Stories about "Africana"
Seeking lessons — and hope — in the depths of disaster

Friday, April 17, 2020 10:32 am

Meet members of the Bates faculty who are watching COVID-19 and wondering what it has to teach us in terms of the human experience.

"According to Mark: Part I: Blood in the Revolution." Commencing a series of plays marking Black History Month at Bates, this 10-minute reading is one of four looking at the 18th-century experiences of black New Englanders and written by Lecturer in Theater Clifford Odle. Sponsored by the Africana program. Commons, Fireplace LoungeThe title character in According to Mark “was a slave who could read and was looking for a way to free himself from an oppressive master. And he felt the Bible provided a path to murdering him as long as he didn’t spill blood.”The play is set during the planning of the murder, which also involved two other slaves, Mark’s sister Phyllis and a woman called Phoebe. In the actual event, Mark was hanged for the murder and Phyllis was burned at the stake — a punishment that in Colonial America was reserved for female slaves who kill their masters, Odle says.Cast: Charles Nero as MarkPerla Figuereo as PhyllisSam Alexander as PhoebeDawrin Silfa as Quaco
The play’s the thing as Bates honors Black History Month

Wednesday, February 5, 2020 1:29 pm

Using theater to convey history “makes things more immediate, more alive," says a Bates playwright.

Filmmaker presents exploration of photography’s role in black culture

Wednesday, March 4, 2015 1:28 pm

Filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris visits Bates College to show his 2014 documentary "Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People" on March 8.

2015 ‘Inside Africa Fashion Show’ shares clothes, stories behind them

Wednesday, March 4, 2015 11:45 am

Bates College presents its fourth Inside Africa Fashion Show on March 7.

Filmboard to screen, panel to discuss ‘Selma’

Tuesday, February 24, 2015 11:02 am

"Selma," director Ava DuVernay's acclaimed depiction of Martin Luther King Jr.'s campaign to secure equal voting rights for African Americans, shows at Bates College Feb. 27-March 1.

Peniel Joseph, Tufts University historian and author, delivers Bates' 2015 MLK Day keynote address. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)
MLK Day keynote: Black Lives Matter movement is a sign of hope

Tuesday, January 20, 2015 12:19 pm

What does the Black Lives Matter movement really want? In his keynote address during Martin Luther King Jr. Day observances at Bates College, historian Peniel Joseph had an answer.

Marcus Bruce ’77 celebrates appointment to Mays Professorship

Monday, November 10, 2014 11:12 am

Bruce discussed how W.E.B. Du Bois and his contemporaries wrestled with what it meant to be both American and African American.

Marcus Bruce ’77, Mays Distinguished Professor, looks at Du Bois and the Paris Exposition

Friday, October 31, 2014 3:44 pm

Marcus Bruce '77 gives a lecture titled "The Ambassadors: W.E.B. Du Bois, The Paris Exposition of 1900 and African American Culture" on Nov. 5.

Screenings, lectures expand on museum exhibition exploring jazz-art-film connections

Monday, August 25, 2014 10:18 am

The Museum of Art exhibition "Convergence: Jazz, Films and the Visual Arts" expands with films, panels and lectures beginning with a talk by the founder of Columbia University's Center for Jazz Studies on Sept. 5.

Pickens book explores embodied experience in African American, Arab American writing

Tuesday, March 4, 2014 2:09 pm

Do the people you touch make you the person you are? If you are breathing, can your oppressors claim that you do not exist? Questions like these drive Therí Pickens' new book.

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