The Black Atlantic/AAAS 329-01/ARTHIST 383-01/ICS 226S-01

Introduction to Course

Monday, August 26, 2019

Frank Bowling, Night Journey, 1969-70. Acrylic on canvas.

What is Black Atlantic culture?

Left: Woman winnowing rice in a coil-grass basket, Charleston, SC, 1980s. Right: Shrimp gumbo, New Orleans, LA, circa 2010.

Left: Shrimp Etoufee, classic Louisiana stew. Right: Chef Kwame Onwuachi, James Beard “Star Chef of 2019” winner, with his book Notes from a Young Black Chef.

Left: Creole Cottage, New Orleans, LA, late 17th-early 18th century. Right: Slave quarters, Horton Grove, Stagville Plantation, Durham County, NC, 1850s.

Above: National Museum of African American History & Culture, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., opened in 2016. Right: NMAAHC architect of record Phil Freelon (1953-2019) & NMAAHC designer David Adjaye, circa 2016.

Left: Winslow Homer, Dressing for the Carnival, 1877. Oil on canvas. Right: Roland Freeman, Quilter Victoria Bennett, Mississippi, March 1976. Photograph.

Painter Mark Bradford in front of Scorched Earth (2006), 2010.

Right: John Antrobus, Plantation Burial, 1860. Oil on canvas. Below: Archibald J. Motley, Jr, Tongues (Holy Rollers), 1929. Oil on canvas. Below right: Russell Lee, Members of the Pentecostal church praising the Lord, Chicago, IL, 1941. Photograph.

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking at the March in Washington for Jobs & Freedom, August 28, 1963.

Above: A member of the “Black Indians,” Mardi Gras, New Orleans, LA, circa 1970s. Below left: Second Liners, New Orleans, LA, circa 1950s.

Right: Wayne Miller, South Siders watching the Bud Biliken Parade, Chicago, IL, 1947. Photograph.

Zion Williamson scoring during the Duke versus Syracuse basketball game, March 15, 2019.

Left: Tennis player Serena Williams, wearing a Tom Ford dress. Right: Fashion designer Virgil Abloh backstage before a show.

Left: Lewis Miller, Negro Dancers, Lynchburg, VA, 1854. Watercolor. Right: Anonymous, Children at play, Mississippi, circa 1930s. Photograph.

Childish Gambino (Donald Glover) performing in the music video This is America (Hiro Murai, 2018).

Left: Benjamin Henry Latrobe, detail of a bamboula, Congo Square, New Orleans, LA, February 19, 1819. Drawing. Right: Hip-hop artist Young Thug, 2018. Photograph by Petra Collins.

Robert Farris Thompson, Aesthetic of the Cool: Afro-Atlantic Art and Music (New York: Periscope Publishing, Ltd., 2011).

Wednesday, August 28: Lecture 1/The Making of the Black Atlantic: Translatlantic Slave Trade & Colonialism.

Monday, September 2/Lecture 2 & Discussion: Kongo, Thompson’s “Illuminating spirits: a review,” & “Kongo Louisiana, Kongo New Orleans.”

Wednesday, September 4/Lecture 3: Yoruba.

Monday, September 9/Lecture 4: Fon.

Wednesday, September 11/Lecture 5: Ejagham. A Conversation with Architect David Adjaye, Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke University, TBA.

Thursday, September 12/Lecture, David Adjaye, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, 5PM-7:30PM.

Monday, September 16/Lecture 6: Mande/Akan.

Wednesday, September 18/Lecture 7 & Discussion: Aesthetics I, Thompson’s “An Aesthetic of the Cool,” “An Aesthetic of the Cool II,” & “An Interview with Donald Consentino and Robert Farris Thompson.”

Monday, September 23/Lecture 8 & Discussion: Aesthetics II, Thompson’s “An Introduction to black Atlantic history,” “Face of the gods,” “Communiqué from Afro-Atlantis,” & “An Interview: Ned Sublette and Robert Farris Thompson.”

Wednesday, September 25/Midterm Review.

Monday, September 30/Midterm Exam.

Class Assignment: 500-word description and analysis of an object from The Sacred Arts of the Black Atlantic collection, Durham, North Carolina. Due: Monday, November 18, 2019.

Wednesday, October 2/Discussion of Matory’s “Part III: Pots, Packets, Beads, and Foreigners: The Making and Meaning of the Real Life ‘Fetish.’”

Wednesday, October 9/Continuation of Discussion of Matory’s “Part III: Pots, Packets, Beads, and Foreigners: The Making and Meaning of the Real Life ‘Fetish.’”

Monday, October 14/Lecture 9 & Discussion: Abolitionism & Resistance, Haile Gerima, Sankofa (USA/Ghana/Jamaica, 1993).

Wednesday, October 16/Lecture 10 & Discussion: Afro-Cuban Music, Thompson’s “The Afro-Cuban departures of Mongo Santamaria,” “New voice from the barrios,” & “Nueva York’s salsa music.”

Monday, October 21/Lecture 11 & Discussion: Carnival & Spectacle, Marcel Camus, Orfeu Negro (Black Orpheus) (France/Italy, 1958).

Wednesday, October 23/Lecture 12 & Discussion: Haiti, Thompson’s “Tap-tap, Fula-Fula, Kia-Kia: the Haitian bus in Atlantic perspective.”

Monday, October 28/Lecture 13 & Discussion: Sex & Race, Felix De Rooy, Ava & Gabriel (Curacao/Netherlands, 1990).

Wednesday, October 30/Lecture 14: Jamaica/Trinidad.

Monday, November 4/Lecture 15 & Discussion: Possession & Performance, George T. Nierenberg, Say Amen, Somebody (USA, 1982).

Wednesday, November 6/Lecture 16 & Discussion: U.S. I, Thompson’s “Special projects for eternity,” “Prodigal son Alice’s boy,” & “From the first to the final thunder: African American quilts.”

Monday, November 11/Lecture 17 & Discussion: U.S. II, Thompson’s “Hip hop 101.”

Wednesday, November 13/Lecture 18 & Discussion: Politics & Poetics, Gilles Elie Dit-Cosaque, Twinkl (Zetwal) (Martinique, 2008).

Monday, November 18/Lecture 19 & Discussion: Contemporary Artist I, Thompson’s “David Hammons: ‘knowing their past’.”

Wednesday, November 20/Lecture 20 & Discussion: Contemporary Artists II, Thompson’s “Betye Saar: chance and destiny” & “Soul physician, Renee Stout.”

Monday, November 25/Lecture 21 & Discussion: Contemporary Artist II, Thompson’s “Activating heaven: the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat” & “Jean-Michel Basquiat: royalty, heroism, and the streets.”

Monday, December 2/Lecture 22 & Discussion: Contemporary Artists IV, Thompson’s “Sacred silhouettes, Jose Bedia” & “Keith Haring and the dance.”

Wednesday, December 4/Final exam review.

Sunday, December 15/Final exam, 7PM-10PM.