The Genius of James Brown: A Symposium

“Ain’t that a Groove”: The Genius of James Brown
A Princeton University Two-Day Symposium

PROGRAM

Thursday, November 29, 2007
Richardson Auditorium, Princeton University

6:00pm
Welcome
Valerie Smith, Director of the Center for African American Studies

6:15pm
"James Brown: Man To Man", Concert Film Footage
courtesy of Alan Leeds and Harry Weinger

7pm-9pm
“On the One”: A Keynote Roundtable featuring Robert Christgau, Farah J. Griffin, Alan Leeds, and Fred Moten
moderator: Daphne A. Brooks

Friday, November 30, 2007
Richardson Auditorium, Princeton University

9:00am
Opening Remarks: “‘I’m Not There’: Popular Music Studies & the
Godfather of Soul”
Daphne A. Brooks

9:30-11:30am
“It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World”: Black Power, Black Masculinity and the Politics of Funk

Mark Anthony Neal, "In the Rhythm of Patriarchy: 'Papa Don't Take No Mess'"
Jason King, “James Brown’s Sweat”
Thomas F. DeFrantz, “My Brother, the Dance Master”
Robert Fink, “Soul Power, 1971”
Moderator: Tera W. Hunter

1:00-3:00pm
The Funky Precedent: Revolutionizing Rock, Birthing Hip Hop—Theorizing James Brown’s Musical Innovations

Kandia Crazy Horse, "The One and Only: King James' Rock Revolt"
Rickey Vincent, "James Brown and the Rhythm Revolution"
Ahmir ?uestlove Thompson, “The Roots of Hip Hop”
Harry Weinger, “Listening to James Brown”
Moderator: Joshua B. Guild

3:30-5:30pm
“Mama Don’t Take No Mess”: Black Feminist Readings of James Brown

Greg Tate, “blues and the nekkid truth--the embodied she-funks of betty davis, chaka khan, grace jones and meshell ndeocello”
Imani Perry, "Telling Him About Himself: A Feminist Reading of James Brown"
Mendi Obadike, "The Pleasure/Challenge of James Brown's Iconicity"
Ernest Hardy, "James Brown: Portal of Possibility"
Moderator: Tavia Nyong’o

5:30-6:00pm
Closing Remarks
Cornel West, Class of 1943 University Professor in the Center for African American Studies

8:30-10pm
101 McCormick Hall

Special Evening Q&A
A Conversation with legendary James Brown band members Pee Wee Ellis, Fred Wesley and Questlove of the Roots
Moderator: Alan Leeds

Anne Hathaway - John Huba Photoshoot

Anne Hathaway Profile

Name - Anne Hathaway

Birth Date - November 12, 1982

Birth Place - Brooklyn, New York, USA

Nationality - American

Height - 5' 8"

Profession - actress

Education - Millburn Highschool, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N.Y. (major in
English)

Relationship - Raffaello Follieri (property developer)

Father - Gerald Hathaway (attorney)

Mother - Kate McCauley (actress)

Brother - Tom Hathaway

Claim to fame - feature debut as the awkward teenager, Mia Thermopolis, in Disney's The Princess Diaries (2001)

Anne Hathaway Biography

Anne Jacqueline Hathaway (born November 12, 1982) is an American film and stage actress. Hathaway made her acting debut in the 1999 television series Get Real, but her first prominent role was in Disney's family comedy The Princess Diaries (2001), which established her career. She continued to appear in Disney films in the next three years, and she had the lead roles in Ella Enchanted and The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (both 2004). Hathaway took more creative control over her career in 2005 and co-starred in the adult-themed Havoc and Brokeback Mountain, both requiring extensive nude scenes, as well as The Devil Wears Prada (2006), in which she starred opposite Meryl Streep. That film has become the highest-grossing film of her career. Becoming Jane, in which she stars as Jane Austen, was released in 2007.

Hathaway's acting style has been compared to that of Judy Garland and Audrey Hepburn, and she cites Hepburn as her favorite actress and Streep as her idol. People magazine named her one of 2001's breakthrough stars and in 2006 she was listed as one of the world's 50 Most Beautiful People.

Hathaway was born in Brooklyn, New York to Gerald Hathaway, a lawyer, and Kate McCauley, an actress who inspired Hathaway to follow in her footsteps. She was not named after the wife of playwright William Shakespeare. She has an older brother, Michael, and a younger brother, Thomas. Hathaway has mainly Irish and French ancestry, with more distant German and Native American roots. She was raised in the Catholic religion with what she considers "really strong values", and wanted to be a nun during her childhood. However, at fifteen, she decided not to become a nun after learning that her brother Michael was gay. Although she was raised as a Catholic, she felt that she could not be part of a religion that disapproved of her brother's sexual orientation.

Hathaway was raised in Short Hills, New Jersey and graduated from Millburn High School where she was in many school plays. She spent several semesters studying at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York before transferring to New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She referred to her college enrollment as one of her best decisions because she enjoyed being with others who were trying to successfully "grow up". Hathaway was a member of the Barrow Group Theater Company's acting program and the first teenager admitted. She is a trained stage actress and has stated that she prefers appearing on stage to film roles.

Hathaway, a soprano, performed twice in 1998 with the All Eastern U.S. High School Honors Chorus at Carnegie Hall and has performed in plays at Seton Hall Prep in West Orange. Three days after performing at Carnegie Hall, she was cast in the short-lived 1999 television series Get Real.

Erika Christensen

Erika Christensen Profile

Name: Erika Christensen

Height: 5' 5''

Sex: F

Nationality: American

Birth Date: August 19, 1982

Birth Place: Seattle, Washington, USA

Profession: Actress

Education: Home schooled
Delphi Academy (private primary and secondary school), Los Angeles

Brother: Dane and Brando (twins)

Claim to fame: Played the teenage drug addict Caroline in Steven Soderbergh's Traffic (2000)

Erika Christensen Biography

Erika Jane Christensen (born August 19, 1982) is an American actress whose film appearances include Traffic (2000) and The Perfect Score (2004), among others. She also co-starred in the drama Six Degrees on ABC.

Christensen was born in Seattle, Washington, the daughter of Kathy, a construction manager, and Steven Christensen, an insurance worker/human-resources executive. She has an older half-brother, Nick, two younger twin brothers, Dane (who appeared in the film The Upside of Anger) and Brando. She has Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Welsh, and Irish ancestry. Christensen was raised in Los Angeles, California and started out on television in commercials for McDonald's.

Christensen is a member of the Church of Scientology. Her parents became Scientologists during their 20s and raised her in the faith as well as home-schooling her.

Christensen had several small roles in various television programs before starting her movie career. These shows include The Geena Davis Show, Frasier, The Practice, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and Touched by an Angel. She was named one of People magazine's "Breakthrough Stars of 2001." For her performance in Traffic she received the awards for Female Breakthrough Performance at the MTV Movie Awards, Female Standout Performance at the Young Hollywood Awards, and Outstanding Performance by a Cast Ensemble at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. In 2005, she briefly went into music as she recorded a version of Let's Fall In Love with John Stevens for his debut album Red. In 2006, she starred in the series Six Degrees, which debuted on the ABC fall schedule in 2006 but went on hiatus due to low ratings and is not expected to film any more episodes. She made a cameo in the Joaquin Phoenix directed video "Tired of Being Sorry" for Balthazar Getty's band Ringside.

Kate Hudson [Wallpapers]

Kate Hudson Profile

Birth name - Kate Garry Hudson

Born - April 19, 1979, Los Angeles, California, USA

Height - 5' 6"

Spouse(s) - Chris Robinson (2000-2006)

Children - Ryder Russell Robinson (b.2004)

Parents - Bill Hudson (b.1949), Goldie Hawn (b.1945)

Occupation - Actress, Model

Best Known As - Penny Lane in the movie Almost Famous

Kate Hudson Biography

Kate Garry Hudson (born April 19, 1979) is an American film actress. She came to fame in 2000, after an Oscar-nominated role in the drama Almost Famous, and has since established herself as a Hollywood lead actress, starring in several films, including How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, The Skeleton Key, and You, Me, and Dupree.

Hudson was born in Los Angeles to Bill Hudson (a singer, comedian and member of the Hudson Brothers) and the Academy Award-winning actress Goldie Hawn. Her maternal grandmother is of Hungarian Ashkenazi Jewish descent while her paternal grandmother was of Italian descent and her paternal grandfather's ancestry traces to 15th century England. Hudson was raised in the Jewish religion, though her family also practiced Buddhism.

Hudson's parents divorced eighteen months after her birth; she and her brother, actor Oliver Hudson, were raised in Colorado by her mother and her mother's long-time boyfriend, actor Kurt Russell. Hudson has stated that her biological father "doesn't know me from a hole in the wall", and that she considers her mother's partner, Kurt Russell, to be her father. Hudson has described her mother as "the woman that I've learned the most from, and who I look up to, who has conducted her life in a way that I can look up to". She has three half-siblings, Emily and Zachary Hudson, from her biological father's subsequent marriage to actress Cindy Williams, and Wyatt, from her mother's relationship with Kurt Russell. Her cousins are singers Sarah Hudson and David Esteves.

Hudson graduated from Crossroads, a performing school in Santa Monica, in 1997. She was accepted to New York University, but chose to pursue an acting career instead of attending.

Jennifer Love Hewitt

Jennifer Love Hewitt Profile

Name: Jennifer Love Hewitt

Height: 5' 3"

Sex: F

Nationality: American

Birth Date: February 21, 1979

Birth Place: Waco, Texas, USA

Profession: actress, musician

Education: Laurel Springs High School in Ojai, CA

Relationship: Rich Cronin (LFO; born August 30, 1975; 1999-2001), Wilmer Valderrama
(actor; born January 30, 1980; dated in 1999), Carson Daly (MTV VJ; born June 22, 1973; 1997-1999), Will Friedle (actor; born August 11, 1976; 1996-1998), Joey Lawrence (actor; 1996)

Father: Danny Hewitt (medical technician; divorced in September 1979)

Mother: Pat Hewitt (speech pathologist)

Brother: Todd Hewitt (chiropractor; born in 1971)

Claim to fame: as Sarah Reeves on Party of Five (1994)

Jennifer Love Hewitt Biography

Jennifer Love Hewitt (born February 21, 1979) is an American actress and singer-songwriter. She is well-known for her television and film roles in the Fox television series Party of Five, as Sarah Reeves, and also starred in I Know What You Did Last Summer and its sequel, as Julie James. Hewitt can currently be seen on the CBS television series Ghost Whisperer, as Melinda Gordon, a young newlywed who communicates with the dead.

Hewitt was born in Waco, Texas, to Herbert Daniel Hewitt, a technician, and Patricia Mae Shipp, a speech-language pathologist. Hewitt grew up in Nolanville, Texas; after the divorce of her parents, Hewitt and her only sibling, Todd Hewitt, were brought up by her mother. Her first name was given to her by her brother, after a girl he was fond of as a youngster, while her middle name, "Love", was given to her by her mother after her best friend in college.

As a young girl, Hewitt was attracted to music which led to her first encounters with the entertainment industry. At the age of three, she sang "The Greatest Love of All" at a livestock show. Just a year after that, at a restaurant-dance hall, she entertained an audience with her version of "Help Me Make It Through the Night". By the time she was five, Hewitt already had tap dancing and ballet in her portfolio. At nine, she became a member of the Texas Show Team (which also toured in the Soviet Union). At the age of ten, at the suggestion of talent scouts, she moved to Los Angeles, California, with her mother to pursue a career in both acting and singing.

Holly Valance [Wallpapers]

Holly Valance Profile

Name: Holly Valance

Birth Name: Holly Rachel Valance

Height: 5' 8"

Sex: F

Nationality: Australian

Birth Date: May 11, 1983

Birth Place: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Profession: actress, musician

Father: Ryko (Yugoslavian; fashion model, musician)

Mother: Rachel (British; fashion model)

Sister: Coco Melody

Half Sister: Olympia Montana

Holly Valance Biography

Holly Rachel Vukadinović ( Serbian Cyrillic : Вукадиновић) (born 11 May 1983), who is better known by her stage name of Holly Valance, is an Australian actress and ARIA nominated singer.

Valance was born in Melbourne, Australia, on 11 May 1983 to a Serbian father and a British mother. She is related to the late British comedian Benny Hill — Hill's cousin was her grandfather (cousins twice removed). Holly was educated at the Star of the Sea College, a Roman Catholic high school located in Melbourne.

Holly's first single as a recording artist was "Kiss Kiss", released in 2002. The song debuted at #1 in both the Australian ARIA and UK Singles Charts charts in April/May 2002. "Kiss Kiss" is an English interpretation of the song Şımarık by Turkish superstar Tarkan. The video was notable in that Valance appeared to be dancing naked, but in fact she was wearing flesh colored panties but no top. The footage was then digitally retouched adding strategically placed lighting effects. The song was nominated for 4 ARIA awards.

Her next single, "Down Boy" peaked at #2 in the UK and at #3 in Australia. Her début album Footprints was released on October 14, 2002. It debuted and peaked at #9 in the UK and #15 in Australia. The album's third and final single "Naughty Girl" peaked at #3 in Australia and at #16 in the UK.

In 2003, the first single "State of Mind" from Holly's second album of the same name debuted and peaked at #8 in the UK and at #14 in Australia, but the album didn't get into the top 50 of either country.

Jessica Alba - Richard Drew Photosession In New York

Jessica Alba Profile

Birth Name - Jessica Marie Alba

Birth Date - April 28, 1981

Birth Place - Pomona, California, USA

Height - 5' 6"

Nationality - American

Profession - Actress

Education - high school graduated, Atlantic Theater Company in New York, Began studying acting at age 11

Relationship - Cash Warren (assistant director; dated 2005 - July 2007), Michael Weatherly (actor; born on July 8, 1968; engaged in May 2001; broke up)

Father - Mark Alba (Spanish/Mexican-American; real estate owner, once joined US Air Force)

Mother - Cathy Alba (French/Danish; born in Montreal)

Brother - Joshua Alba (actor; born on July 8, 1982)

Claim to fame - as Max Guevara on TV Series Dark Angel (2000)

Jessica Alba Biography

Jessica Marie Alba (born April 28, 1981) is an American actress. She is known for her roles in Honey, Dark Angel, Sin City, Fantastic Four, Into the Blue and Idle Hands.

Alba was born in Pomona, California, to Mark Alba, who is Mexican American (though both of his parents were born in California), and Catherine (née Jensen), who has French and Danish ancestry; the two married while in their teenage years. Her maternal grandfather was a Marine NCO for 30 years, serving in the Pacific during WWII, and later as Asst. Drum Major for the United States Marine Band. Alba was raised in an Air Force family, along with her brother, Joshua (an actor who appeared with her in the season one finale of Dark Angel), and her grandparents, until she was seventeen years old. Her father's Air Force career took the family to Biloxi, Mississippi and Del Rio, Texas, before they settled back in California.

Alba's early life was marked by a multitude of physical maladies; she suffered collapsed lungs twice, had pneumonia 4-5 times a year, a burst appendix, and a cyst on her tonsils. This served to isolate her from other children at school because, as she claims, she was in the hospital so often that no one knew her well enough to befriend her.

She has also acknowledged suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder during childhood. Her health improved, however, when her family moved to California.

Alba had expressed interest in acting since the age of five. She took her first acting class at age twelve, and an acting agent signed her nine months later.

Her first appearance on film was a small role in the 1994 feature Camp Nowhere as Gail. She was originally hired for two weeks but her role turned into a two-month job when the actress in one of the prominent roles dropped out.

Alba appeared in two national TV commercials for Nintendo and J.C. Penney as a child; she was later featured in several independent films. She branched out into TV in 1994 with a recurring role as the vain Jessica in three episodes of the Nickelodeon comedy series The Secret World of Alex Mack. She then performed the role of Maya in the first two seasons of the TV series Flipper. Under the tutelage of her lifeguard mother, Alba learned to swim before she could walk, and she was a PADI-certified scuba diver, skills which were put to use on the show, which was filmed in Australia.

LaShonda Katrice Barnett on Black Women Songwriters

NPR's News & Notes, November 21, 2007

LaShonda Katrice Barnett interviewed more than 40 black female musicians in her quest to know about the craft of songwriting. She shares what she learned in her book, I Got Thunder: Black Women Songwriters and Their Craft, and tells Farai Chideya how these women shaped modern music.

Listen Here...

Kate Hudson [Wallpapers]

Kate Hudson Profile

Birth name - Kate Garry Hudson

Born - April 19, 1979, Los Angeles, California, USA

Height - 5' 6"

Spouse(s) - Chris Robinson (2000-2006)

Children - Ryder Russell Robinson (b.2004)

Parents - Bill Hudson (b.1949), Goldie Hawn (b.1945)

Occupation - Actress, Model

Best Known As - Penny Lane in the movie Almost Famous

Kate Hudson Biography

Kate Garry Hudson (born April 19, 1979) is an American film actress. She came to fame in 2000, after an Oscar-nominated role in the drama Almost Famous, and has since established herself as a Hollywood lead actress, starring in several films, including How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, The Skeleton Key, and You, Me, and Dupree.

Hudson was born in Los Angeles to Bill Hudson (a singer, comedian and member of the Hudson Brothers) and the Academy Award-winning actress Goldie Hawn. Her maternal grandmother is of Hungarian Ashkenazi Jewish descent while her paternal grandmother was of Italian descent and her paternal grandfather's ancestry traces to 15th century England. Hudson was raised in the Jewish religion, though her family also practiced Buddhism.

Hudson's parents divorced eighteen months after her birth; she and her brother, actor Oliver Hudson, were raised in Colorado by her mother and her mother's long-time boyfriend, actor Kurt Russell. Hudson has stated that her biological father "doesn't know me from a hole in the wall", and that she considers her mother's partner, Kurt Russell, to be her father. Hudson has described her mother as "the woman that I've learned the most from, and who I look up to, who has conducted her life in a way that I can look up to". She has three half-siblings, Emily and Zachary Hudson, from her biological father's subsequent marriage to actress Cindy Williams, and Wyatt, from her mother's relationship with Kurt Russell. Her cousins are singers Sarah Hudson and David Esteves.

Hudson graduated from Crossroads, a performing school in Santa Monica, in 1997. She was accepted to New York University, but chose to pursue an acting career instead of attending.