As of the Fall semester of 2010 at the City College of New York, I will be teaching once again my course Blues People: African American Culture in the 20th Century, as a special section of World Humanities under the course number WH 10302. The course will meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3:30 p.m. We will begin in a new way with the discussion of our individual visits to the exhibition For All The World To See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights at The International Center of Photography located at 43rd Street and 6th Avenue. We will also be reading the book by Maurice Berger, which accompanies the exhibition, in the course of the semester in combination with our other readings in the Norton Anthology and African American Music: An Introduction.
From there, we will progress to our chronological reading of African American literature in the 20th century, beginning with chapters from WEB Du Bois's 1903 masterpiece TRHE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK. You are invited to supplement the reading of SOULS with visual materials from Du Bois's "Negro Exhibition" at the Paris Exposition of 1900, about which a great deal has been written and said.
Du Bois's NEGRO EXHIBITION was compiled by him and others to document the progress of African Americans since their enslavement had officially ended in the United States in the mid-1860s. He travelled steerage to Paris to install it at the Paris Exposition of 1900, one of the most celebrated of the world's fairs of the period.
World's Fairs in general were particularly instructive when considering the status of race and African American in the United States and elsewhere. Especially when the fair was actually located in the United States (as was the case of the Atlanta Cotton Exposition of 1896 in Atlanta at which Booker T. Washington delivered his celebrated address), African American artists and various kinds of status reports and exhibitions on African Americans were included.
On this blog, I have made available a variety of related materials, as well, as a very excellent presentation of Du Bois's exhibition at the Paris fair compiled by Eugene Provenzo, who is also the author of THE ANNOTATED SOULS OF BLACK FOLK. While the book doesn't have high quality photographs, the website is superb and includes superior supporting documentation related to the exhibition.
REQUIRED READINGS:
Du Bois's NEGRO EXHIBITION was compiled by him and others to document the progress of African Americans since their enslavement had officially ended in the United States in the mid-1860s. He travelled steerage to Paris to install it at the Paris Exposition of 1900, one of the most celebrated of the world's fairs of the period.
World's Fairs in general were particularly instructive when considering the status of race and African American in the United States and elsewhere. Especially when the fair was actually located in the United States (as was the case of the Atlanta Cotton Exposition of 1896 in Atlanta at which Booker T. Washington delivered his celebrated address), African American artists and various kinds of status reports and exhibitions on African Americans were included.
On this blog, I have made available a variety of related materials, as well, as a very excellent presentation of Du Bois's exhibition at the Paris fair compiled by Eugene Provenzo, who is also the author of THE ANNOTATED SOULS OF BLACK FOLK. While the book doesn't have high quality photographs, the website is superb and includes superior supporting documentation related to the exhibition.
REQUIRED READINGS:
THE NEGRO EXHIBITION COMPILED BY WEB DU BOIS as introduced by me:
AS COMPILED BY EUGENE PROVENZO:
COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION OF 1893 IN CHICAGO:
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