About:

Call My Agent: Conversations on Contemporary Film and Race

During this course, we will apply the insights from four scholars (Sharpe, DuBois, Memmi, Thiongo) to these contemporary films: 

A- Colonial Justice  Birth of a Nation (2016) Feb 1 Harriet (2019) Feb 8 Waiting for the Barbarians (2020) Feb15

B- Post-Colonial Justice Monsters and Men (2018) Feb 22 BlackkKlansman (2018) March 1 Clemency (2019) March 8

C- Female Agency Us (2019) March 15 Ma (2019) March 22 Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020) March 29

D- Male Agency Princess of the Row (2020) April 5 Sorry to Bother You (2018) April 12 Blindspotting (2018) April 19

Method: Mutimodal Analysis will facilitate the identification, categorization and analysis of a) social actors, b) cultural tools, and c) tropes that bring into focus performative aspects of colonized female and male agency and advance emancipatory conversations about racial equity. Special attention will be given to language, thought, memory, emotion, body language, Umwelt, objects, culture, practices and discourses.

Foundational Thinkers/Theorists: WEB DuBois (Double Consciousness), Christina Sharpe (Premature Black Death as Normative), Albert Memmi (fundamental [psychological] instability of the colonization project), Ngugi wa Thiongo (the inevitability of post-colonial tragedy)

Contemporary and Significant Research Goal: To offer a solution to the impasse/question "How do we talk meaningfully about race?"

This workshop will meet every Monday, beginning Feb. 1, 2021, at the same time for 12 consecutive weeks (ending April 19).

Class size is limited to 30 students so that all participants get some personal attention.

If you are a Humanities ND member this event is free. You can find the promo code in the Vault at humanitiesnd.org.

This class is taught by Serge Danielson-Francois. Serge is the librarian at Divine Child High School in Dearborn Heights, MI. He teaches AP Capstone in high school and Writing Workshop at Lawrence Tech. He helps youth and adults seek information to make better decisions by making regular, thorough and strategic use of peerreviewed resources. He is an embedded librarian and works closely with faculty in the Science, English and World Languages departments. He is fluent in French and Spanish and has experienced working with multicultural and international audiences. He is committed to promoting civic literacy and digital citizenship. Four years ago, Serge was recognized for his work with student journalists as part of the 1 for All First Amendment Challenge sponsored by the American Society of News Editors. Three years ago, he and his colleague were awarded a grant to lead students in investigating brownfield sites in and around Detroit by the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University. He was a panelist for the Plague Literature in the Time of Coronavirus Symposium at Lawrence Tech this spring(https://www.ltu.edu/arts_sciences/plague-lit.asp). He regularly posts to his blog on innovations in the classroom ( https://medium.com/@dclibrarymius/dive-in-theater-1ef1d5fcff9d).

HND Value Statement

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this {article, book, exhibition, film, program, database, report, Web resource}, do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or Humanities North Dakota.

However, in an increasingly polarized world, we at Humanities North Dakota believe that being open-minded is necessary to thinking critically and rationally.

Therefore, our programs and classes reflect our own open-mindedness in the inquiry, seeking, and acquiring of scholars to speak at our events and teach classes for our Public University.

To that end, we encourage our participants to join us in stepping outside our comfort zones and considering other perspectives and ideas by being open-minded while attending HND events featuring scholars who hold a variety of opinions, some being opposite of our own held beliefs.