UCR Black Aesthetics Conference Schedule Set
UCR Black Aesthetics Conference Schedule Set
(October 11, 2001)
NEWS MEDIA CONTACT
Name: Kris LovekinTel: (951) 827-2495
E-mail: kris.lovekin@ucr.edu
Conference scholars and performers from throughout the United States will gather at UCR and discuss the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. It has become a benchmark in developing today’s artistic aesthetic, which is linked both to the forms developed by African slaves in the Americas and to social activism in the aftermath of U.S. Black Power and civil rights movements.
The conference begins Friday, Oct. 19 at the UCR/California Museum of Photography with a reception and exhibit of the Huey P. Newton Collection and a performance by the jazz performance-art duet Cultural Odyssey.
The gathering moves to the Riverside Convention Center on Saturday, Oct. 20, for roundtable discussions, with such titles as, “Revisiting the Black Aesthetic”; “Relocating Black Aesthetics: Geographies of the Imagination”; and “Beats, Rhymes, and Cuts: Articulating Black Differences Today.” The day will end with an open-microphone, jam and improvisational performance session at the UCR/California Museum of Photography.
The Center for Ideas and Society at UCR, the UC Humanities Research Institute, the Ford Foundation and the California Arts Council sponsor the two-day event.
In using the term “Black Aesthetics,” conference organizers broadened the geographic and cultural borders of discussion beyond the United States to include the contributions of Africans from throughout the Western Hemisphere – a consequence of the slave trade known as the “African Diaspora.” This broad view is now seen as central to any concept of modern Black art and identity.
The “Black Aesthetics” conference grew out of the large 1998 gathering, partially funded by the Ford Foundation, titled “Aesthetics and Difference: Cultural Diversity, Literature, and the Arts,” organized by the Center for Ideas & Society. This smaller conference is one of several funded by the center’s multi-year Ford Foundation grant that was planned to delve deeply into specific issues raised by the earlier wide-ranging conference.
More information about registration and conference events is available on the Center for Ideas and Society web site at: www.ideasandsociety.ucr.edu/conferences/.
The Black Aesthetic: 1960-2001
Conference Schedule, October 19 and 20, 2001
Friday, Oct 19: (UC Riverside California Museum of Photography)
6:00 p.m. Buffet Reception and Huey P. Newton Collection exhibition opening
6:15 p.m. Welcoming Remarks
7:30 p.m. Performance: Cultural Odyssey (Rhodessa Jones and Idris Ackamoor)
Funded in part by the California Arts Council
8:45 p.m. Discussion between performers and audience
(Moderator: Susan Foster, UC Riverside)
Saturday, October 20:
8:00 a.m. Coffee, etc. and Registration (Convention Center)
8:30 a.m. Opening Remarks by Valerie Smith, Professor of English, Princeton U
9:00 a.m. First Roundtable: Revisiting the Black Aesthetic
Sterling Stuckey, Moderator, UC Riverside
Senga Nengudi, University Colorado at Colorado Springs
Lorenzo Thomas, University of Houston-Downtown
Clyde Taylor, New York University
Amy Ongiri, UC Riverside
Katherine Kinney, UC Riverside
10:45 a.m. Coffee Break
11:00 a.m. Second Roundtable: Spaces of Difference: Placing the Black Aesthetics’ Margins
Anna Scott, Moderator, UC Riverside
Maia, Composer, Multi-Instrumentalist, Vocalist, Actor
Isaura Oliveira, Dancer
Carol Boyce Davies, Northwestern University
Kerry James Marshall, University of Illinois at Chicago
Jocelyne Guilbault, UC Berkeley
12:45 p.m. Lunch for Participants and Audience
1:45 p.m. Third Roundtable: Relocating Black Aesthetics: Geographies of the Imagination
Richard Yarborough, Moderator, UCLA
Mae Henderson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Judith Wilson, UC Irvine
Nicole King, UC San Diego
Ethan Nasreddin-Longo, UC Riverside
Hershini Bhana, UC Riverside
3:30 p.m. Coffee Break
3:45 p.m. Final Roundtable: Beats, Rhymes, and Cuts: Articulating Black Differences Today
Josh Kun, Moderator, UC Riverside
Jerry Quickley, LA Spoken Word Artist
Rhodessa Jones and Idris Ackamoor, Cultural Odyssey
Wahneema Lubiano, Duke University
Aldon Lynn Nielsen, Pennsylvania State University
Harryette Mullen, UCLA
Tyehimba Jess, Writer
6:00 p.m. Buffet Reception (UC Riverside California Museum of Photography)
7:30 p.m. Open Mike/Jam and Improv Session (UC Riverside California Museum of Photography)
Conference Venues:
UCR/California Museum of Photography – 3824 Main St., Riverside (909) 787-4787
Riverside Convention Center – 3443 Orange St., Riverside (909) 787-7950
The University of California, Riverside (www.ucr.edu) is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California's diverse culture, UCR's enrollment has exceeded 21,000 students. The campus opened a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Center. The campus has an annual statewide economic impact of more than $1 billion.
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