Saturday, October 6th from 7 – 9pm

in the Stern Center Ballroom

Sponsored by Asian Students Association, Chinese Club, and Japanese Club: Come join us for a fabulous dance in honor of the moon! There will be food, awesome music, and (hopefully) pretty dresses. So yea. Bring your friends, bring a date, bring a fancy outfit (or not), and bring excitement. Party hard, ladies and gentlemen.

Asian Studies Faculty

Asian Languages Faculty

* Denotes a core roster or adjunct faculty member.

Asian Studies Faculty

Asian Languages Faculty

* Denotes a core roster or adjunct faculty member.

The Department of Theatre and Dance in the College of Charleston School of the Arts will present “Flyin’ West” by Pearl Cleage. Set in 1898 Kansas, the story follows a family of African American women who will do whatever it takes to protect each other and their land. The play looks past history and racism to consider the toll of slavery on succeeding generations, the strength derived from family and self-respect, and the self-determination that comes with land ownership.

The production will run Thursday, October 4 through Tuesday, October 9, 2012. Curtain times will be 7:30 p.m., except Sunday at 3 p.m. only. Shows will take place at the Emmett Robinson Theatre in the Simons Center for the Arts, 54 Saint Philip St. Tickets may be purchased at the box office or by telephone (843) 953-5604. Admission is $15 for general admission and $10 for College of Charleston students, faculty and staff and senior citizens 60 and older. Season subscriptions are available. The “talkback” discussions with the cast and crew will take place opening night following the performance.

Director and associate professor Joy Vandervort-Cobb has been inspired by Pearl Cleage for a long time. ”I read once that Ms. Cleage said, ‘Theatre is my hollerin’ place,’ and I loved that. And, having directed and taught “Blues for an Alabama Sky,” I knew exactly what she was speaking of. She has a way of sticking a lot of issues in one piece, and I like pieces that give you, the audience, something to chew on. In ‘Flyin’ West,’ Ms. Cleage’s strong women have survived harsh winters and harsh circumstances, recognizing that the bond of sisterhood and family should lift us to not only survive, but triumph.”

Pearl Cleage has written over a dozen plays, including “Bourbon at the Border” and “Blues for an Alabama Sky,” the latter having been performed in Atlanta for the 1996 Cultural Olympiad in conjunction with the 1996 Olympic Games. Cleage has written three novels, the most well-known being What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day, which was an Oprah’s Book club selection and a New York Times bestseller.

Austin Cantrell, senior Theatre major, designed costumes for this period piece. Celeste Riddle, whose scenic artist work was last seen in the College’s recent production of “All’s Well that Ends Well,” has designed a multi-level set meant to capture the simplicity of a hand-built home in Nicodemus, Kansas, in 1898, while supported by Assistant Professor Paul Collins’ lighting that reminds us of how expansive and beautiful the land was.

The cast includes all College of Charleston students, including seniors theatre majors Alanda Parker (“Antony and Cleopatra,” “Long Time Since Yesterday”) Rashida Beach (“Tintypes”), Chelsé Brown-Barnes and Gregory Mangieri, along with newcomers to the mainstage, freshman Aven Pigatt and junior Monica Raymond.

Check out this video about the successful Black Power Conference held Sept. 21-22, 2012:

 

On September 21^st & 22^nd, 2012, the College of Charleston’s Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture will host a public history symposium and community event on the topic of “The Fire Every Time: Reframing Black Power Across the Twentieth Century and Beyond”. 

Registration is required, however attendance at the events is free for all CofC faculty, staff and students.

For full information, including instructions for submitting papers and a schedule of events, visit: http://avery.cofc.edu/programs/black-power-conference/

To see the College of Charleston’s Media Office press release regarding this event: http://news.cofc.edu/2012/08/23/avery-research-center-to-host-black-power-conference/

The Post & Courier has published an article about this event and includes event details: http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20120916/PC1204/120919500/1015/black-power-and-its-impact-topic-of-avery-center-conference

The event was also covered in The Republic: http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/ce2d2d600c1d4e3aa0548d0fc3b1f379/SC–Black-Power

Join us in the AAST conference room (RSS 230) on the last Tuesday of each month for camaraderie and good discussion. 

At our Brown Bag meeting on September 25th we will discuss the following topic:
Are Black Men in Crisis?

-Is it true that there are more black men imprisoned today than there were enslaved in 1860?
-Is it true that it costs more to imprison someone for a year than it costs to send him to college?
-Is true that there are more black men in prison than there are in college?

The drop-in is informal.  Come when you can. Stay as long as you like. There will be snacks, but please feel free to bring your own lunch.

Subsequent meeting will be on November 27

Tomorrow marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of one of the most significant documents in American history, the Emancipation Proclamation.

Coming almost immediately after the battle of Antietam, the proclamation had tactical political and military motivations in the short term, but on the grand scale it had, and has continued to have, profound implications for the grand narrative of American history and the even broader international narrative that has enshrined individual liberty as a human right. At the immediate political and military level, the Proclamation, in Clemson historian Vernon Burton’s words, “free[d] Lincoln from the confines of contradictory war goals—fighting a war for democratic liberty but not against slavery;” on the broader front, as Howard University’s Edna Greene Medford writes, when the Proclamation came into effect on January 1st, 1863, it “transformed the legal status of nearly four million persons of African descent, from lawfully owned property to human beings ostensibly responsible to no one but themselves.” It was a massively important document, without which it is almost impossible to imagine how the century and a half between 1862 and now might have played out.

The document’s especial significance in South Carolina probably needs no elaborate explanation. Suffice it to say that Union-occupied parts of South Carolina were among the very few and very earliest portions of this country where the Proclamation had the immediate material effect of emancipation, and that South Carolina traditions marking January 1st as Emancipation Day have been among the strongest, most enduring, and most deeply felt in the nation, even during the years when legal segregation restricted the freedoms of African Americans in this state.

With this background, and as a spin-off from the Civil War Global Conflict sesquicentennial commemoration of the Civil War, I would like to draw your attention to the CLAW program’s Jubilee Project 2013, a broad collaborative effort involving cultural, educational and historical institutions up and down the coast and all across the state, that will commemorate both the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 50th anniversary of the desegregation of Charleston County schools, Clemson University, and the University of South Carolina. In critically examining the events both of 1863 and 1963, we expect to ask searching questions about issues of freedom, equality and race in South Carolina and beyond. We hope that these questions, however difficult and uncomfortable they may be, will result in productive discussions. We welcome campus-wide and broader campus involvement in these conversations; if you are interested in learning more about the Project, please take a look at the press release on the College home-page and at our blog-site at http://jubileeprojectsc.wordpress.com/category/jubilee-project/.

From Simon Lewis,
Associate Director-Program in the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World (CLAW) (http://www.cofc.edu/atlanticworld)

2012 marks Charleston’s 29th annual MOJA Arts Festival: A Celebration of African-American and Caribbean Arts. Selected as one of the Southeast Tourism Society’s Top 20 events for many different years, the 2012 MOJA Arts Festival promises an exciting line-up of events with a rich variety of traditional favorites. The upcoming festival is scheduled for Thursday, September 27 through Sunday, October 7, 2012. Nearly half of MOJA’s events are admission-free and the remainder are offered at very modest ticket prices, ranging from $5 – $35.

For full event details and information or to purchase tickets: http://www.mojafestival.com/home/?page_id=2

For a MOJA Arts Festival Program Guide:
http://www.mojafestival.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/2012MOJA-Program-Book.pdf