Black Portraiture[s] I: The Black Body in the West / Représentation du Corps Noir en Occident
Date: January 17th -20th 2013 (Thursday – Sunday)
Location: NYU PARIS, 57 Bd Saint-Germain (May 29th) & musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, 37 Quai Jacques Chirac (May 30th)
Paris, an internationally key and highly influential Western space in all things concerning the arts and modernity, is the perfect stage for the Black Portraiture[s]: The Black Body in the West, the fifth in the series of conferences organized by Harvard University and NYU since 2004. Black Portraiture[s] explores the ideas of the production and skill of self-representation, desire, and the exchange of the gaze from the 19th century to the present day in fashion, film, art, and the archives.
How are these images, both positive and negative, exposed to define, replicate, and transform the black body? Why and how does the black body become a purchasable global marketplace and what are its legacies? Also importantly, what are these responses and implications? How can performing blackness be liberating for performer and audience? Can the black body be de-racialized to emphasize cultural groupings encouraging appropriation and varied performers across racial lines?
How the black body has been imagined in the West has always been a rich site for global examination and contestation. The representation and depiction of black peoples often has been governed by prevailing attitudes about race and sexuality. The conference draws on the ideas and works of leading and emerging writers, photographers, scholars, artists, curators and filmmakers of our time and includes a broader discussion of Africa in the popular imagination. It is also significant that this project revolves around collaboration.
Sponsors:
Centre d’études africaines École des hautes études en sciences sociales/ Institut de recherche pour le Dèveloppment (EHESS/IRD), Cornell University, Department of Art and Visual Studies, École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Fondation de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (FMSH), Ford Foundation, Goethe Institut Angola, Goethe Institut South Africa, Harvard University, W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Institut Français South Africa, K’a Yéléma Productions, musée du quai Branly, New York University Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, New York University Department of Photography and Imaging, New York University Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University Global Research Initiatives, Office of the Provost, New York University Paris, Standard Bank in South Africa, Studio Museum in Harlem, Université Paris Diderot – Paris 7, United States Embassy Paris.
Panels (Thursday, January 17th) –
Keynote by Lilian Thuram
Opening Plenary Session
11:00 am – 12:00 pm
Panelists: Jean-Pierre Dozon and Jean-François Chevrier, moderated by Noemie Oxley
Panels (Friday, January 18th) –
Welcome
9:15 am – 9:30 am
Jean-Paul Colleyn and Manthia Diawara
Memory & Nostalgia: The Archive in the Black Body
9:30 am – 11:00 pm
Panelists: Cheryl Finley, Pamela Newkirk, Roshini Kempadoo, Celeste Marie Bernier, Brendan Wattenberg, Renée Mussai
Roundtable – Black Bodies: Live and Uncensored
11:00 am – 12:30 pm
Panelists: Isolde Brielmaier, Ph.D., Simon Njami, Carrie Mae Weems, Elizabeth Colomba, Jean-Ulrick Désert, Lyle Ashton Harris, Daniele Tamagni
“Mix-Up, Mix-Up”: Nicki Minaj, Rihanna And Other (Mis)Readings Of Pleasure, Feminine Artifice, Black-Caribbean-American Diasporic Performances In Popular Visual Culture
1:30 pm – 3:00 pm
Panelists: Joan Morgan, Kevin Browne, Kimberli Gant, Treva Lindsey, Mark Anthony Neal
Sweet Swagger: Exploring Representations of Black Style, Beauty and Grace
3:15 pm – 4:45 pm
Panelists: Sandra Jackson-Dumont, Robert O’Meally, Mimi Plange, Ekua Abudu, Michaela Angela Davis, Catherine McKinley, Katell Pouliquen, Anna Arabindan-Kesson
Show Up To Show Out: The Rise of Global Black Dandyism
4:45 pm – 6:15 pm
Panelists: Shantrelle P. Lewis, Michelle Joan Wilkinson, Monica Miller, Allison Janae Hamilton, Michael McMillan, Ylva Habel
Panels (Saturday, January 19th) –
Welcome
9:30 am – 9:40 am
Anne-Christine Taylor-Descola, musée du quai Branly
(Il)Legibilities: What Makes the Black Body Readable?
9:45 am – 11:00 am
Panelists: Awam Amkpa, J.D. Ojeikere, Renee Cox, Heike Behrend, James Barnor, Angèle Etoundi Essamba, Kiluanji Kia Henda
Intricate Intersections: Black Apparitions in Imperial Europe
9:45 am – 11:00 am
Panelists: Yemane Demissie, Idrissou Mora-Kpai, Dell Hamilton, Temi Odumosu, Maaza Mengiste, Artwell Cain, Paul Kaplan
Curating the Black Body
11:00 am – 12:30 pm
Panelists: Lydie Diakhaté, N’Goné Fall, Xuly Bët, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Nadira Laggoune
Black Erotics: New Theories on Race and Porn
11:00 am – 12:30 pm
Panelists: Nicole Fleetwood, Carla Williams, Mireille Miller-Young, Jennifer Christine Nash, Jafari Allen
Contemporary Voices: Naming and Branding the Black Body
1:30 pm – 3:00 pm
Panelists: Hank Willis Thomas, Alexis Peskine, Misa Dayson, Nana Adusei-Poku, Aja Monet, Franck Freitas and Malek Bouyahia
On Beauty: From Josephine to Maxine
1:30 pm – 3:30 pm
Panelists: Michael Dinwiddie, Anna Maria Horsford, Dyana Williams, Horace Porter, Dominic Thomas, John Shévin Foster, Myisha Priest
Universalizing the Black Body
3:15 pm – 4:45 pm
Panelists: Jeff Rabhan, Jason King, Ed Guerrero, Sam Pollard, Lewis Watts, Vera Grant, Margaret Crosby-Arnold
Black Optics: Visuality, The Cinematic, Frame and the Black Body
4:45 pm – 6:15 pm
Panelists: Micheal Gillespie, Erica Edwards, Eve Dunbar, Hiram Perez, Michael Ralph
Out of Africa: Young Women Behind the Lens
4:45 pm – 6:15 pm
Panelists: Shelley Rice, Jeanne Mercier, Zanele Muholi, Nandipha Mntambo, Maïmouna Guerresi, Ayana V. Jackson, Nadia Benchallal
New York University
Tisch School of the Arts and Institute of African American Affairs
Harvard University
W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research