African American Traditions: The Blues

April 21, 2000
University Park, Pa. – The Department of African and African American Studies and the Institute for the Arts and Humanistic Studies will sponsor an interdisciplinary conference entitled "The Blues Tradition: Memory, Criticism, and Pedagogy" from June 29 to July 2, 2000 at University Park.

This innovative conference will bring together Blues performers, scholars, educators, critics, and audiences for a series of exchanges on the meaning of the Blues tradition and its potential contributions to the humanities, social sciences, and to secondary and college curriculums. Over a period of four days, distinguished scholars from a range of disciplines will discuss their research on central debates within the study of the Blues. The most distinctive feature of the conference will be the integration of perspectives of the artists, scholars, and audiences on several critical issues: the processes of local memory, the relationship between communities and artists, the imperatives of the cultural-industrial complex, and the Blues as an educational tool.

The conference will consist of invited speakers and selected panel participants, as well as presentations of related music, dance, and film during evening sessions open to the public. Panels and speakers will focus on nine different themes related to the Blues. The panel topics are as follows: "Origins, Definitions and the Evolution of the Blues," "African American Women and the Blues Tradition," "The Blues as Individual and Collective History," "The Blues Aesthetic in the Novel," "The Origins and the Evolution of Blues Criticism and Scholarship," "Blues Education," "The Blues as Social Theory: The Wright-Ellison Debate," "Blues Poetry," "The Blues as Global Culture," "Blues and Hip Hop," and "Blues Education II."

Invited conference participants include Daphne Duval Harrison (University of Maryland, Baltimore County), Jon Michael Spenser (University of Richmond), Sterling Plumpp (University of Illinois, Chicago Circle), David Evans (University of Memphis), Eric Perkins (University of Pennsylvania), Fruteland Jackson (Blues in the Schools Program, Chicago), Gloria Mills Edward (Blues in the Schools Program, Houston), and David "Honeyboy" Edwards.

As a subject, the Blues provides a rich field for examining the musical, cultural, intellectual, social, political, historical, and aesthetic discourses embraced by generations of African Americans. The historical, theoretical, and methodological questions raised by Blues performance, criticism, and scholarship have not been the subjects of systematic study. Thus the goal of the conference is to reassess the contribution of Blues scholarship to social and cultural theory; to reassess the contribution of Blues scholarship to the fields of social, cultural, economic, ethnic, class, and gender history; and the integration and use of Blues debates and insights into secondary and college curriculums.

"The Blues Tradition: Memory, Criticism, and Pedagogy" is the third in a series of summer seminars devoted to African American traditions at Penn State. The first seminar took place in 1997 and focused on the lives and works of African American poets, writers, dramatists, filmmakers, activists, musicians, and steelworkers. The second seminar occurred in 1998 and centered on the artistic, literary, and intellectual movement of the Harlem Renaissance. Future sessions for the African American Traditions Series will include Jazz Scholarship (June, 2001) and Hip-Hop Scholarship (June 2002).

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For registration, contact:

Melissa L. Beidler

The Pennsylvania State University

225 The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel

University Park  PA  16802-7005

Phone: (814) 863-5100

E-mail:

 

For information about the program, contact:

Clyde Woods

The Pennsylvania State University

214 Grange Building

University Park PA 16802

Phone: (814) 863-4243

Email: