The Spook Who Sat by the Door: March 22nd, 4:00 pm at IU Cinema

Thanks for another great symposium!

The Black Film Center/Archive would like to thank everyone who came to take part in the celebration of the films Nothing But a Man and The Spook Who Sat by the Door.  We were delighted to be able to meet Sam Greenlee (author of the novel, The Spook Who Sat by the Door) and Bob Young (producer and writer of Nothing But a Man).

We would also like to thank our scholars: Terri Francis (Yale University), Khalil Muhammad (Indiana University), Devorah Heitner (Lake Forest College), Karen Bowdre (Indiana University), Marilyn Yaquinto (Truman State University), Frederick McElroy (Indiana University), and Lamont Yeakey (California State University, Los Angeles).  Without these scholars and our moderators, David Wall and Michael T. Martin, we would not have had such rich, interesting, and (at times) heated discussions about these two films.

Cinematic Representations of Racial Conflict in Real Time — March 24th and 25th

The Black Film Center/Archive will be hosting a two day symposium entitled Cinematic Representations of Racial Conflict in ‘Real Time’ which will examine two films – Nothing But a Man and The Spook Who Sat by the Door. The symposium will be held on March 24 and 25, 2010.

Click here for the IU Newsroom article

Click here for more information and screening times for the films.

March 24-25, 2010 Symposium: Cinematic Representations of Racial Conflict in “Real Time”

Awarded a 2009 New Frontiers in the Arts & Humanities: New Perspectives grant, the Black Film Center/Archive will host a symposium entitled “Cinematic Representations of Racial Conflict in ‘Real Time’”.

The March 24-25, 2010 symposium will take in depth looks at two “classic” films of black cinema: Nothing But a Man (1964) and The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973).

The symposium will address two concerns: the strategies deployed in film to signify modes of political address and mobilization in “real time,” during a period of intense racial conflict in the United States; and the utility of revisiting cinematic texts for ideological accounts of historical activity.

The films’ political project offers a distinctive (and competing) ideological stance about the means of resistance to racial oppression, which in actuality reflected the mobilizing strategies of black militants at the time of the films’ release. The two films also address labor and gender relations among African Americans, the social experience of rural life in the South, and the moral and physical decay of urban spaces, especially in the inner cities.

A tentative list of panelists include: Thomas Cripps (Professor Emeritus, Morgan State University),  Mark Reid (University of Florida), Ed Guerrero (New York University), Paula Massood (Brooklyn College), Terri Francis (Yale University), Fred McElroy (IUB), and Khalil Muhammad (IUB).