It’s okay to not understand something. Sometimes we just need to sit down and talk about “it”. This workshop is designed to bring people together to discuss everyday issues and have uncomfortable conversations.
Set with the concept of speed dating, participants will be paired to have a timed one-on-one discussion on a variety of topics that include race, gender, sexuality, religion, mental health, and other topics, to ask each other questions so that they can learn about issues that they are unfamiliar with. This is an opportunity to talk, listen and learn about the differences that make us unique in our own ways.
Come join us as we get comfortable with being uncomfortable and let’s talk about “it”!
by: Kimiko Hahn, Distinguished Professor & Assistant Director, MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation
Event: National Poetry Month in the Archives: The Chapbook Collection And the Launch of Award-Winning Chapbook Lest We All Get Clipped by Joseph Gross Date & Time: April 24, 2023, 7pm Location: Rosenthal Library’s Tannenbaum Room 300i
QC MFA alum Joseph Gross will read from his debut poetry chapbook Lest We All Get Clipped. In this collection, he explores our innate divinity through both ecclesiastical and (extra)ordinary experiences. The poems wrestle with faith, expression, and urban life “because / in the city / there’s not much / distance between / ravage & ravish.” After the reading, fellow alum and publisher Peter Vanderberg will speak about how and why he started this press.
The Birdhouse Chapbook Prize is awarded to an alum from the MFA program and published by Ghostbird Press. Founder Peter Vanderberg, a poet and educator, was inspired by CUNY’s Chapbook festivals ten years ago and has been publishing for nearly as long. He recognized the importance of the chapbook as a format that often publishes a writer’s first collection, often presents theme-based work as well as texts that may be offbeat and/or experimental. Ghostbird publishes all genres and includes art alongside the texts. Their lineup includes early work by writers such as Rajiv Mohabir as well as an unusual hybrid collection by former New York State poet laureate Alicia Ostriker. Last year, Vanderberg generously donated all of the Ghostbird chapbooks to the QC Chapbook Archive and many will be on display.
The Queens College MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation is a unique program that was founded nearly twenty years ago by professors in the English Dept. Students work closely with award-winning full-time faculty writers and benefit from taking classes that include cross-genre work. In such a way, the students get to know classmates outside their genre of focus and become adept in commenting on texts outside their genre of focus–whether poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, or translation. And, speaking of literary translation, the QC MFA is one of two programs in the country that has a dedicated MFA track. Whether a student is from the United State or from another country, they feel at home in Queens, the most linguistically diverse place on the planet. Multivocal and multigenre and multifaceted are characteristic of this graduate creative writing program. The Birdhouse Chapbook reading is always a marvelous window into the community of alum, students, and professors.
This reading coincides with poet and QC professor Kimiko Hahn’s craft class “A Chapbook for Every Genre.” She will introduce the event.
Please join us in celebrating the launch of Ghostbird’s latest chapbook, Joseph Gross’ Lest We All Get Clipped.
Ahead of the World Premiere of Action Songs/Protest Dances at the Kupferberg Center for the Arts, the Queens College Library is honored to present a discussion on the live music and dance performance with its choreographer and director Edisa Weeks. Weeks, an Associate Professor of Dance at Queens College, discusses the power of dance and its relationship to political action, her experience as the first artist in residence in the Kupferberg Arts Incubator, and how the research she performed in the James R. Forman Library Collection at the Queens College Library helped shape what became Action Songs/Protest Dances.
The interview was conducted via email between Weeks and the Queens College Visual & Performing Arts Librarian, Assistant Professor Scott R. Davis.
Action Songs/Protest Dances is inspired by the life and work of civil rights activist James Forman. While rooted in an historical figure, the production is also firmly about the present and contemporary struggles to address social justice within the United States. What do you believe the medium of dance is uniquely able to contribute toward facilitating such conversations?
As an artivist (artist/activist) dance is my medium of choice for addressing issues in society. Dance serves many functions. It can be a spiritual practice, a source of exercise and catharsis, an economic signifier, as well as a way to affirm a cultural identity and cultivate a sense of belonging. I’m interested in how dance can comment on society. I believe that dance can re-vitalize the everyday to reveal something new about ourselves, and the revelation is a seed, an energy, a spark that has the power to enact change.
One of the joys of dancing is it releases serotonin into the brain, which makes people feel good. Communal singing also releases serotonin. On a more basic level, movement helps develop our brains. For example, research is finding that when infants learn to roll from their stomach onto their back, it helps to develop the pituitary brain, crawling develops the mid brain, and walking develops the frontal brain. Our bodies are hard-wired for movement! Dancing has often been integral to protests. The Toyi-Toyi dance was a part of rallies and gatherings in the movement to end apartheid in South Africa. In America in the 1960’s the twist, the mashed potato, the watusi, which emerged from the Black American community, were picked up by White mainstream culture to become an expression of freedom and rebellion against the conservative, repressive social norms of 1950’s America.
Archival research does not often immediately come to people’s minds when thinking of contemporary dance. How did your research within the Forman Archive at the Queens College Library inform your work in this production?
One of my mentors was George Bass who was a playwright, poet, director, and educator. He also was Langston Hughes’s personal secretary. George emphasized a research-to-performance method for creating original devised work. This method for devising work appeals to me as I’m fascinated by history. I enjoy scratching beneath the surface to understand the meaning and reasoning for why something exists. I’m interested in knowing what our deepest, darkest, and sweetest desires are, and in creating a work that interrogates those desires, I can begin to process, understand and possibly transform them.
I was intrigued by one of the boxes in the Forman archives, which is filled with social and political pamphlets, what we would now call zines. Several of the pamphlets featured the bold, psychedelic lettering and colors that were popular in the 1960’s. I immediately knew I wanted the poster for Action Songs/Protest Dances to be a throwback to 1960’s art.
One of the books in the archive “The Making Of Black Revolutionaries” by Forman, a guidebook for anyone interested in the civil rights movement and understanding what is involved in social justice struggles. Forman writes about how the pressure of being on the front lines advocating against oppression and for social change can take a toll emotionally and mentally. Forman had multiple times when he was brutally beaten by the police and members of the White Citizens Council, for being a Black man who did not genuflect, who was advocating for justice, and questioning oppressive systems in America. Forman had several mental breakdowns, yet was able to recover and keep working for social betterment. Hearing about his struggles with mental health really resonated during the pandemic, as the creative team was navigating the isolation and stress of the pandemic; as well as the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and too many others. I hesitate bringing up mental health as it can be perceived as a weakness and used to denigrate and diminish a person’s relevance, however, we need to discuss mental health so we can find pathways for care-taking, healing, and wellness. These discussions resulted in the song Pattern Map by Spirit McIntyre, which is about letting go of toxic isms; and the song Body on the Line by Martha Redbone which discusses how Forman, “often put his body on the line” during the civil rights movement and got beaten and arrested in the effort to register people to vote.
I would describe the process of creating Action Songs/Protest Dances as a Sankofa practice. Sankofa is a symbol and term used by the Akan Tribe in Ghana, West Africa. The literal translation of the word is, “it is not taboo to fetch what is at risk of being left behind.” In this work, we are going back in history to lift up the work of James Forman and bringing his words and advocacy forward through song and dance.
Selection of material from the James R. Forman Library Collection
Did you discover any particular items within the archive that led to unexpected encounters or connections?
An unexpected connection was learning that Forman had worked with human rights activist Ella Baker. They both advocated for empowering the average person to become involved in the governance of their community. They did not believe in charismatic leadership, for if the charismatic leader is removed the work towards social improvement often ends with the leader. If people do not have a say in the laws, land, and resources in their community; they will be controlled by other people who don’t necessarily have their best interests at heart.
Forman was trained as a journalist and wrote several non-fiction books including: High Tide of Black Resistance; Sammy Younge Jr.: The First Black College Student to Die in the Black Liberation Movement; The Making Of Black Revolutionaries, so it was a pleasant surprise to realize that Forman also did fictional writing and wrote short stories.
In addition to conceiving, directing, and choreographing Action Songs/Protest Dances you also commissioned five original songs for the production. What was the process of collaboration with the contributing composers?
The dancers, composers, and I reside in different cities, New Orleans, Albany, New York City, and we started working on Action Songs/Protest Dances during the pandemic, so being able to connect through zoom, and work online was essential. I worked with student interns Kathreena Bunch and Paolo Cecilia Silva in compiling a dossier about James Forman based on information in the library archives. It included his bio, links to his writings, and quotes by Forman. The dossier was shared with the creative team and it was a springboard for discussions. Several quotes became the lyrical inspiration for the songs.
The process of creating the songs was very collaborative. Each composer was paired with two dancers and we had several meetings where we discussed James Forman, actions that he was involved with, and current social justice issues that we want to draw attention to. What was important for the creative process is to identify what was resonating with the composers and dancers, and especially what the dancers were invested in embodying.
In 1969 Forman wrote “The Black Manifesto”, which is an expression of rebellion rooted in the despair of a people who had given up hope of “integrating” into the mainstream socioeconomic systems and structures in America. It demanded that Protestant and Jewish organizations pay $500 million in reparations for crimes perpetrated against generations of blacks during slavery. Over 40’s years later America still has not come to terms with the legacy of enslavement, and how to pay reparations.
Composer Taina Asili was paired with Brittany Stewart who is a Queens College Dance Alumni. For the project, I am integrating three current QC Students, three QC Dance Alumni, and two professional Dancers with my company DELIRIOUS Dances. What resonated with Brittany is issues connected to financial literacy for the Black community as well as issues of wellness and Black Joy. Taina wrote “Reparations” a joyous song about the need, the demand for reparations.
Another issue that was identified was decriminalizing sex work. We met with members of Sex Workers Outreach Project who explained why they are advocating for decriminalization and not legalization; and with Carol Leigh (aka Scarlot Harlot ) who in 1978 coined the term “sex worker”. We are still working on decrim song, as we need more time to connect with people involved in the advocacy to decriminalize sex work, to clarify who we are writing the song for, is it a song that is a rallying cry for sex workers to be sung and danced at rallies; or is it a song and dance to educate people about why decrim needs to happen.
Since the creative process for the songs was entirely virtual, I have not met composers Spirit McIntyre and Taina Asili in person. I’m incredibly excited for Thursday, November 10 which is when the composers, singers, musicians, and dancers are physically coming together for the first time!
This production is the result of your involvement in the inaugural Kupferberg Arts Incubator. As an artist residency initiative to support and advance the work of artists of color what was your experience producing Action Songs/Protest Dances within this context?
This question makes me think of how the US Supreme Court currently has several cases that are challenging the need for affirmative action. If education institutions remove affirmative action, then they also need to remove the practice of legacy. I also think of writer Toni Morrison who stated,
“The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”
That being said, the experience of producing Action Songs/Protest Dances has been joyous. A give and take of listening, discussing, and dream-storming with an incredibly talented, smart, and generous gathering of artists.
I started teaching at Queens College in 2010, which is also when the Rosenthal Library acquired James Forman’s personal papers. I was incredibly excited as James Forman was the first person I heard criticize capitalism as an exploitative economic system. I remember feeling shocked, as I grew up playing monopoly and believing that capitalism was good and the “American Way”. Since 2010 I’ve been wondering how I can lift up James Forman’s voice, work, advocacy and sacrifices during the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s. Then in 2020, the pandemic happened, followed by the murder of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. I began wondering how as a choreographer I can engage with the protests that were happening across the nation and help address injustices in America. The Kupferberg Center for the Arts Incubator provided the opportunity to create Action Songs/Protest Dances, which celebrate the life and words of James Forman; and through music and dance advocate for America to be a truly great nation.
Action Songs/Protest Dancespremieres at the Kupferberg Center for the Arts Saturday, November 12th at 8pm and Sunday, November 13th at 3pm. Tickets are $20. Queens College students receive a 50% discount.
We are excited to invite announce that the Queens College Libraries will be holding a series of virtual edit-a-thons on the week of March 21. This will be our fourth annual edit-a-thon, and the second to be held virtually.
An edit-a-thon is an event where participants come together to edit Wikipedia.
This is for both complete newcomers and experienced Wikipedians. If you’ve never edited an article before, don’t worry! This is a friendly and approachable way to begin. Instruction and assistance are provided; we will teach you how to make edits and how to make your edits stick.
On the week of March 21, the library will host two edit-a-thons; please feel free to attend one or both! Each meeting will have a different theme, but of course, if you have begun to edit an article in the first event, you can always continue it in the second.
The details are as follows:
QC Wiki-Week: Edit-a-thon Part I (The Civil Rights Movement in New York)
We hope to see you there! While we can’t offer free refreshments in this online format, we can offer support and good company as we edit and create articles. Anyone from inside or outside the Queens College community is invited – faculty, students, staff, and others.
Queens College is known for its involvement in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, especially the Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964. A year earlier, a lesser known, but no less important project took place, when 16 volunteers from the Queens College Student Help Project traveled to Prince Edward County, Virginia to tutor Black children who were shut out of public schools due to massive resistance to desegregation. There, they lent support to a long struggle for equal education dating back to the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision in 1954 and local, student-led activism for better schools.
In this presentation, primary sources from the archives will bring to life this important history, as documented through a year-long oral history initiative made possible by the Freda S. and J. Chester Johnson Civil Rights & Social Justice Archives Fellowship Program at the Queens College Library. Initiators/alumni of the Student Help Project will also join the event for the Q and A.
ANNIE TUMMINO is an assistant professor and head of Special Collections and Archives at the Queens College Library, where she manages over 5,000 linear feet of college records, personal papers, and rare books. She is particularly interested in preserving the social movement history of Queens College and connecting it to today’s activists and students. She received a master’s in library and information studies from Queens College in 2010 and a master’s in maritime studies from SUNY Maritime College in 2020.
VICTORIA FERNANDEZ is the museum coordinator at the Harriet and Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center at Queensborough Community College CUNY, where she helps develop and revise exhibition content, instruct student programming, manage library and archival collections, and facilitate interactions with their Holocaust survivor support group. She graduated from Queens College in 2021 with a dual master’s degree in history and library science (MLS/MA) after receiving a BA in history and political science from the Macaulay Honors College at QC in 2018. She has held several positions within the field of archives, most recently serving as the 2020– 2021 Freda S. and J. Chester Johnson Civil Rights and Social Justice Archives Fellow at the Queens College Department of Special Collections and Archives.
Sponsored by the Office of Institutional Advancement
This monthly film screening series continues on Wednesday, October 20th, at 6pm with the film Monster Pies!
When Mike’s English teacher pairs him up for a class assignment on Romeo and Juliet with hot new kid William, Mike can’t believe his luck! As the two spend more and more time working together on a monster movie version of Bard’s classic tale, they soon realize their feelings for one another may be more powerful than either is truly ready for.
This film screening is open to everyone on Zoom, but only the first (50) fully vaccinated Queens College students may join us on campus! Masks are required. Seating will be distanced.
At home, or on campus, Monster Pies is sure to tug at your heartstrings and haunt you for a long time.
Learn more about LGBTQI+ history by browsing the library’s Queer Collection.
Queer Cinema at QC is made possible because of the generous support of the New York City Council through the office of Daniel Dromm (District 25), the Office of Speaker Corey Johnson, and LaGuardia Community College, in partnership with the Queens College Office of Student Development and Leadership, the Queens College Libraries and The Summit at Queens College. Other sponsors include the Women and Gender Studies Programs at Queens College; the Gender, Love & Sexuality Alliance/GLASA at QC; the QC Arts Club, the CUNY Office of Student Inclusion Initiatives, and the Division of Student Affairs.
Queens College is a proud member of the CUNY LGBTQI+ Consortium.
The Queens College Library is celebrating Open Access Week with a workshop on all things open! The workshop will be held on Monday, October 25, 12:15-1:30 PM.
We want to introduce you to some helpful tools that can make it easier to locate, use, and create open resources. This year, we’re especially focused on how open resources can help your pedagogy. This is a practical workshop that will introduce you to specific tools and resources, including:
Locating and using public domain and open archives, manuscripts, and images from repositories like the Internet Archive, Queens Memory, and NYPL
Creating and using open educational resources in collaboration with students, using tools such as Manifold and hypothes.is
If you’re interested in using open or public domain works in your class, you may be interested in Annie Tummino’s presentation about locating open archives and the quirky and unexpected ways these items are being repurposed by scholars, artists, and gamers. You may also want to tune in for James Mellone’s talk on finding and using primary sources.
If you’d like to know more about the pedagogical benefits of collaborating with your students to build open educational resources, Leila Walker’s workshop on OER-building as pedagogy may be of particular interest.
If you’re thinking about how you can help your graduate students promote their research – or how you can promote your own! – you should attend Nancy Foasberg’s presentation on scholarly profiles and sharing your work.
Register for the workshop
The workshop will be held on: Monday, October 25 12:15-1:30 PM
Timely, online programming presented by the Queens College Library’s Special Collections and Archives in Collaboration with Queens Memory.
Scroll down to view the live stream recordings of each event.
Art and Archives: Creativity During COVID-19
Tuesday November 16 from 4:00pm-5:30pm
How do art and archives intersect? In this roundtable discussion, participants will discuss creative projects undertaken during COVID-19, and their connections to primary sources and archival repositories. Livestreamed on https://www.facebook.com/queensmemory.
Chair:Annie Tummino, Assistant Professor, Head of Special Collections and Archives, Queens College
Panelists:
Edisa Weeks, Director of DELIRIOUS Dances and Acting Chair of the Queens College Department of Drama, Theatre & Dance;
Members of the What Will the Neighbors Say? Investigative Theatre Company, Artists-In-Residence at Queens College;
Joyce LeeAnn, Certified Archivist, Interdisciplinary Artist, and founder of Archival Alchemy®.
Co-sponsored by the Kupferberg Center for the Arts, the Queens College Department of Drama, Theater, and Dance, and Social Practice CUNY.
Surviving & Thriving: Black and Latinx Faculty, Staff, and Students on Campus
Tuesday, October 19th from 4:00pm-5:30pm
What does it take for Black and Latinx faculty, staff, and students to not only survive but thrive in higher education? Join us for a roundtable discussion and presentation of oral history clips from the archives. Livestreamed on https://www.facebook.com/queensmemory.
Co-sponsored by the Queens College SEEK Program and Black Latinx Faculty Staff Association.
Chair: Obden Mondesir, Associate Director, Barnard Archives and Adjunct Instructor in the Queens College Graduate School of Library and Information Studies.
Panelists:
Norka Blackman-Richards, Director of the Queens College Percy E. Sutton SEEK Program;
Marco Navarro, Lecturer in English and Director of The Writing Center, Queens College;
Nathaniel Smith, Director of NYC Men Teach at The City University of New York, Queens College.
Jessica Alejandro, Queens College Graduate student majoring in Special Education 1-6
Documenting a Pandemic: What We’ve Learned
Tuesday, October 5th from 4:00pm-5:30pm
Members of the Queens Memory Project will discuss lessons from the COVID-19 Project, and how they worked together as a team to incorporate the diverse voices of our borough and campus into the archives during this momentous period in history. Livestreamed on https://www.facebook.com/queensmemory.
Chair:Annie Tummino, Assistant Professor, Head of Special Collections and Archives, Queens College
Panelists:
Meral Agish, Queens Memory Community Coordinator;
Obden Mondesir, Associate Director of the Barnard Archives and Adjunct Instructor, Queens College Graduate School of Library and Information Studies;
Dacia Metes, Queens Public Library Digital Archives Manager;
Jo-Ann Wong, Librarian, Queens Public Library, Hunters Point.
