On Feb. 8, local novelist Shana Burton will read from her works (Suddenly Single, First Comes Love, Flaws and All) and talk about the writing process, especially how she got started as a writer. She will speak at 11 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 8, 2010, in the Arts Complex Theatre on the Macon campus, and she will speak again at 6 p.m. in Thomas Hall, Room 116, on the Warner Robins Campus.
On Feb. 16, there will be a poetry reading by Affrilachian Poets as part of Black History Month. This year’s theme is Finding, Loving and Respecting Self. Poets Ricardo Nazario-Colon, Bianca Spriggs-Floyd and Keith Wilson will be reading Feb. 16, in the Arts Complex Theatre at the 11 a.m.
Frank X Walker, who read here two years ago, was a founding member of this group, as is Ricardo. Winner of student poetry contest will be publicly announced. Library has DVD resource on this group of poets, Coal Black Voices.
Macon State College will hold its Seventh Annual Macon State College Fall Digital Video Festival from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, December 10, in the Macon State College Learning Support Auditorium. The festival will feature final documentary videos by students from Dr. Patrick Brennan’s fall 2009 Principles of Production class at Macon State College.
Each student video runs from 5-10 minutes. Some of the video titles for this year’s festival are “Hold ‘Em: An Amateur Poker Story,” ”The Life and Times of Mae Chancey,” ”A Day at Mother Goose,” “Michael Brooker: Hometown Hero,” and “W.O.W. Reality.” This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.
Kathy Shimeta (mezzo-soprano) and Martin Hennessy (pianist) are performing artists based in Manhattan. They will be in residence at MSC next week, on Tuesday and Wednesday, November 10-11. On Tuesday, they will present a one-act musical entitled “Life! Love! Song! A Visit with Gena Branscombe.” Gena Branscombe was a prominent woman composer and conductor in the early 20th century. She was an active member of the American Penwomen society. Ms. Shimeta is the leading scholar of Ms. Branscombe and portrays her in this one-woman show. On Wednesday, they will teach a masterclass for the music voice students. You won’t want to miss their presentation on Tuesday, and you are all invited to observe the masterclass on Wednesday.
Tuesday, November 10, 12:30-1:30, Arts Complex Rehearsal Hall: The one-act, one-woman show, “Life! Love! Song! A Visit with Gena Branscombe.”
Wednesday, November 11, 10:30-11:30, Arts Complex Rehearsal Hall: Masterclass with MSC Music Students.
I would like to invite you and your students to attend the following MSC Artists and Lecturers series event on Wednesday, November 4th at 2pm in H/SS 218.
African Americans and the American Dream:
Considering the Significance of Race and Class in America Today
Dr. Tomás D. Rodríguez
Some contend that socioeconomic success and the American Dream are today determined by educational attainment rather than skin color. Others claim that Blacks continue to struggle in educational and socioeconomic achievement, emphasizing the lingering barriers of hidden prejudice and discrimination. We ask then: Is the American Dream really within reach of Black America? What evidence do we have that the dream is here, near, or still far? What do figures on educational attainment, income levels, and political participation tell us? What can Obama’s Administration do to advance Dr. King’s agenda of racial equity and social justice? How can our educational system serve that goal?
The Black History Month Committee is sponsoring a poetry reading by Affrilachian Poets as part of Black History Month. This year’s theme is Finding, Loving and Respecting Self. Poets Ricardo Nazario-Colon, Bianca Spriggs-Floyd and Keith Wilson will be reading Feb. 16, 2010, in the Arts Complex Theatre at the 11 a.m.
The Black History Month committee is also sponsoring a student poetry contest to be judged by the Affrilachian Poets, who will announce the winners Feb. 16, 2010. The student poetry contest is open to all current Macon State students. Poems should address some part of the theme: Finding, Loving and Respecting Self. Any poetic form is acceptable and the poem must be less than two single-spaced pages including the title.
Poems should be sent in the body of an e-mail (no attachments will be accepted) from a campus e-mail account to sharon.colley@maconstate.edu. No identification should be attached to the submission as judges will not see the names of authors until after the judging. All participants must comply with ELIGIBILITY FOR PARTICIPATION IN STUDENT LIFE ACTIVITIES POLICY, from Student Handbook.
The deadline for submissions, limit one per student, is Dec. 18. Winners will be notified through campus e-mail in late January. First prize is $100, with two runners-up getting $50 each. Prizes are provided by Redbone Chapbooks.
Critically acclaimed poets Sabrina Orah Mark and Michael Dumanis will read from and discuss their works at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 2, in the Macon State College Auditorium in the Learning Support Building off Ivey Drive. This event is free and open to the public. Call Dr. Amy Berke at (478) 471-5788 for more information.
Brooklyn native Sabrina Orah Mark now lives in Athens, GA, where she teaches at Agnes Scott College and the University of Georgia. Her first book of poetry, The Babies, has earned much acclaim and won the 2004 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. Mark’s work has also appeared in American Poet, The Canary, Conduit, The Indiana Review, and other journals. Mark currently is working on her second book, Tsim Tsum, which will be published by Saturnalia Books later this year.
Michael Dumanis, who was born in the Soviet Union and lived there until 1981 when his parents were granted political asylum in the U.S., now lives in Cleveland, Ohio. He teaches at Cleveland State University and serves as the director of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center. Dumanis’ first book, Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century, was co-written with fellow poet Cate Marvin. His second book, My Soviet Union: Poems, won the 2006 Juniper Prize for Poetry.
On April 3-4, 75 Students from 10 Georgia colleges will participate in “The Culture of Conflict,” Macon State’s first interdisciplinary, undergraduate conference. Conference papers and presentations include video, fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, and scholarly research in literature, rhetoric, history, political science, sociology, economics, and philosophy. Macon State College is well represented at the conference, with 30 students presenting a total of 34 scholarly papers, creative works, and videos.
In addition to student presentations, which will take place in the Macon State Conference Center from 8:30 am – 4:15 pm on April 4th, the conference will feature two speakers:
Kelly Cherry will offer a poetry reading on Friday, April 3rd, at 7:00 pm in the Learning Support Auditorium. Professor Cherry is the author of seventeen books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction (essay, memoir, criticism), eight chapbooks, and two translations of classical drama. She has received the Hanes Award for Poetry from the Fellowship of Southern Writers, and her short fiction has been represented in Best American Short Stories, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, and The Pushcart Prize. Forthcoming in 2009 are Girl in a Library: On Women Writers and the Writing Life and The Retreats of Thought: Poems. She is Eudora Welty Professor Emerita of English and EvjueBascom Professor Emerita in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She currently serves as Master Artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts.
Cultural critic and historian Jelani Cobb, Associate Professor of History at Spelman College, will offer a keynote address on Saturday April 4th at 4:30 pm in the Convention Center Banquet Hall. Dr. Cobb has published widely on African American history, culture and politics. His publications include To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic and The Devil and Dave Chappelle and Other Essays. He also edited The Essential Harold Cruse: A Reader. Professor Cobb’s forthcoming books are In Our Lifetimes: Barack Obama and the New Black America and Antidote to Revolution: African American Anticommunism and the Struggle for Civil Rights, 1931-1957.
In addition to his academic career, Professor Cobb has made a name for himself as an essayist and commentator. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, Essence, Vibe, Emerge, The Progressive, The Washington City Paper, ONE Magazine, Ebony and online at TheRoot.com. Professor Cobb has also appeared on National Public Radio, CNN, Al-Jazeera, and CBS News. In 2008, Professor Cobb served as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, representing Georgia’s 5th Congressional District.
All events are free and open to the public.
To learn more about the conference, see the official web site. A complete schedule of student presentations is also available here. For more information, contact Dr. Mary Wearn at 471-2989 or Dr. Jeffrey Burson at 471-5747.
The Culture of Conflict conference is sponsored by the Macon State Foundation, the School of Arts and Sciences, the English Studies Organization, and the History Students Organization.
I have posted photographs from this week’s Arts Festival: “Borderlines: Reading, Writing, Performing in American Spaces.” All four speakers were excellent — Lillian Allen, Tayari Jones, Carmen Agra Deedy, Lorna Goodison. Many thanks to Sharon Colley and Derrilyn Morrison for asking me to play a small part as photographer. Well done, Drs!
