Week of 9/30: Guest speaker and Black Arts theory

Photo Credit: Joyce Jones.

For Monday 9/30, we’ll have a visit from Basir Mchawi, who will talk about popularizing the Black Arts. Prof. Mchawi teaches at CUNY’s John Jay College in their African American Studies Department, is the host of Education at the Crossroads on WBAI Radio, and was a member of The East, a cultural center in Brooklyn and an offshoot of the Black Arts/ Black Power Movement. He is also one of the organizers of Brooklyn’s annual International African Arts Festival, which is currently held in July.

To prepare for the talk, please read:

This article by Sam Posey in Truthout: “Will Black Nationalism Re-Emerge?”

“Return to the East”, from Wax Poetics magazine. Link to PDF here. Edit 9/28: PDF link is down. Just read the first article above.

For Thursday 10/3, we look at the deliberate turn toward the attempt to create a “Black Aesthetic” and formally define what art might look and sound like as politically committed artists wrestle with infusing their art with the deliberate political orientation that they’ve chosen. To prepare, please read/listen to the following:

Maulana Karenga, “Black Art: Mute Matter Given Force and Function”. (PDF on the Readings page)

Introduction to Black Fire!

James Stewart’s “The Development of the Black Revolutionary Artist” (p. 3-11) in Black Fire!

Amiri Baraka’s poem “Black Art” (p. 302) in Black Fire!

Listen to Amiri Baraka’s read “Black Art” with the New York Art Quartet on the 1967 Sonny’s Time Now album:


Next, we move to Baraka’s Dutchman and the Slave.