Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Post Five and Lots of Links


For the week of April 19th, here are 3 choices for your post #5:

1) Post part or all of your drafts of essay #2 or your revision of essay #1 for feedback.

2) Respond to any of the links below: what strikes you and what do they have to say about the possibility of using art for social change?

Here is a recording of Nina Simone singing "Four Women." There are some versions of her doing it live on youtube you can explore as well - the variations are a trademark of hers. How do you see this song connecting to Civil Rights and/or the Black Arts movement?

Here is an obituary of Carolyn Rodgers, a poet of the Black Arts movement. What does her life story and the evolution of her work tell you about art and social change?

Here is Gil Scott-Heron performing "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" along with footage put together from Youtube to illustrate some of the ideas in the poem. What idea of 'revolution' does this poem point us towards? Thinking about our discussion of LeRoi Jone's poetic language of the concrete and the vernacular, what types of language does Scott-Heron use?

Here is a link to audio or video of the activist and journalist Juan Gonzalez reading Pedro Pietri's poem "Puerto Rican Obituary." Gonzalez was an activist with the Young Lords and a friend of Pietri's. What do you think are the poem's aims as a political work of art?

And here is the New York Times article from 1967 about Muhammad Ali's refusal to be inducted into the army. What do you notice about this language use? (I particularly love that there's a section entitled "Groups Use Signs")

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