Author: Jacqueline Francis

Writer, researcher, educator, curator, arts consultant, and occasional artist in San Francisco, California. I'm Dean of the Humanities and Science Division at California College of the Arts.

CFP: 4th International Colloquium on Latinos in the US — Abstracts due Jul. 19, 2017

Casa de las Américas (Havana, Cuba) will be the site for a meeting (Oct. 16-20, 2017) focused on the theme “Socialization of Latinos in the United States: Education, Religion and Mass Media.”

The meeting intends to produce a thorough debate regarding the socialization processes that influence the relationships between migrants and their children in American society.

Participants will reflect on the perspectives Latinos in the United States as social subjects immersed in new socialization spaces that create formal educational processes that constitute breakpoints in the establishment of American society while being at the same time participants of informal processes that are substantiated by other socializing agents such as religions and their institutions; and the media and social networks on the Internet. Music and sports are areas that we also want to highlight in order to make them objects of analysis.

 

The Colloquium, consistent with the goals of previous meetings, will create a space of action with the presence of people of Latin American and Caribbean origins who are linked to the arts, literature and social sciences and humanities.

The following are proposed as central themes:

  1. Socialization of Latinos in the United States.
  2. Educative processes for Latinos in the United States as it relates to undocumented students and informal educational spaces.
  3. Public sphere, image and representation of Latinos in mass media.
  4. Music and socialization.
  5. Religions and their institutions as spaces for socialization of Latinos in the United States.

In addition, one of the working sessions will be dedicated to discussion of the history of Cuban emigration to the United States, the insertion of Cubans and Cuban Americans in the Latino communities, and the influence of the new scenarios in Cuba-U.S. relations. Furthermore, tribute will be paid to the life and work of the Cuban artist Ana Mendieta.

ABSTRACTS AND PAPERS

Scholars interested in taking part in the Colloquium may submit individual papers or panels. In either case, the following guidelines should be followed:

  • An abstract of no more than 250 words should be submitted before July 20th, 2017 with the title and name of the author and institution of origin.
  • The conference papers will not exceed 15 pages (double-spaced) which is equivalent to 20 minutes of oral reading.
  • Participants should bring along with the printed text of their presentations, making use of the international standards for notes, citation and bibliography, and the original text in digital format on a flash memory drive or a CD- ROM.RECOMMENDATIONS

    To facilitate your transfer and stay in Cuba, please contact your travel agent or:

    CASA DE LAS AMÉRICAS
    3a y G, El Vedado, La Habana, 10 400, Cuba,
    Telephone: (537) 838-2706/09, ext. 129. Fax: (537) 834-4554

    Emails: latinos@casa.cult.cu; http://www.casadelasamericas.org

 

Instruccíon en español

 

 

Opportunity for Historians of 19th and early 20th-century African American Architecture and Material Culture and Louisiana History and Culture

Betty Reid Soskin is the granddaughter of Louis Charbonnet (1869-1924), architect and builder of Corpus Christi Church and School in New Orleans.  Ms. Soskin has information and memorabilia about her grandfather that she would like to share with reputable researchers of 19th and early 20th-century African American architecture and material culture, and/or Louisiana history and culture.

Initially, a creator of ornamental iron work, Louis Charbonnet became an engineer, inventor and millwright.  His New Orleans business establishment dates to 1893.  After St. Louis School was destroyed in a 1915 storm, Charbonnet drew plans for its reconstruction and supervised the project.

To learn more, contact Ms. Soskin cbreaux@earthlink.net

Also see Betty Reid Soskin’s blog!

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Photo of Louis Charbonnet Sr. at “The Charbonnets” homepage

The Great Man in “Patriots Day”

patriots-day-poster-featured-banner

I’ve been interested in response to Patriots Day, which I’ve not yet seen. Separate from the New York Times review by Glenn Kenny, a feature penned by the Times’ New England Bureau Chief Katharine Q. Seeyle offers the sense that Bostonians have their criticisms of the movie. Among them is the composite character played by Mark Wahlberg. To me, this popular response registers as a critique of the Great Man theory, a notion that’s been under scrutiny in Europe and North America since the nineteenth century.

Wahlberg’s image is being used to promote Patriots Day and this conceptual image is as well. The latter deserves more study than I can give it here. But, as we start a new academic semester this week and next, maybe this ad would be a good one to give to students of visual cultural studies.

John W. Mosley’s Mid-20th Century Photos of Black Philadelphia 

Check out @hyperallergic’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/hyperallergic/status/813744006114971648?s=09

The Sounds of Ethncity, Race and Region

how-to-speak-midwesternIn today’s New York Times, Jennifer Schuessler reviewed a new book, How to Speak Midwestern. Interestingly, the headline in the print edition is:  “Midwesterner, Yes, You Do Have an Accent”. This phrasing is a gentle nudge to rethink what might be perceived as a norm, which, of course, is actually as inflected as anything else. Apparently, this truth is one of author Edward McClelland’s motivations for writing this book.

In the review, Schuessler comes out from behind the curtain of reviewer neutrality. She pronounces, self-deprecatingly: “Full disclosure: Like Mrs. Clinton, I’m a white woman who grew up in the Chicago suburbs. When it comes to pinched nasal vowels and strongly pronounced r’s (a phenomenon linguists call rhoticity), I’m With Her.”

Schuessler also notes: “The heavily industrialized (and segregated) Inland North–as dialectologists call the region stretching from roughly from central New York across the Great Lakes–‘has a wider divergence between white and black speech than anywhere in the country,’ Mr. McClleland writes, with African-Americans largely maintaining speech patterns brought from the South. (Mr. McClelland notes the existence of various Midwestern ‘blacaccents,’ though he doesn’t explore them.)”

Such “blaccents” are not the only subjects deserving of further study by critical race scholars. So is the consideration of the visual. Tellingly, the designers for McClelland’s book eschew figures for its cover, as if to acknowledge the demographic diversity of the region’s populace. Smart move.

Consider the ideology of an earlier publication (1960) with almost the same title:

thomas-how-to-speak-midwestern

This book is a “humor” offering. See Google Books for a brief excerpt:

“To speak good Midwestern you need to: Get gear’d up by studyin’ this book. Before you know it you’ll be speaking Midwestern Pertnear as good as Everybody.”

Thomas’s cover design is serious in its invocation, i.e., the Midwest is American Gothic (1930). It is a move to use the authority of the original painting, without any awareness of its intended satire.

 

 

In This Political Season, A Film Portrait of East Coast, White Working Class Racial Identity

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Critic A.O. Scott take a while to get around to it in yesterday’s New York Times, but towards the end of his review he writes: “The movie takes up, indirectly and perhaps inadvertently but powerfully and unmistakably, a subject that has lately reinserted itself into American political discourse. It’s a movie, that is, about the sorrows of white men.” Of the film’s main character, Lee Chandler (played by Casey Affleck),  a Boston apartment building janitor who was born in a Bay State seaside town, Scott surmises: “Cast out of this working man’s paradise, Lee is also exiled from the prerogatives of whiteness.  . . .to deny that Manchester By the Sea has a racial dimension is to underestimate its honesty and overlook its difficult relevance.”

Sounds like critical race visual cultural studies is in yet another the critical conversation.

A.O. Scott, “Currents of Grief Beneath Everyday Life–Film Review,” New York Times, November 19, 2016, Weekend Arts Section I, 1, 12.

 

 

The Sounds of Race

 

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Quentin Hardy, ” Seeking a Choice of Voices in Conversational Computing,” NY TIMES, Mon., Oct. 10, 2016, B1, B4.

Cultures and ethnicities are represented–visually, orally, and in other ways as well.

Joseph Beuys proposed that speech is sculptural, and certainly, we do perceive the body “behind” the words that form them.

Asked the question “What can I do for you?” what image is formed in our minds?

[Voice over American actor Susan Bennett provides the voice of Siri for Apple.]

 

On Race-casting

richard-lund-hollywood-sign-at-nightImage from Filmathon–For the Love of Films

The ethno-racial look always informs the casting decision, from Bourne and Bond to Eliza Doolittle, Evita, M. Butterfly, Nina…and so on.

Yesterday, in the Guardian, film writer Ben Child wrote a blunt critique of “yellow-casting.” Child makes many good points. But a word (i.e., warning) to the reader: this op-ed is not for the faint of heart. Child’s piece is, as they say on sports radio, “real talk.”

And, if you wanna get really riled up, see Britt Julious’s op-ed from last year.

Color portraits of immigrants at Ellis Island – in pictures | Culture | The Guardian

Immigrants as types — Ellis Island arrivals

CFP: Terra Foundation Int’l Research Travel Grants for US-based Scholars

Terra Foundation International Research Travel Grants offer US-based scholars working on American art and visual culture prior to 1980 the opportunity to conduct research outside the United States. Grant funding is available for short-term travel for scholars whose research projects require study of materials outside the United States, enabling scholars to:

  • Discover new primary source material;
  • Experience works of art first-hand in museums and private collections;
  • Make contact with artists, critics, art dealers, archivists, curators, and university scholars;
  • Consult archives and library collections outside the US;
  • Establish professional networks for future research.

Applications are due Jan. 15, 2017.
Grants will be awarded to doctoral students as well as postdoctoral and senior scholars.

For more information, go to the Terra Foundation’s website.