Yomoma Arts, Inc., Bronx Reading the Bronx George W. Agudow, Project Director Grant $700 Scholar/author Leonard Kriegel (CCNY) and physician/author Oliver Sacks led a discussion on their recent research and publications as part of a lunch-time lecture series combining the arts and humanities. It was presented in cooperation with the Borough President’s Office.

Asian-American Center at Queens College, Flushing Shaping Identities: Representations and Self-Representations Margo Machida, Project Director Grant $1,500 A Humanities New York funded, multi-part series on cultural representation—Shaping Identities: Representations and Self-Representations. In part one, art historians Lowery Sims (Metropolitan Museum of Art) and Suzanne Garriges (Maryland Institute), and critic John Yau discussed the Afro-Cuban artist Wilfredo Lam. Part two featured David Chung and Velena Hasu Houston, who presented “A Dialogue about Relations among Asian and African-Americans” at the Chinatown History Project.

Association of Hispanic Arts, NYC Mexico: Here and There, Before and Now Maria Hinojosa, Project Director Grant $18,080 A weekend of panel discussions on the vernacular and traditional arts of Mexico coincided with the opening of the world’s largest historical retrospective of Mexican art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Unlike the Metropolitan’s show, which emphasized the “official culture” promoted by the Mexican government, the panels featured leading scholars who focused on Mexico’s rich but poorly documented popular culture.

Cross-Section, Inc., Brooklyn Sharing the Legacy Toward the Twenty-First Century Fritz Joseph, Project Director Grant $1,500 The International Congress of Black Writers and Artists convened to offer critical assessment, forecasts, trends, and personal insights on the contributions of blacks to culture and economics. In addition to discussion, the conference included poetry readings, films, and performances. Panelists included Amiri Baraka, dancer Geoffrey Holder, and scholars Archie Singham (Brooklyn College) and Leonard Jeffries (CUNY).

City College / CUNY, Manhattan XVII Congress of the Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana Raquel Chang-Rodriguez, Project Director Grant $1,500 A Humanities New York supported panel entitled “The Writers’ Craft and the Representation of History,” which emphasized the writers’ craft and how it is affected by their experience as Latinos working and living in a different culture. The panelists included Rosario Ferré (Puerto Rico), Matías Montes Huidobro (Cuba), Luisa Valenzuela (Argentina), Isaac Goldenberg (Peru), and Fernando Alegría (Chile).

Poetry Project Lecture Series at St. Mark’s Church, NYC Eileen Myles, Project Director Grant $1,000 A Humanities New York supported lecture series, coinciding with the Poetry Project’s annual series of readings, which was recorded and aired on public radio stations across the country in order to promote public awareness of poets and poetry.

Cornell University, Ithaca The Black Studies Paradigm: Education and Culture James Turner, Project Director Grant $1,500 The symposium The Black Studies Paradigm: Education and Culture was sponsored by Cornell University’s Africana Studies and Research Center and explored the development of a mode of interpretation with the field of Black studies over the past decade and a half. Poet Gwendolyn Brooks and writer James Baldwin read from their work of the past two decades and discussed the Black studies movement’s influence on their writing. Other topics included the “Black Studies Movement in Historical Perspective,” presented by John Henrick Clarke, as well as panels […]

Films in the Humanities was a pioneering effort to bring together films, filmmakers and scholars in public forums throughout the state. At the core of the program is the showcasing of award-winning documentary films—all funded by Humanities New York—such as Ken Burns, Brooklyn Bridge—with presentations at each screening by the filmmaker and a by a scholar connected to the film. During 1985 and 1986, Humanities NY provided over 90 yearly events for free to audiences at museums, libraries, colleges and community gathering places, thanks to a National Endowment for the Arts Exemplary Award.

Albany YMCA Womanworks Gallery and the College of Saint Rose, Albany Womanworks Conference on Women in the Arts Tina Murch, Project Director Grant $9,303 The October 1979 Womanworks Conference on Women in the Arts explored women’s accomplishments in the arts and their contributions to the African, Hispanic and European traditions that are part of American culture. This conference, the Capital District’s first major event focused on women and art, brought together scholars, artists, and the general public for workshops, lectures, films, an exhibition, a poetry reading and theater and musical performances. Elia Hidalgo Christiansen, Judith Fetterly, Audre Lorde and Bernice Regaon […]

Poetry Society of America, NYC The Edifice of Wallace Stevens: A Centennial Symposium Judith Sherwin, Project Director Grant $950 The Edifice of Wallace Stevens: A Centennial Symposium, was held on November 29, 1979 at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Panelists considered the influence of Steven’s working life on his poetry, his conception of his audience and his relationship to that audience. Participants included Harold Bloom, Richard Howard and Helen Vendler.