27 February 2017 After a weekend spent revamping the Foreign Influence website, I am ready to return to some projects put on hold at the end of 2016. Four topics in particular continue to hold my attention–Crip Theory and the development of a curriculum for Disability Studies, the ongoing search for the best ways to … Continue reading
by Courtney Weaver Remember this house and do not forget who built it… Last weekend I sat in the Ark Lodge theater in Columbia City to view the James Baldwin documentary I Am Not Your Negro the recent adaptation of the legendary writer and public intellectual’s unfinished manuscript, Remember This House, directed by Raoul Peck […] … Continue reading
by Brian Bergen-Aurand A Century of Black Cinema On this day in Black History Month, I want to introduce a ninety-minute documentary from the 1990s that aims a provide an overview of one hundred years of black cinema. The documentary is wholly centered on Hollywood and the denial or access black talent has had in … Continue reading
by Brian Bergen-Aurand While my wife and I were living in Singapore, we adopted two children from Ethiopia. When we brought them home, I searched for lists of children’s films with strong black characters, especially strong black female characters. One film atop many such lists is Disney’s 2009 The Princess and the Frog (written and … Continue reading
by Brian Bergen-Aurand Thinking over my earliest experiences with black film, reminded me of the 1963 film Lilies of the Field, directed by Ralph Nelson and starring Sidney Poitier and Lilia Skala. The story is a simple one: a traveling laborer stops for water at an Arizona convent and becomes the answer to the German … Continue reading
by Brian Bergen-Aurand “Always do the right thing.” ~Da Mayor For Black History Month 2017, I am writing on a black film each day. The expressions will be personal and critical. The scope will be limited to what I have seen and remember seeing. I will not be going into great detail about each film, … Continue reading
by Brian Bergen-Aurand If one believes in science, one must accept the possibility–even the probability–that the great era of scientific discovery is over. By science I mean not applied science, but science at its purest and grandest, the primordial human quest to understand the universe and our place in it. Further research may yield no … Continue reading
by Brian Bergen-Aurand On Tuesday, 1 November 2016, the Washington state Department of Corrections issued a memo stating it will no longer refer to those persons under its supervision as “offenders.” (The state dropped the term “inmates” in favor of “offenders” in the 2000s. Now, it is rethinking its labels again.) According to the memo, … Continue reading
by Brian Bergen-Aurand Tention—condition of being stretched or strained, or in which pressure is exerted I have a penchant for exhibition catalogues. Ever since my first encounter with Jacques Derrida’s Memoirs of the Blind: The Self-Portrait and Other Ruins, written to accompany the 1990-1991 exhibition of the same name he arranged at the Louvre Museum, … Continue reading
by Brian Bergen-Aurand Today, 26 June 2016, is a day of action for Support. Don’t Punish, “a global advocacy campaign calling for drug policies based on health and human rights.” For twenty-four hours around the world, groups are gathering to resist the war on drugs, protest the abuse of drug users, and suggest health care … Continue reading
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