'Left of Black': Episode #31 featuring Aishah Shahidah Simmons & Zaheer Ali

Left of Black #32 

w/ Aishah Shahidah Simmons & Zaheer Ali

May 2, 2011

Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype by filmmaker Aishah Shahidah Simmons in a discussion of sexual violence in Black communities, homophobia, and popular culture controversies surrounding Ashley Judd, Kobe Bryant and DJ Mister Cee. Later Neal talks with historian Zaheer Ali, one of the lead researchers on the late Manning Marable’s Malcolm X: A Life of Re-invention.

***

→Aishah Shahidah Simmons is an award-winning African-American feminist lesbian independent documentary filmmaker, television and radio producer, published writer, international lecturer, and activist based in Philadelphia, PA. Simmons is the writer, director and producer of NO! the Rape Documentary, a ground-breaking film that explores the issues of sexual violence and rape against Black women and girls.

→Zaheer Ali is a doctoral student in history at Columbia University, where he is focusing his research on twentieth-century African-American history and religion. His dissertation examines the history of the Nation of Islam’s Temple/Mosque No. 7 in Harlem, New York. Under the direction of Dr. Manning Marable, he served as project manager and senior researcher of the Malcolm X Project (MXP) at Columbia University, a multi-year research initiative on the life and legacy of Malcolm X and was a lead researcher for Dr. Marable’s Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (2011), a comprehensive biography on Malcolm X.

***

Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

Also Available @ iTunes U

Bruce Davenport Exhibition Opens @ John Hope Franklin Center

March 17 - May 14, 2011

Bruce Davenport Jr. -- All I Need Is 1 Pen
-- An exhibition of Works on Paper --

Exhibition Curator, Diego Cortez

***

Thursday, March 17, 12:00 - 1:00 PM, John Hope Franklin Center

Artist Bruce Davenport Jr. interviewed by professor Mark Anthony Neal on Left of Black, Franklin Center, Room 240

Thursday, March 17, 5:30 - 7:00 PM, John Hope Franklin Center

Opening reception for All I Need Is 1 Pen, an exhibition of works on paper by New Orleans artist, Bruce Davenport Jr.

***

On view at the Franklin Center Gallery will be the exhibition All I Need Is 1 Pen, a show comprised of works on paper by Bruce Davenport Jr. as well as a short video from the upcoming Richard Barber film The Whole Gritty City, which documents both the marching band culture of New Orleans and Davenport Jr.'s artistic work in response to that culture. Davenport Jr.'s work is on the cusp between folk art and contemporary art and seems to undermine the terminology of both worlds.

Bruce Davenport Jr., son of a preacher and community activist, was born in New Orleans in 1972, grew up at the 6th Ward Lafitte Projects, and currently lives in the now infamous Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans. Throughout his schooling he was involved with the junior high and high school marching band cultures which are a major force in Mardi Gras and the overall musical culture of New Orleans. Following Hurricane Katrina, and the devastation to the city and its schools, about half of which remain closed today, Davenport Jr. decided to document the past glory of this unique culture in his drawings. Davenport Jr.'s work has been featured in many exhibitions in the U.S., including at the C.A.C., New Orleans, Dieu Donne Gallery, NYC, Lambent Foundation, NYC, Martin Luther King Jr. Library, New Orleans, Prospect 1.5 and Prospect.2 (Dan Cameron, Curator), New Orleans, AS IF Gallery, NYC and Ballroom Marfa, TX. His work has been collected by major collectors throughout the world. He has donated his works to many of the schools and libraries in New Orleans.

Bruce Davenport Jr. is represented by AS IF Gallery in New York (www.asifgallery.com). Diego Cortez is an independent curator based in New York. More information can be found at www.lostobject.org.

'Left of Black': Episode #23 featuring Shana Tucker

Left of Black #23
w/Shana Tucker
February 28, 2011

Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal welcomes independent artist and cellist Shana Tucker into the Left of Black studio at the John Hope Franklin Center. Tucker and Neal discuss her new fan-financed CD SHiNE and a style of music that Tucker calls “Chamber Soul.”

Shana Tucker is a “ChamberSoul” cellist and singer/songwriter from New York currently based in North Carolina. Her music is a sultry pastiche of acoustic pop and soulful, jazz-influenced contemporary folk. Tucker’s debut solo project, SHiNE, outlines a musical journey that celebrates the major influences of everyday life: relationship, laughter, love…loss, rediscovery, and the never-ending journey towards heightened levels of peace, understanding and self-acceptance.

***

Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

'Left of Black': Episode #22 featuring S. Craig Watkins

Left of Black #22
w/S. Craig Watkins
February 21, 2011

Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal welcomes Professor S. Craig Watkins (via Skype), author of the book The Young and the Digital: What the Migration to Social Network Sites, Games, and Anytime, Anywhere Media Means for Our Future (Beacon Press).

→S. Craig Watkins is a Professor of Radio-Television-Film and Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of several books including Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement (Beacon Press 2005), Representing: Hip Hop Culture and the Production of Black Cinema (The University of Chicago Press 1998) and most recently The Young and the Digital: What the Migration to Social Network Sites, Games, and Anytime, Anywhere Media Means for Our Future. Currently, Watkins is launching a new digital media research initiative that focuses on the use and evolution of social media platforms. For updates on these and other projects visit theyoungandthedigital.com.

***

Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

'Left of Black': Episode #21 featuring Carrie Mae Weems and Thabiti Lewis

Left of Black #21
w/Carrie Mae Weems and Thabiti Lewis
February 7, 2011

In episode # 21 of the weekly webcast Left of Black, host Mark Anthony Neal welcomes artist “extraordinaire” Carrie Mae Weems to the Left of Black studio in the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University. Later he is joined by Professor Thabiti Lewis (via Skype), author of the new book Ballers of the New School: Race and Sports in America (Third World Press).

→Carrie Mae Weems is an award winning photographer and artist. Her photographs, films, and videos have been displayed in over 50 exhibitions in the United States and abroad and focus on serious issues that face African Americans today, such as racism, gender relations, politics, and personal identity. She is perhaps most well known for her “The Kitchen Table Series” (1990) and recently initiated a public art campaign to address gun violence in Black and Brown communities in Syracuse, New York.

→Thabiti Lewis Associate Professor of English at Washington State University Vancouver. He has published widely in the areas of African American literature, African American Studies, and sport and race. His areas of teaching are 20th century American literature, African American literature, Race and Cultural Studies, and Popular Culture. Dr. Lewis has worked as a journalist, talk radio host, and as an editor. His latest book is Ballers of the New School: Race and Sports in America.

***

Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

'Left of Black': Episode #19 featuring Hank Willis Thomas

Left of Black #19
w/ Hank Willis Thomas
January 31, 2011

***

In this special episode of Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal is joined by conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas. Thomas’ works include Winter in America (2008), Branded (2008), ReBranded (2008), Black is Beautiful (2009), Fair Warning (2010) and UnBranded (2010) and he is the author of Pitch Blackness (2008). Neal and Thomas engage in a wide ranging conversation about Black masculinity, urban violence, the export of Black popular culture and Michael Jackson as well as a walk-thru of Thomas' Hope Exhibition at the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

→Hank Willis Thomas is a photo conceptual artist working primarily with themes related to identity, history and popular culture. He received his BA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and his MFA in photography and MA in visual criticism from the California College of the Arts.

'Left of Black': Episode #18 featuring Randall Robinson and Imani Perry

Left of Black #18—January 24, 2011
w/Mark Anthony Neal

In this episode of Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal is joined by activist and author Randall Robinson in a conversation about the legacy of Black activism, reparations for African-Americans and growing up in Richmond, VA with his bother, the late television journalist Max Robinson. Neal also talks with Princeton University Professor Imani Perry, author of the new book More Beautiful and More Terrible: The Embrace and Transcendence of Racial Inequality in the United States (NYU Press)

→Randall Robinson is the author of An Unbroken Agony and the national bestsellers The Debt, The Reckoning, and Defending the Spirit. He is also founder and past president of TransAfrica, the African-American organization he established to promote enlightened, constructive U.S. policies toward Africa and the Caribbean.

→Imani Perry is is a Professor in the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University. She is the author of More Terrible, More Beautiful, The Embrace and Transcendence of Racial Inequality in the U.S. and Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop (Duke Press)

***

Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

Hank Willis Thomas: HOPE & QUESTIONS BRIDGE Exhibit Opens at Duke

January 21 – March 4, 2011
Hank Willis Thomas: Hope and Question Bridge

John Hope Franklin Center and Franklin Humanities Institute
Curated by Diego Cortez

--

Hope Exhibition Opening Reception
Thursday, January 20, 7-9 pm, John Hope Franklin Center Gallery (2204 Erwin Rd.)

Left of Black: Mark Anthony Neal Interviews Hank Willis Thomas
Friday, January 21, 12:00 PM, John Hope Franklin Center (2204 Erwin Rd.)

Question Bridge Opening Reception
& Artist's Talk with Introduction by Richard J. Powell
Friday, January 21, 5:30 PM, John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute (Smith Warehouse, 114 S. Buchanan Blvd.)

--

The John Hope Franklin Center for International and Interdisciplinary Studies and FHI will present a collaborative, multi-site exhibition of new and recent works by contemporary visual artist and photographer Hank Willis Thomas.

On view at the Franklin Center Gallery will be the exhibition Hope, a survey show of seven major large-scale photographic works by the artist. On view at the FHI will be Thomas’ collaborative video project which is a work-in-progress Question Bridge: Black Male, which features a question-and-answer dialogue between the diverse members of the U.S. Black Male population, including those from New Orleans, using video as the medium to bridge the various economic, political, social, geographic, and generational divides between Black Males. A second work on view tethered above the FHI will be a large, specially fabricated helium balloon that will be flown above Smith Warehouse for the duration of the exhibition.

Hank Willis Thomas is a contemporary African American visual artist and photographer whose primary interests are race, advertising and popular culture. He is the winner of the first ever Aperture West Book Prize for his monograph Pitch Blackness (November, 2008). His work was featured in the 30 Americans exhibition at the Rubell Family Collection in Miami as well as in the exhibition and accompanying catalog, 25 Under 25: Up-and-Coming Photographers. He has exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the U.S. and abroad, including the Studio Museum in Harlem; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut; Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, Jamaica, New York; Artists Space, New York; Leica Gallery, New York; Texas Woman’s University; Oakland Museum of California; Smithsonian; Anacostia Museum, Washington, DC; Bronfman Center for Jewish Life at NYU; National Museum of American History, Washington, DC; and National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC, High Museum, Atlanta, and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among others.

Hank Willis Thomas is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery in New York. Extensive information on his work can be found at http://hankwillisthomas.com. Diego Cortez is an independent curator based in New York. More information can be found at http://www.lostobject.org.

'Left of Black': Episode #16 featuring Byron Hurt and Blair L. M. Kelley

Left of Black #16—January 10, 2011
w/Mark Anthony Neal

Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined by filmmaker and activist Byron Hurt in a discussion of his recent film Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes and his in-progress film Soul Food Junkies. Neal is also joined in-studio by North Carolina State University historian and critic Blair L.M. Kelley in a wide ranging conversation about social protest in the early 20th Century, social media and contemporary Hip-Hop.

Byron Hurt is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, a published writer, and an anti-sexist activist. His films include the award-winning Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes and I AM A MAN: Black Masculinity in America. Hurt is currently completing his next film Soul Food Junkies, which explores the health advantages and disadvantages of Soul Food.

Blair L. M. Kelley is the author of Right to Ride: Streetcar Boycotts and African American Citizenship in the Era of Plessy v. Ferguson (UNC Press, 2010) and is Associate Professor of History at North Carolina State University.

'Left of Black': Episode #14 featuring TJ Anderson and Alexis Pauline Gumbs

Left of Black #14—December 20, 2010
w/Mark Anthony Neal

Left of Black Host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined by composer T.J. Anderson and Queer media activist and writer Alexis Pauline Gumbs on location at the Beyu Caffe in Durham, NC

→T.J. Anderson is one of the leading composers of his generation. Born in 1928 Anderson received a Ph.D in Composition from the University of Iowa. After serving as Chairman of the Department of Music at Tufts University for eight years, Thomas Jefferson Anderson became Austin Fletcher Professor of Music and in 1990 became Austin Fletcher Professor of Music Emeritus. He now lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina where he devotes full time to writing music.

→A Self-Described "Queer Black Trouble Maker" Alexis Pauline Gumbs holds a Ph.D. from Duke University and is the founder of Broken Beautiful Press. Gumbs is also editor of the blog Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind.


***

Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

"Left of Black' LIVE at the Beyu Caffe on Monday December 13th

Join LEFT OF BLACK Host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal for a live taping of Left of Black, Monday December 13, 2010 at 7:00pm, featuring author and activist, Zelda Lockhart, composer T.J. Anderson, Queer media activist and writer Alexis Pauline Gumbs and pastor and novelist Carl Kenney.

Zelda Lockhart is the author of the recently published Fifth Born II: The One Hundredth Turtle, a sequel to her first novel Fifth Born and Cold Running Creek. As the 2010 Piedmont Laureate, Lockhart has been instrumental in raising HIV/AIDS awareness in Black communities.

T.J. Anderson is one of the leading composers of his generation. Born in 1928 Anderson received a Ph.D in Composition from the University of Iowa. After serving as Chairman of the Department of Music at Tufts University for eight years, Thomas Jefferson Anderson became Austin Fletcher Professor of Music and in 1990 became Austin Fletcher Professor of Music Emeritus. He now lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina where he devotes full time to writing music.

A Self-Described "Queer Black Trouble Maker" Alexis Pauline Gumbs holds a Ph.D. from Duke University and is the founder of Broken Beautiuful Press. Gumbs is also editor of the blog Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind.

Pastor Carl Kenney is the founding Pastor of Compassion Ministries in Durham, NC and former pastor at Orange Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Durham, NC, Kenney is also the author of Preacha Man and the just published sequel Backslide.

Beyu Caffe
335 West Main Street
Durham, NC 27701-3215
(919) 683-1058

***

Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

'Left of Black': Episode #11 featuring Curator Trevor Schoonmaker

Left of Black # 11--November 29, 2010
w/Mark Anthony Neal

Host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is on location at the Nasher Museum of Art in Durham, NC with curator Trevor Schoonmaker, who curated The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl, which runs at the Nasher Museum until February.

Schoonmaker's previous exhibitions at the Nasher Museum include Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool (2008-10) and Street Level: Mark Bradford, William Cordova and Robin Rhode (2007-08). Prior to joining the Nasher Museum his exhibitions included The Beautiful Game: Contemporary Art and Fútbol (2006), DTroit (2003-04), and Black President: The Art and Legacy of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (2003-05). He edited the book Fela: From West Africa to West Broadway.

'Left of Black': Episode #10 featuring William Jelani Cobb & Bassey Ikpi

Left of Black: Episode # 10

w/Mark Anthony Neal

Monday, November 22, 2010

Host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal talks with William Jelani Cobb author of The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress and spoken-word poet Bassey Ikpi.

Cobb is Professor of History and Africana Studies at Rutgers University and the author of To The Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic and The Devil & Dave Chappelle and Other Essays.

The Nigerian born Ikpi, is a Washington, D.C. based mental health advocate and writer who blogs at Bassey World

***

Also available for download from iTunes U

Weekly Webcast ‘Left of Black’ To Focus on Politics, Culture

Weekly Webcast ‘Left of Black’ To Focus on Politics, Culture
by Camille Jackson
Wednesday, October 27, 2010

DURHAM, N.C. -- This fall, Duke University African and African American Studies professor Mark Anthony Neal has taken his role as the one of the university’s public intellectuals to a new level with his weekly program, “Left of Black,” featuring interviews with academics, authors, artists and others discussing cultural issues.

The next episode of the online show will turn its attention toward politics in time for the midterm election with guests Farai Chideya, a former NPR news analyst, and Cathy Cohen, a political scientist from the University of Chicago.

Both guests will join Neal via video conference software, or Skype.

The program will air online at 1:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 1, on Duke’s Ustream channel, ustream.tv/dukeuniversity. Viewers are invited to participate in a Twitter conversation while the show airs using hash tags #LeftofBlack or #dukelive.

Neal, who covers the most prescient topics of the day, will discuss NPR’s firing of political commentator Juan Williams with Chideya, who recently wrote a piece criticizing how the network deals with diversity. Chideya is the host of “Pop+Politics with Farai Chideya,” a three-part radio series on the 2010 midterm election.

Cohen is the author of “Democracy Remixed: Black Youth and the Future of American Politics,” and co-editor of a new book series, “Transgressing Boundaries: Studies in Black Politics and Black Communities.” She and Neal will talk about African-American voter participation.

“I definitely see this program as an extension of my desire to make the knowledge produced in and by the university available to a wider public,” Neal said. “It is also a chance to highlight the ideas of folk who aren’t the standard talking heads.”

Neal, known for his progressive views on black male masculinity, describes the program as offering “a contrarian view of blackness,” or a perspective that goes beyond the status quo of what it means to be black. Blackness, he says, cannot be defined as “a political position in the left/right paradigm.”

The 45-minute show, now in its second month, includes Neal interviewing two guests, in studio or by Skype, and introducing a “question of the week.” Student volunteer Galvin Wells of North Carolina Central University poses the question to bystanders in short video clips. He also provides additional footage and production assistance.

“Left of Black” is recorded and produced at the John Hope Franklin Center of International and Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke. Catherine Angst, multimedia specialist, and Jason Doty, administrative manager, tape and produce the show from a customized basement studio.

"I find it incredibly inspiring that even with very limited resources and the wider expectation to 'do more with less,' the Franklin Center still finds innovative ways of using technology to address important issues of today," Doty said.

In the last episode Neal reflected on the 15th anniversary of the Million Man March, asking guest James Peterson, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, about the long-range impact of the march on black men. Also, music critic Rashod Ollision shared his critique of the current state of R&B music.

Past episodes have featured:

-- Spoken word poet Joshua Bennett speaking candidly about negotiating the constraints of black masculinity in the hip-hop era;

-- Local author Zelda Lockhart revealing her struggles with the publishing industry;

-- A discussion on how black mega churches have changed the way people worship, and the Morehouse College dress code with regular contributor and Morehouse professor Stephane Dunn;

-- And, an exploration of portrayals of black female sexuality, and rape and the Civil Rights Movement.

"Left of Black" also airs on Time Warner’s public access television stations. In Durham County, the program airs at 10 p.m. Mondays on channel 18. In Orange and Chatham counties it airs Tuesdays at 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. on channel 8.

The webcast can also be found on iTunesU and has been embedded by several news websites and blogs including TheLoop21.com and TheDivaFeminist.com.

For a complete archive of “Left of Black” visit Duke on Demand.

***

Camille Jackson
T: (919) 681-8052
Email: camille.jackson@duke.edu

© 2010 Office of News & Communications
615 Chapel Drive, Box 90563, Durham, NC 27708-0563
(919) 684-2823; After-hours phone (for reporters on deadline): (919) 812-6603

'Left of Black': Episode #4 featuring Shayne Lee and Treva Lindsey

Host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal Discusses Sex-Positive Black Sexuality, Black Women and Popular Culture, Black Respectability and Bishop Eddie Long with Tulane University Sociologist Shayne Lee and University of Missouri Women's Studies Professor Treva Lindsey.

Professor Lee is the author of three books including Erotic Revolutionaries: Black Women, Sexuality and Popular Culture.

Professor Lindsey's research and teaching interests include U.S. women's history, black popular culture, black feminism, critical race and gender theory, and African diaspora studies. She blogs at The Diva Feminist.

'Left of Black': Episode #3 featuring Salamishah Tillet and David Ikard

Host Mark Anthony Neal Discusses Sexual Predators with University of Pennsylvania Professor Salamishah Tillet & Florida State University Professor David Ikard.

Professor Tillet is Founder of A Long Walk Home, a non-profit organization that uses art therapy and the visual and performance arts to document, to educate and to bring about social change.

Professor Ikard is the author of Breaking the Silence: Toward a Black Male Feminist Criticism.

'Left of Black': Episode #2 featuring Joshua Bennett

'Left of Black' Host Mark Anthony Neal talks Black masculinity, hip-hop, and disability with spoken word artist and Marshall Scholar Joshua Bennett.

'Left of Black': Episode #1 featuring Zelda Lockhart and Stephane Dunn

'Left of Black'
w/Mark Anthony Neal
Monday, September 13, 2010

Guests:

Author Zelda Lockhart joins 'Left of Black' to discuss her new book 'Fifth Born II: The One Hundredth Turtle' and how the issues of homosexuality, violence and shame affect Black communities. Lockhart also discusses her decision to publish independently.

theLoop21.com columnist and Morehouse College professor Stephane Dunn discusses her recent essay 'When Mega Churchin' Fails' and the new ESPN 30 by 30 documentary 'One Night in Vegas.'

***

'Left of Black' is produced by Jason Doty and Catherine Angst for the John Hope Franklin Center.

Music provided by 9th Wonder of 9th Wonder Music