Busy month!
Sorry about the long delay - things at the Institute have been keeping me very busy.
My documentary project continues to go well - quite a few students have signed up, and we're going to be heading to the New Jersey Historical Society next week for a workshop on primary sources and archives, as well as an introduction to the Society's collection of documents and photos of the riots and of schools and students in Newark. I took a quick preliminary look there this afternoon, and I think our visit should be a lot of fun. It looks like we may also be making connections with an art installation about the riots being planned at Aljira, a contemporary art gallery here in Newark -
www.aljira.org - and with Rutgers' Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies:
www.cornwall.rutgers.edu .
The planning for the community forum series on education reform is also moving forward. Last week we were invited by the Rutgers - Newark Teacher Education program to co-sponsor a grant application that would expand and fund the project for three years and add a strong focus on teacher education and new teacher induction - very exciting.
And this week we had a fantastic meeting with about a dozen education leaders in Newark, including the president of the Newark Teachers Union-
www.ntuaft.com, representatives from the Superintendent's Office and Mayor's Office, a member of the Newark School Advisory Board (which replaced the School Board when the district came under state control about a decade ago), a representative from the Victoria Foundation -
www.victoriafoundation.org - which funds lots of education projects in Newark, and a great range of faculty members from campus. Everyone was enthusiastic about the project and had great ideas about what topics we should focus on, what should come out of the project, and how the very diverse constituencies around the table could work together.
What was most exciting for me was the enthusiasm around including historical context in all of the events for the project - it looks like we'll even do at least one session in which the history of education in the city is the primary focus. As a historian of education, it's just great for me to see that school policy-makers, practioners, and others outside of the field think that history can and should be an important part of what they do. I just hope this project can live up to their expectations!
Documentary project
Just a quick update on the staus of one of my projects at the Institute - a documentary on the experiences of high school students in Newark during the 1967 riots. I'll be collaborating with current high school students and college students here, as well as with high school teachers, faculty members at Rutgers, and the staff of the NJ Historical Society on the project, which is going extraordinarily well. Information about how to sign up for the project can be found here:
http://65.36.189.169/iecme/?section=events&fuse=main&id=64Some of the questions we'll be researching over the next six months are how high school students (and other teenagers) in Newark experienced the 1967 riots, both as observers and as participants in that conflict, how these experiences varied by race, ethnicity, gender, and class, what high schools in Newark were like before the conflict, and how they changed after it, how these changes were connected to the riots, and what young people in Newark today know about the conflict.
Our research will culminate in a panel discussion of young people’s experience of the Newark riots, which will include scholars, those with personal experiences of that era, and the students who participated in the research. This discussion will be videotaped, edited, and combined with the prior research to create a half-hour documentary, which will be screened at a public event hosted by the Institute, offered to high school teachers for classroom use, and submitted to New Jersey Network for broadcast.
In the past two months, I’ve met with Professor Edin Velez of the Visual
and Performing Arts department at Rutgers-Newark (
http://www.edinvelez.com/), with staff members of
the New Jersey Historical Society (
http://www.jerseyhistory.org/), with Dr. Max Herman (
http://www.newark.rutgers.edu/socant/max.htm), a sociology
professor at Rutgers who has done extensive research on the riots (
http://www.67riots.rutgers.edu/) , and
with numerous local high school teachers and students who are interested
in collaborating on the documentary.
Currently ten students and three history teachers at several high schools
in Newark have expressed interest in working on the documentary, including
students from St. Vincent’s Academy and History High School. Some of the
students signed up as part of Rutgers – Newark’s Saturday Academy program,
while others were recruited by teachers or found out about the project
through friends. Some students are interested in doing research for the
project, some in helping with filming, and some with both of these
activities.
Professor Velez has generously agreed to provide the technical expertise
and post-production resources for the documentary, and will be recruiting
current undergraduate students in the Visual and Performing Arts program
to help shoot and edit the documentary. He has also provided advice on
what type of equipment will be necessary for shooting the documentary
footage; we anticipate that shooting will begin in Spring 2007.
The director and staff of the New Jersey Historical Society and Dr. Herman
have generously offered to collaborate on the research for the
documentary, and are interested in having it become part of their own
exhibit on the riots, scheduled to open in June 2007. I'm in the process
of scheduling an afternoon visit to the Historical Society’s
library to begin the research process. Should be fun!
Hip Hop Culture Events in Newark
This week I've enjoyed attending a couple events organized by the Office of Student Life and Leadership on campus as part of their series "The Lens," which encourages undergrads to think critically about culture and media.
The Institute helped co-sponsor two panels on campus about hip-hop culture, and I was fortunate enough to have my friend Marc come up to speak at the first one, "The Evolution of Hip-Hop Culture." Marc's another recent Penn graduate, now teaching at Temple, and a rising star in hip-hop studies; he's currently working on books about the concept of "snitching" and the impact of media on youth culture. Check out his excellent website here for a description of the many things he's up to (including frequent interviews by CNN!):
http://www.marclamonthill.com/.
Also appearing were Dr. Carmen Kynard from Rutgers-Newark, who works on issues of race, culture, and literacy.
The panel also included well-known hip-hop radio DJ Angie Martinez of Hot 97 in New York City, who had interesting things to say about the changing role of the hip hop industry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angie_Martinez
Rounding out the panel were Dr. Anthony Monteiro, Associate Director of the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought at Temple University (
http://www.temple.edu/isrst/Monteiro/) and Vanatta Ford, a spoken word artist and Episcopal minister who uses hip-hop culture to reach out to young people in her church.
The panelists and audience had a spirited and thoughtful discussion about the history and current status of hip-hop music and culture, including much debate over whether wealthy hip-hop artists are a positive force in African American culture.
Other events in the series include "Deconstructing 'Hustle and Flow,'" in which a screening of the movie was followed by a panel discussion about its themes and how they fit into hip hop culture, and performances by local hip hop artists. Rutgers is also collaborating with New Jersey Performing Arts Center's "Planet Hip-Hop 3," a four day extravaganza of performance and discussion being held in downtown Newark this week:
http://www.planethiphop.org/We'll be out of town for most of that, unfortunately - but it was great to be able to check out some campus events!
Ottawa adventures
I just got back Monday from a conference trip that was supposed to end Sunday. Continental cancelled the last flight out of town and then refused to pay for a hotel, so 3 of my friends and I ended having to split a room - good thing the History of Education is such a congenial field.
But at least I had a chance to take a few photos of the city for posterity; here's a view of the lovely Canadian Parliament (the building on the left) from one of the canals:
Just south of Parliament, I passed this very disturbing sign in the front window of the recruitment center for the Canadian Air Force; any guess as to who the phrase, "Get ready now, they are coming" might refer to? Looks like we're rubbing off on our Northern neighbors - sigh.
The delay also gave us time to go check out a movie - the theater was inside an office building/mall combination that had a series of huge fiberglass whales hanging from the ceiling - very odd:
I also spent some time in Byward Market, a mix of outdoor stalls, indoor shops, and some of the city's best restaurants. I bought some maple syrup (darker than what we can usually find here), maple butter (sounded interesting), and buckwheat honey - much healthier than lighter types, and I think tastier. I was sorry I couldn't bring home any of the gorgeous vegetables, and had fun checking out the halloween decorations - especially "the pumpkin carver's" amazing sculptures:
Happy Halloween!
Whirlwind Weekend
Bill and I had a busy weekend, with visitors in town every day. It's always nice to have an excuse to check out new things! Though unfortunately we didn't have time to squeeze in visits to the Newark Arts Council's Gallery Crawl on Friday night or Open Studio Tour on sunday - maybe next year:
http://www.newark-opendoors.org/.
Friday started for me with the second meeting of the Institute's Heningburg Fellows program, a meeting where civic leaders who work on a broad variety of issues - development, schools, green space, health care - come together to talk about their experiences in and their ideas about Newark. Check out our website here for a list of current fellows and a description of the program:
http://65.36.189.169/iecme/?section=events&fuse=main&id=57.
That evening Bill and I met up with friends from Roselle Park for a quick bite at Riviera - a bakery on Ferry that turns out to have pretty tasty grilled sandwiches. They were on their way to the opening night concert of the New Jersey Symphony at NJ Performing Arts Center, where they have a subscription for the season - $95 for 10 shows, not bad:
http://www.njsymphony.org/Tickets/Subscriptions/Newark.htm.
We spent the evening at home, though since i had an early appointment at the Institute to talk to students at the Saturday Academy program, which brings high school students from Newark onto campus to take morning courses on topics like Student Movements in the 60s and Slave Narrative and American History:
http://65.36.189.169/iecme/?section=events&fuse=main&id=59 .
I was there to see if any of the students were interested in helping work on a documentary about high school students' experiences with the Newark riots that I'm putting together, and had quite a few sign up - should be a great experience all around.
But I had to get back home quickly for a visit from my aunt, after which Bill and I walked down to Riverbank Park to catch the end of a "vintage baseball game," sponsored by the NJ Historical Society, in which the teams wore vintage uniforms and played by 18th century rules:
http://www.jerseyhistory.org/news_detail.php?recid=97 For instance, no one but the catcher wore gloves, and the umpire wore formal clothing and stood behind the pitcher - interesting.
That was followed by a (LOOONG) trip into Manhattan to meet Bill's friends for dinner at Cafe Mozart (tasty, but they put a white curly wig on you if it's your birthday - scary):
http://www.cafemozart.com/ and some drinks and a few rounds of Connect Four at Dive 75:
http://www.divebarnyc.com/dive75.htm - not really a dive bar, but ok anyway.
Somehow we managed to get up the next morning to meet up with friends visiting from Philly, who came up to check out the comics exhibit at the Newark museum. We had a terrific and very reasonably priced lunch at Seabra's Marisqueria:
http://www.njdiningguide.net/Seabras/lunch.html. Two of our visitors were from Greece, and said the food and the neighborhood reminded them of being there.
Then we headed over to the Newark Museum, where we checked out the fantastic exhibit on the history of comics:
http://www.newarkmuseum.org/comics/, running now through January 28. The Newark Museum has half of the exhibit, and focuses mostly on newspaper comics; the Jewish Museum in NYC has the other half, and focuses more on comic books:
http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/
I think we got the sweet end of that deal - my favorite by far were the amazingly detailed and beautiful pieces by Winsor McCay, who's best known for the "Little Nemo in Slumberland" Sunday comics. We also got to see a lecture from the editor of the star Ledger, writer Pete Hamill, and artist Jules Pfeiffer, who had an interesting discussion about the pieces in the exhibit and their own memories of comics.
After some delicious desserts at the reception afterward, my friends headed home and we went back to our apartment to get ready for our next visitors - friends arriving the next day from England on their way to NYC and Boston. Fortunately, we were all in the mood for a quiet day at that point - though they insisted on taking me out to dinner at Boi Na Brasa, a rodizio restaraunt in the neighborhood that's recently been
written up in both the New York Times and the Village Voice:
http://www.villagevoice.com/nyclife/0611,sietsema,72498,15.htmlWe all slept in the next morning, understandably.
Menendez and Chaat in Jersey City
Bill and I just got back from an interesting evening in Jersey City, just a couple stops away from us on the PATH. We had signed up last week for a night of phone-banking for the Menendez Senate campaign. Though we were sorry not to be able to take part in the anti-Santorum activities in Pennsylvania, it looks like the race between Bob Menendez and Tom Kean Jr. is actually going to be a lot more competitive - so much so that the National Republican Senatorial Committee just gave Kean half a million dollars to spend on campaign ads:
http://www.nj.com/newsflash/politics/index.ssf?/base/politics-1/1161008980129380.xml&storylist=politicsSo we were glad to be able to help out (as newly registered NJ voters), and spent a fairly productive evening making calls to voters in Jersey City - most people we talked to supported Menendez, but with a couple undecided people I got to have a brief chat about how important it was to vote Democratic this year. If you're interested in learning more about the campaign, volunteering, or donating, check out its website here:
http://www.menendez2006.com/home/After phonebanking we took our newly acquired Menendez poster for a visit to Jersey City's "Little India" neighborhood, where we went out to dinner at one of the many restaurants along Newark Street. After consulting Google and finding this tantalizing article -
http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/03/09/dining/09chat.html?ex=1161403200&en=66d382c7378d9589&ei=5070 - I had decided we might like to check out one of the chaat restaurants in the neighborhood. Chaat is Indian street/snack food, and tends to be a little harder to find in the U.S. than curries and other types of Indian food. I had tried it once in college, but hadn't really seen it since.
Based on the article's list of places, we ended up at Satkar (806 Newark Avenue, Jersey City, (201) 963-6309), an informal place with a reasonably priced menu and friendly service. I don't remember the exact name of the dishes we tried, but two were what I think of as traditional chaat - mixes of unsweetened cereal (like rice crisps and puffed wafers made of wheat and corn) with spices, potatoes, beans, and, in one of them, delicious yogurt sauce. We also tried a dhosa - a round of flat fried crepe-type bread with vegetables and warm chutney. The one we ordered was about 15 inches diameter, full of lace-like holes about a quarter-inch wide, flavored with spice powder and hot green chilies, and filled with spicy sauteed onions. Yummy, but impossible to finish after our chaat-feast. Anyway, all of that and two bottles of mango juice came to about $22 with tax and tip - not bad. And yet another place we can bring vegetarian visitors!
After popping into a grocery stores for garam masala, lentils, mango jam, and some ready-to-serve Indian meals (who needs Trader Joes?), we headed home - but I think we'll be back to Little India soon!
