“American Politics & Community Today” including Ralph Ellison essays & “Talking with Strangers”
Humanities New York Reading & Discussion Program
February 25 to March 31, 2020 – Tuesday Evenings (and one Friday) 6:00 to 8:00pm
This discussion is intimate and can accommodate about 15 people.
Registration via email is accepted as well.
Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center and C.S.1 Curatorial Projects is organizing it’s third Humanities New York Reading & Discussion Program entitled “American Politics & Community Today” for six sessions from February 25 to March 31, 2020, on Tuesday evenings (and one Friday) from 6:00 to 8:00pm. Artist, writer, poet, performer, and NY Public Humanities Fellow Annette Daniels Taylor will be facilitating this discussion.
What does it mean to be an American in the 21st century? What does a model American do, and what responsibilities do Americans have to their communities and each other? How have the answers to these questions changed over the history of the United States? The participants in the reading and discussion program "American Politics and Community Today" will engage with these questions and others regarding politics and the current state of civic thought, feeling, and participation. This series, part of the NEH funded “Democracy in Dialogue,” was created by The University of Chicago’s Ken Warren.
Funded by Humanities New York this program encourages friends, colleagues, and strangers to “make time for thinking deeply about a single idea from a variety of perspectives, allowing texts to become catalysts for civic engagement, cultural understanding, and personal reflection.”
Fill out this registration form or email Claire@cs1projects.org confirm of your participation. This discussion is intimate and can accommodate about 15 people.
Readings Will Include Selections From:
Between Past and Future
This collection of essays by celebrated philosopher Hannah Arendt investigates a series of concepts — authority, freedom, education, and more — and explains their significance to our political life.
Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship Since Brown v. Board of Education
Danielle Allen looks at the current condition of civic distrust in America, tracing it back to school integration in the 1950s, and suggests practical ways that Americans can begin to overcome the issues that divide them
The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison
These essays by the author of Invisible Man reflect on race, literature, music, and the experience and contradictions of living in America during the 20th century.
PLEASE NOTE: The program is FREE and loaner books will be provided. We can also help facilitate rides as needed.
Meeting Times and Locations
Tuesdays (and one Friday) from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Tues., Feb. 25 - Merriweather Library, 1324 Jefferson Ave., Buffalo, NY 14208
Tues., Mar. 3 – Community Action Organization of WNY, 1423 Fillmore Ave., Buffalo, NY 14211
Tues., Mar. 10 – Mirabo Press, 11 Botsford Pl, Buffalo, NY 14216
Friday, March 20 – Albright-Knox Northland – 612 Northland Ave., Buffalo, NY 14211
Tues., Mar. 24 - Historic Colored Musicians Club - 145 Broadway at Michigan St., Buffalo, NY 14203
Tues., Mar. 31 – Hallwalls - 341 Delaware Ave, Buffalo, NY 14202
We are purposely working to meet in different Buffalo locations / neighborhoods as a means to know our city better.
Discussion Facilitator – Annette Daniels Taylor
Annette Daniels Taylor, an award winning playwright, poet and artist-filmmaker. Her debut YA novel, Dreams on Fire (October 2018) with West 44 books is an poetic urban teenage journey written in verse.The author of two poetry chapbooks, Street Pharmacist; and Hush now, Annette's work explores identity, class, memory, place, and public history. Daniels Taylor is a New York State Public Humanities fellow.
This Reading & Discussion Series grew out of planning around Nick Cave –The Let Go: A Citywide Celebration of Buffalo, the vision of the Chicago based artist best known for his Soundsuits, “to introduce Buffalo to Buffalo” via collaborative interactive performance. For The Let Go, Cave creates a dance-based town hall—part installation, part performance—to which the community of Buffalo is invited to “let go” and speak their minds through movement, work out frustrations, and celebrate independence as well as community. The space allows for social gatherings and is activated by “Chase,” a multi-colored, mylar sculpture that glides across the dance floor. September 2021.
For more information on Humanities New York’s Reading & Discussion Groups.
More information on Hallwalls: here & C.S.1 Curatorial Projects: here.
Quotes from those who attended
“I think this group is so important because it allows for an increase in knowledge and understanding of culture, life and experiences across age, race and different classes throughout generations. This group is successful due to the diverse group in people, the different experiences we bring to the discussion and the familiarity we have grown to foster among one another.”
“The spaces are safe havens and much of the outside chatter and noise is left outside. So, what is left is an area where people can more freely open up and express themselves more fully with a sense of care and protection. In today's social climate, these types of groups must proliferate and continue.”
“Our final discussion of the Ellison piece opened up into some personal stories about experiencing racism or prejudice in our own lives. Hearing the Jewish and Black members of the group describe their childhood memories of being called names or demeaned just really affected me. Those wounds are deep. If more people understood how universal those experiences are for Black and Jewish people--and how ineradicable they are from people's memories and sense of themselves-- perhaps there would be more understanding of the anger and frustration and demands for change that are happening in this country right now.”
“We live in a very divided country, and race is often what divides us. This kind of shared experience of engaging with big ideas, challenging writers, and contemporary issues in an atmosphere of openness and respect is essential to creating true community. Studying the humanities together is a wonderful way to challenge our own viewpoints and open ourselves to the experiences and viewpoints of people very different from us. I wish there could be more groups like this and that everybody could have this experience of reading, thinking, talking, and planning actions to take in the community together. I think many people in this group plan to carry forward what they've learned into new levels of civic engagement. I know I will.”
Nick Cave speaks at Humanities to the Rescue @ UB Center for the Arts
©Sandro
“2019-20 Eileen Silvers Visiting Professor in the Arts and Humanities, Chicago-based artist Nick Cave (b. 1959) will present the short film Up Right: Detroit (2015), described by Cranbrook Art Museum as “conceived…as an ‘act of initiation’ and a preparation of the mind, body, spirit, and selfhood of a group of young adults…. [who] undergo a ritual of being costumed in elaborate soundsuits and enter the city, transformed.” Traversing between dance, video, sculpture, and more—mixed-media would be an understatement—Cave’s dynamic work examines identity, community, connection, and materiality. Following the screening, the artist will be joined on-stage by local independent art curator Claire Schneider (C.S.1 Curatorial Projects), York University Dean of the School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design Sarah Bay-Cheng, and UB department of Romance Languages and Literature professor Christian Flaugh, with moderator and Humanities Institute executive director Christina Milletti.
The public is invited to join for a 6pm reception in the Center for the Arts Atrium with a performance by Buffalo String Works, a nonprofit organization that provides personalized string instrument instruction at no cost to refugee children who comprise a significant portion of the West Side’s underserved population.
Complimentary hors d’oeuvres and a cash-only bar provided by The Dapper Goose.”
