Join us for a discussion on James Baldwin's 1974 novel "If Beale Street Could Talk" and Barry Jenkins 2018 film adaptation
Dr. Shawn Christian of FIU presents his talk, “Prescience and Interiority in James Baldwin’s and Barry Jenkin’s If Beale Street Could Talk.” Throughout the 1970s, James Baldwin experienced what many observers described as a period of decline and disillusionment. Christian examines Baldwin's 1974 novel If Beale Street Could Talk and Barry Jenkins' 2018 film adaptation. Baldwin's novel follows a young black couple whose lives are torn apart by a false criminal accusation.
Dr. Shawn Anthony Christian is Associate Professor and Chairperson of the English department at Florida International University. He is also affiliate faculty in FIU’s African and African Diaspora Studies program. He specializes in 20th-century African American literary and print culture and is the author of The Harlem Renaissance and The Idea of a New Negro Reader.
Dr. Ayesha Hardison presents her talk, “What’s Love Got to Do With It?: Black Womanhood, Nursing, and Romance.” The 1970s initiated new themes in African American literature not only regarding literary fiction, as exemplified by Toni Morrison’s and Gayl Jones’s works, but also in terms of genre fiction—namely Black romance. Whereas the popular genre is recognized as taking root in the 1980s, and Black romance fiction has dominated the multicultural romance subgenre since the 1990s, Marilyn Morgan, R.N. (1969), one of the first romance novels by an African American writer featuring Black characters, remains little known. Dr. Hardison’s talk will engage Black women’s romantic, familial, communal, and professional love as an art and a politic.
Ayesha Hardison is a literary and cultural critic of African American writing and representation. An Associate Professor of English and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Kansas, she explores questions of race, gender, genre, social politics, and historical memory in her research and teaching. She is the author of Writing through Jane Crow: Race and Gender Politics in African American Literature (University of Virginia Press, 2014), and is co-editor with Eve Dunbar of African American Literature in Transition: 1930-1940 (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
AGE GROUP: | New Adults | Adults |
EVENT TYPE: | Speaker | Discussion/Lecture | Arts & Cultural |
Mon, Nov 18 | 10:00PM to 8:00PM |
Tue, Nov 19 | 10:00AM to 6:00PM |
Wed, Nov 20 | 10:00PM to 8:00PM |
Thu, Nov 21 | 10:00AM to 6:00PM |
Fri, Nov 22 | 10:00AM to 6:00PM |
Sat, Nov 23 | 10:00AM to 6:00PM |
Sun, Nov 24 | Closed |