Tinasbeen

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=64

Some 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!

posted by Tina @ 5:30 PM 0 comments

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!

posted by Tina @ 4:29 PM 0 comments