A National Conference, March 27-29, 2008

http://www.iaas.uconn.edu/cfp.html
Keynote speaker: Mr. Spike Lee
Other confirmed speakers: Amiri Baraka and Lucy Hurston

The Institute for African American Studies at the University of Connecticut announces a national conference. The Harlem Renaissance is one of the most significant eras of artistic expression of the twentieth century U.S. Following World War I, the explosion of cultural work among African Americans reflected rich intellectual and political expression with visual artists, musicians, literati, and others. The conference will explore the major ideas, people, and legacies of this period. The conference will bring together a broad-based, interdisciplinary program that includes scholars, artists, activists, and cultural workers from across the United States and abroad.

I will present at this conference on Saturday March 29th, 9:30 AM – 10:45 AM, in the session below:

10. The Black Press and the New Negro

Daniel Simmons, University of Connecticut, Chair

Amilcar Shabazz, University of Massachusetts Amherst, “The Miseducation of the
New Negro”

Lae’l Hughes-Watkins, Youngstown State University, “Fay M. Jackson and
FLASH Magazine: The Contribution of a Pioneering Los Angeles Journalist to the
New Negro Movement”

Evelyn Lockett-Le Touze, University of Montreal and University Paris I Pantheon-
Sorbonne, “Black Press and France after World War I: A Taste of Equality and
Recognition for Black Americans”

MY ABSTRACT

“The Miseducation of the New Negro”

This paper offers a theoretical perspective on the “New Negro” by exploring major ideas, people, and legacies of this period. The Harlem Renaissance follows not only the end of World War I, but also the death of Booker T. Washington and the beginning of the end of the hegemony of his ideas on the proper education of Negroes as it were. My study of the educational experiences and ideas of four key figures associated with the Harlem Renaissance in relation to the industrial versus liberal arts education dichotomy and the self-negation mentality framework Carter G. Woodson posited and popularized in his classic work The Miseducation of the Negro aims at interrogating what precisely is “new” in the cultural and aesthetic production of the HR Era against the very “old” place already fixed for African Americans within the U.S. social and economic order.

Enough blogging…time to finish writing my presentation. /az