Events

Past Event

2-DAY CONVENING: HOW TO BUILD A FIRE: JAMES BALDWIN CENTENNIAL CONVENING

October 4, 2024 - October 5, 2024
10:00 AM - 7:00 PM
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AAADS/IRAAS IN COLLABORATION WITH THE SCHOMBURG CENTER FOR RESEARCH ON BLACK CULTURE -NYPL

:
 October 4 - 5, 2024

2-DAY CONVENING
HOW TO BUILD A FIRE: JAMES BALDWIN CENTENNIAL CONVENING
Registration: https://bit.ly/3BwZXav


In 2017, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at The New York Public Library, acquired the personal archive of literary icon and social critic, James Baldwin. The Baldwin archive is a rich trove of manuscripts, typescripts, and audio tapes, the breadth and depth of which make it indispensable to understanding fully the significance of Baldwin’s career as a writer and as an engaged public man of letters.

As we celebrate the centennial birth of James “Jimmy” Baldwin, our Great Bard of Harlem, the Schomburg Center in collaboration with the Institute for Research in African American Studies and Department of African and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University, are honored to host this two-day convening, How To Build A Fire, October 4-5, 2024.

We gather not only in response to a world in turmoil (again), but also to invite and engage in conversations about being ourselves, doing our work, and lighting our own fires this time/in our own time. Rather than building and burnishing an unusable icon, How To Build A Fire lovingly and critically reflects on the blackprints James Baldwin wrote for his time, toward building and making our own interventions in the present.

CONVENING SCHEDULE

FRIDAY | OCTOBER 4th

9:00 AM CHECK-IN / Light Breakfast

10:00 AM  Welcome
Joy Bivins, Director- Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture NYPL; Novella Ford, Associate Director Public Programs & Exhibitions, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture NYPL; Jafari Sinclaire Allen, PhD, Director-Institute for Research in African-American Studies, Columbia University; Editor in Chief, Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Culture, Politics & Society

10:30 AM - 11:45 AM- LITERACY, LEARNING, & TEACHING WITH BALDWIN FOR ALL AGES
Brian Jones, PhD, Director, Center for Educators and Schools, NYPL, Bettina Love, PhD, William F. Russell Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, and Khalil Gibran Muhammad, PhD, Professor of African American Studies and Public Affairs at Princeton University.

12:00 PM - 1:15 PM - FEARLESS: BEING A PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Nadia Alahmed, PhD, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies, Dickinson College; Brittney Cooper, PhD, Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Africana Studies, Rutgers-New Brunswick; Marina Magloire, PhD, Assistant Professor of English, Emory University;

1:15 PM - 2:00 PM          BREAK

2:00 PM – 4:00 PM- SCREENING + TALKBACK: JAMES BALDWIN: PRICE OF THE TICKET
An emotional portrait, a social critique, and a passionate plea for human equality. Without using narration, the film allows Baldwin to tell his own story: exploring what it means to be born Black, impoverished, gay and gifted – in a world that has yet to understand that “all men are brothers.” Intercutting rarely-seen archival footage from over one hundred sources and nine different countries, the film melds intimate interviews and eloquent public speeches with astounding private glimpses of Baldwin. The film also includes a rich selection of original footage: scenes from Baldwin’s extraordinary funeral service; explorations of Baldwin’s homes on three continents, including France, Switzerland, Turkey and Harlem; plus on-camera interviews with close friends, colleagues and critics. Witnesses include his brother David; biographer David Leeming; writers Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, William Styron, Ishmael Reed and Yashar Kemal; painter Lucien Happersberg and entertainer Bobby Short.
Karen Thorsen, Co-Producer/Director and Rich Blint, PhD, co-editor of a special issue of African American Review on James Baldwin;  Research Associate in the Department of English at the University of Pennsylvania

4:05 PM CODA: A Lover’s Question with Poet, Samiya A. Bashir

5:00 PM – 7:00 PM Public Reception
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SATURDAY| OCTOBER 5th

9:00 AM -CHECK-IN +

10:00 AM - Welcome
Novella Ford, Associate Director Public Programs & Exhibitions, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture NYPL; Jafari Sinclaire Allen, PhD, Director-Institute for Research in African-American Studies, Columbia University; Editor in Chief, Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Culture, Politics & Society

10:15 AM- INVOCATION:
Prentis Hemphill on Embodied Collective Healing, and Baldwin

11:15 AM - 12:15 PM
I, WE, & OUR: JAMES BALDWIN AND THE INTIMACY OF THE ESSAY
Farah Jasmine Griffin, PhD, William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African American Studies at Columbia University; Jacqueline Woodson, Award Winning Author and Founder of Baldwin For The Arts; and Edwidge Danticat, Award Winning Author and Wun Tsun Tam Mellon Professor of the Humanities in the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies, Columbia University of turmoil.

12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
PROPHETIC VISION, BLACK JOY, AND BALDWIN
Rev. Danté Stewart, Author, Shoutin’ in the Fire: An American Epistle; Derrais Carter, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts-Boston minister, activist, and scholar Nyle Fort, PhD, Assistant Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University

1:30 PM - 1:45 PM Mini Break! (15 mins)

1:45 PM - 3:00 PM
DEMOCRACY NOW: THE ROLE OF INTERGENERATIONAL EXCHANGE IN MOVEMENT WORK
Derecka Purnell, Movement Lawyer, Organizer; Marsha Jean-Charles, PhD, Director of Organizing of The Brotherhood Sister Sol; student activist Nicholas Brown

3:00 PM - 3:30 PM Break! (30 mins)

3:30 PM - 4:30 PM
WE ARE OUR OWN HISTORY PRESENTED BY THE AMERICAN LGBTQ+ MUSEUM
Jafari Sinclaire Allen, PhD, Director-Institute for Research in African-American Studies, Columbia University; Editor in Chief, Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Culture, Politics & Society; Suhaly Bautista-Carolina, Director of Public Programs and Partnerships, American LGBTQ+ Museum; Jessica (Jes) C. Neal, MLIS, Founder and Lead Archivist Vanguard Archives Consulting; Christopher Stahlings, Oral History Archive Project Lead, Everybody Needs A Witness: In The Life Archive 2.0, and Steven G. Fullwood, Archivist, Nomadic Archivists Project

4:30 PM
CODA: You’ve Got To Find A Way To Listen with Poet, Roger Reeves

5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Closing Party and Public Reception with DJ theoretic

Image Credit: "Fire Time"- Artist: Jules Arthur