Category: Event

April 17th @ 5:30 PM: Daphne A. Brooks on “Porgy and Bess”

Wednesday, April 17t, 5:30 PM:
106 Stoeckel Hall

Daphne A. Brooks, “Rhapsody and Ruin: Porgy and Bess, Cultural Domination and the Story of America”

In this lecture, Daphne A. Brooks, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of African American Studies, American Studies, Women’s Gender & Sexuality Studies and Music, mines the archive in order to trace the legacy of racial performance and racial and gender violence made manifest in 1935’s Porgy and Bess. It moves from an exploration of the Heyward and Gershwin archives to a consideration of the genius Black women culture workers who’ve grappled with the opera’s legacy.

Continue readingApril 17th @ 5:30 PM: Daphne A. Brooks on “Porgy and Bess”

April 10th @ 5:30 PM: Brian Kane on Sound Archives, Robert F. Williams, and Al Hibbler

Wednesday, April 10, 5:30pm
106 Stoeckel Hall

Brian Kane, “The Sound Archive and the Sonic Archive: Robert F. Williams in Cuba and Al Hibbler in Birmingham”

In this lecture/demonstration, Brian Kane, Associate Professor of Music and Affiliated Faculty, Film and Media Studies, will discuss some problems and challenges of historical sound studies by considering the a distinction between “the sound archive” and “the sonic archive.” The demonstration will focus on two sound recordings from the 1960s and the struggle for civil rights: a radio broadcast by the activist, Robert F. Williams, and a speech given by the singer Al Hibbler in support of the Birmingham campaign.

Continue readingApril 10th @ 5:30 PM: Brian Kane on Sound Archives, Robert F. Williams, and Al Hibbler

March 5th @ 4pm: A Conversation with Maurice Wallace and Alexander G. Weheliye

Tuesday, March 5th at 4 PM (EST)
Online via Zoom: bit.ly/BSAWMarch5

Join us for a special author talk with Professor Maurice Wallace on King’s Vibrato: Modernism, Blackness and the Sonic Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Duke University Press, 2022) and Professor Alexander G. Weheliye on Feenin: R&B Music and the Materiality of BlackFem Voices and Technology (Duke University Press, 2023), moderated by Professors Daphne A. Brooks and Brian Kane.

Continue readingMarch 5th @ 4pm: A Conversation with Maurice Wallace and Alexander G. Weheliye

The Black Feminist Folk Revolution: Odetta, Ella Jenkins and the Sound of Black History Resistance — A Conversation with Gayle Wald and Matthew Frye Jacobson

Friday, October 23, 2022

The Black Feminist Folk Revolution: Odetta, Ella Jenkins and the Sound of Black History Resistance

A conversation with Gayle Wald and Matthew Frye Jacobson … Continue readingThe Black Feminist Folk Revolution: Odetta, Ella Jenkins and the Sound of Black History Resistance — A Conversation with Gayle Wald and Matthew Frye Jacobson

A conversation with Tyehimba Jess

Friday, December 10 @ 12pm EST — Online Event Join us for a virtual conversation with celebrate poet Tyehimba Jess and Professors Daphne A. Brooks and Brian Kane. The author of Leadbelly and Olio, Jess has won numerous awards and fellowships, including the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Olio. Zoom link to be posted soon.

The Sometime of ‘Summertime’: Porgy and Bess at 85 & Gershwin Remixed

Friday, October 9
3PM-4PM EST

Join Professors Brian Kane and Daphne A. Brooks in conversation with Allison Chu (Dept. of Music) for a conversation and critical listening session to mark the 85th anniversary of the Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. Together, we’ll examine the racial and gender complexities of this classic production, and we’ll trace the evolution and legacies of “Summertime,” the production’s most famous smash and a song that generations of Black artists (from Billie Holiday and Miles Davis to Nina Simone and Lena Horne, from Whitney Houston to Fantasia)–have translated in the midst of troubling times and transformed across the long Black freedom struggle. … Continue readingThe Sometime of ‘Summertime’: Porgy and Bess at 85 & Gershwin Remixed

Amazing Grace and BSAW Symposium

Inaugural Black Sound & the Archive SymposiumFebruary 7-8 | Yale University Download the preliminary program Thursday, February 7, 7:30pm, Yale University Art Gallery AuditoriumOpening Keynote Event: Amazing Grace (1972) Screening of historic film documenting Aretha Franklin’s live concert recording of her legendary gospel album. Followed by a roundtable discussion with Robert Johnson (producer), Professor Farah Jasmine Griffin (Columbia University), Wesley Morris (New York Times), Aaron Cohen, (author of the celebrated 33 1/3 volume on the Amazing Grace album),

An evening with RHIANNON GIDDENS
Tuesday, November 13 at Yale University

Join us for an evening of critical listening with Grammy Award winning Roots Americana musician and MacArthur Fellow RHIANNON GIDDENS in conversation with BSAW co-directors Professor Daphne A. Brooks (African American Studies, Theater Studies, American Studies, Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies) and Professor Brian Kane (Department of Music) Tuesday, November 13 Sudler Recital Hall Second Floor | W.L. Harkness Hall Yale University 100 Wall Street New Haven, CT 7pm Free and open to the public!