Charles River, newsletter header
February 2010
This month at the Du Bois Institute we feature our new Fellows Colloquia Series, two new faculty documentaries, and a new issue of Transition. We also began a new colaborative effort with both the Department of African and African American Studies (AAAS) and the Committee on African Studies (CAS). Please read more below!

Visit our website for up-to-the-minute information about our events, projects, and publications.
Spring 2010 Colloquium Series
New Book by Jeffrey B. PerryThis Week:

Jeffrey B. Perry
"On Hubert Harrison"

February 3, 2010
12:00 - 1:30 p.m.
Thompson Room, Barker Center, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge

-Free and open to the public.
-A question and answer period will follow the talk.
-Please feel free to bring a lunch.

Later This Month:Spring 2010 Colloquium Schedule PDF

February 10: Celeste-Marie Bernier - "Characters in Blood: Slave Heroism in the Transatlantic Imagination"
February 17: Barbara Rodriguez - "'Stained with the blood of helpless innocence': Innocents, Violence, and the Legacy of Nat Turner's Slave Revolt"
February 24: Patricia Banks - "Art and Class in Black America"

Upcoming Events
New Book by Adam BradleyFebruary 8, 2010
Adam Bradley and
John
Callahan

7:00 p.m.
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Discussing Ralph Ellison's novel Three Days Before the Shooting




February 10, 2010
Michael J. Klarman, Kirkland and Ellis Professor, Harvard Law School
Randall L. Kennedy, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

The Supreme Court and Race

Reception 5:30 p.m. ~ Program 6:00 p.m.

Stephen D. Bechtel, Jr. Auditorium
American Academy of Arts & Sciences
136 Irving Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Advance registration is required



February 11, 2010
The Massachusetts State premiere screening of

Inside Buffalo

The story of the 92nd Buffalo Division, the all African-American segregated combat unit that fought with outstanding heroism in Italy during WWII

a film by Fred Kudjo Kuwornu


5:30 p.m.
Boston Public Library, Rabb Lecture Hall
700 Boylston Street, Boston MA 02116

All Events are Free and Open to the Public
Fellow's Corner
Welcome to the Spring Fellows
CALL FOR FILMS
(Deadline February 28, 2010)

American Center France
Trica Keaton and Arlette Frund
are Organizing The "France Noir / Black France" Film Festival
The Fesitival will be held Friday May 21st to Sunday May 23rd at the American Center France (Paris).  More information.

New Collaborative Effort!
Three units at at Harvard - the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute, the Department of African and African American Studies and the Committee on African Studies - are simply different faces of one, larger collective entity. Last month we launched a new collaborative effort between the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute, the Department of African and African American Studies and the Committee on African Studies in presenting "The Haitian Crisis: A Symposium."  

In this regard, we welcome Melissa Braunstein the new Executive Director for the Committee on African Studies (CAS). Also, please note the new CAS Web address: www.africa.harvard.edu.

We thank FAS Media and Technology Services for videotaping the Hatian Crisis Panel. They will Soon release a link to that video. Please check our website for updates!
Recent Events @ the Institute
Caroline Elkins, Haiti SymposiumJanuary 29th: Syposium on the Crisis in Haiti

Co-Sponsored with the Committee on African Studies and the Department of African and African American Studies

Video Coming Soon

January 28th: James Barnor Exhibit Opening and Reception
Barnor Reception


Testament
The opening included a film screening in the Hutchins Family Library of 'Testament' (1988), directed by John Akomfrah

Visit Us!

104 Mount Auburn Street, 3R, Cambridge MA  02138
Two New Faculty Documentaries on PBS
HerskovitsTONIGHT: Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness, a documentary that examines the towering influence of controversial anthropologist Melville Herskovits, will air on Feb. 2 at 10:30 p.m. as part of the PBS series "Independent Lens."

The movie was produced and directed by Llewellyn Smith, 2009 Alphonse Fletcher Sr. Fellow.  Vincent Brown, from Harvard's Department of African and African American Studies, also served as Producer and Director of Research for the film.
Faces of America with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., premieres this month. Building on the success of African American Lives and African American Lives 2, Professor Gates again turns to the latest tools of genealogy and genetics to explore the family histories of 12 renowned Americans.
Faces of America to Premiere

Faces of American on GMA
Transition 102
Transition 102Transition 102 is at the printer and will mail this month. This rich issue opens with "Night Moves I," a collection of texts and images garnered by Dominique Malaquais (Resident Fellow, Spring 2010) and Cédrick Nzolo that offer nine perspectives on life in electricity-challenged Kinshasa (DRC). Other features include new fiction by Matthew Quinn Martin, poetry by Aimé Césaire (in a new translation by Ronnie Scharfman) and David Mills; a memoir of Lowell Brower's travels through Tanzania collecting the oral myths that Bishop Steele missed in the late nineteenth century; and an insightful interview of actor Harry Lennix by Peter Erickson.

In thought-provoking essays, John Ohiorenuan reviews the recent economic history of postcolonial Africa and offers prescriptions for the princes and princesses to come; Ajume Wingo takes issue with Soulemayne Bachir Diagne's claim (in Transition 101) that "human rights are truly and naturally the rights of the individual"; Abdoulaye Gueye (Resident Fellow, 2008-09) offers a provocative critical review of the recent French film "The Class"; and E. Dovi Abbey imagines which city might one day serve as the cultural equivalent to New York in Africa. Transition 102 winds up with an essay by Njeri Githire that assesses the state of East African literature, and a review by Ivor Agyeman-Duah of a new collection of essays, Fathers and Daughters, edited by Ato Quayson.

Subcribe
TransitionMagazine.com
iDBI
iDBI

Community and National Events Listing

 iDBI is a place to find information on events, both local and national, related to African and
African American Studies.

To post an event, please send an email to iDBI@fas.harvard.edu

Friday, February 5, 2010, 3-5pm
South African Justice Albie Sachs: The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law
Harvard Law School

Saturday, February 6, 2010, 6-8pm
Albie Sachs: Art and Justice, The Art of the Constitutional Court of South Africa
Harvard Graduate School of Design

Saturday, February 6, 2010, 8pm
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Sanders Theater, Harvard University

Wednesday, February 10, 2010 6-8pm
African Scholars Night
A benefit dinner establishing academic scholarships for disadvantaged high-achieving students in Ghana.
Harvard African Students Association


In the Rudenstine Gallery...
Ever Young: James Barnor

James Barnor: Ever Young

Street and Studio Photography, Ghana/UK

Presented by Autograph ABP and the
W. E. B. Du Bois Institute

Autograph ABP

Exhibit runs until May 26th.    Gallery Hours: 9 a.m - 5 p.m.