Center for Ethics Hosts Lecture on "Race Movies" of the 1930's
The Muhlenberg College Center for Ethics presents Numbers Runners and New Negroes: Harlem in Sound-Era Race Film, a lecture by Paula Massood, on Wednesday, April 21, at 7:00 p.m., Miller Forum, Moyer Hall.Friday, April 9, 2010 00:23 PM
This event, co-sponsored by the Department of Film Studies, is free and open to the public. A reception will follow.
From the teens through the late-forties, a number of independent film companies produced "race films," or films intended for African American audiences, many of whom could only attend segregated screenings. While the majority of the films, especially those produced during the silent period, were uplift melodramas focused on African American progress in the new century, sound-era race films began to compete with Hollywood offerings by shifting into the production of popular genres, including comedies, sports films, the western, and gangster films. Numbers Runners and New Negroes will offer an introduction to the black gangster genre, particularly those films set in Harlem, New York, a neighborhood which by the thirties, was recognized at the “Mecca of the New Negro.”
Massood is Leonard and Claire Tow Professor in the Department of Film at Brooklyn College, CUNY and the Doctoral Program in Theatre at The Graduate Center, CUNY. She is the author of Black City Cinema: African American Urban Experiences in Film, the editor of The Spike Lee Reader, and served as the Film and Theater subject editor for the African American National Biography project.
This lecture is part of the series Ethics of Space: Power of Place, programs that will examine three different sub-themes relating to the concept of “space:” BOUNDARIES, including the invisible, the visible, and the geo-political; CONTROLLING SPACE, considering the differences and overlaps between public and private space, and physical and metaphorical space; and SPACE IN BODIES, which will tackle issues of shared identity, constructing differences, and the spaces between people.
Each year, the Center for Ethics sponsors an intensive series designed to encourage discussion and reflection on a timely, pertinent topic. Center for Ethics programs are free and open to all members of the Muhlenberg campus and the local community. For more information on the series, visit www.muhlenberg.edu/cultural/ethics.
Muhlenberg College gratefully acknowledges the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation’s support of the Center for Ethics.
