this time, whether the verbal arts or the visual arts, the “high” arts or the popular arts. Panelists might take up one or more of the following questions: Which writers and publications did you read at the time? How did the Movement stimulate your own creativity? What function did song fulfill? What did it mean to sing while marching and organizing? In what way did the arts of the time, or later, transmit Dr. King’s prophetic vision? What do you see as the relationship between art and social justice, the arts and democracy-making? In times of struggle, can there be a difference between art and propaganda?

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SYMPOSIUM IV

Advancing American Ideals: Democracy as a Goal for the Arts

2:15 p.m. – 4:30 p.m., Thursday, April 17, 2008
Copley Formal Lounge, Georgetown University

Randall Kenan, Askia Touré, Thulani Davis, Eugene Redmond, Jayne Cortez.
Facilitator: Robert Patterson

Topic
Assuming their capacity to effectively—if at times indirectly—intervene in the political arena, this symposium will consider the relationship of the arts to specific American ideals such as citizenship, freedom, and democracy. The tenets of legal segregation were antithetical to the ideals set forth in the Bill of Rights. African-American poetry had in previous decades taken up the question of the unfinished business of American democracy, calling particular attention to obstacles faced by people of color seeking to exercise their full rights as American citizens. In the years of the Civil Rights Movement, how did artists respond to these same obstacles? How did the broader context of the Movement influence the possibilities and dilemmas envisioned by poetry, fiction, drama, and other art-forms? It is hoped that panelists will speak from their own personal experience as artists and cultural workers in a time of crisis.

Inquiry
Among other themes, panelists might consider one or more of the following questions: Should advancing or securing democracy be a goal for the arts? How does art bear witness to the ethics—the values—of a democratic society? Can the imagination function as a bulwark against civic breakdown? For whom? What do the words “civic responsibility,” “home,” and “nation” mean to you? Do artists have civic responsibilities? What is the role of the audience in advancing democratic ideals and goals? Is there a “pedagogy of citizenship” to be derived from the art of the Civil Rights Movement?