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The James M. Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence
and the First Year Seminar Program present the First Year
Seminar Symposium:
Identity and Performance
April 12, 2004
"A memo between a studio executive and his/her boss
about the status of negotiations with God over the creation
of the Heaven and Earth Project,"presented by David
Sontag.
Sontag is an award-winning motion picture writer and producer.
He was a senior executive at Twentieth Century Fox, ABC-TV,
CBS Films and NBC TV, and he continues as president of David
Sontag Productions Inc. He also has managed the careers of
stars including Steve McQueen, Mel Brooks and James Coburn;
he has taught or consulted at the American Film Institute,
the Universities of California and Colorado, and the Institute
for American Indian Art.
"Rodgers & Hammerstein and the Question of Identity,"
presented by Tim Carter.
Although Broadway musicals of the 1940s might be seen as
the epitome of white middle-class entertainment--and those
of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein as the crassest of
the commercial bunch--their Oklahoma! (1943), Carousel
(1945), and South Pacific (1949) are in fact surprisingly
sensitive to issues of race, class, and gender. The interesting
question is whether this is just an appeal to the box office,
or, rather, is intended to make some broader political point
as the United States forged its own new identities in a changing
post-war world.
Carter was born in Australia and studied in the UK. He is
the author of books on Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro (1987),
Jacopo Peri (1561-1633) (1989), Music in Late Renaissance
and Early Baroque Italy (1992), and Monteverdi's Musical Theatre
(2002). In 2001 he moved from Royal Holloway, University of
London, to become David G. Frey Distinguished Professor of
Music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
He is currently writing a monograph on Rodgers and Hammerstein's
Oklahoma! (1943).
"Transgressing Racial Difference: Who is Really Passing?,"
presented by Charlene Regester.
Masquerades of Blackness is a seminar designed to
examine "passing films"--films that explore mixed
race characters who cross racial lines. This investigation
reveals the way in which race is constructed on screen to
be an unstable category, as Hollywood struggles to make the
invisible visible and representational. Despite the problematic
way in which race is marked and coded, perhaps more interesting
is the fact that in many of these passing films, the mulatto
character is often played by white actors/actresses. Rather
than exploring the difficulties of mulatto characters' attempts
to be assimilated into white society, these films then become
explorations of white actors' attempts to vicariously experience
blackness. Pinky (1949) as a prototype of this phenomenon
is examined to demonstrate the complexity of passing, to suggest
that white actors who assume mulatto roles are desirous of
blackness, and to reveal who is really doing the passing.
As an Assistant Professor in the Department of African &
Afro-American at UNC-Chapel Hill, Charlene Regester's research
primarily investigates the contributions of African Americans
to American cinema before 1950. Her publications, including
essays on early black film stars and filmmakers, have appeared
in numerous journals: Film Literature Quarterly, Popular
Culture Review, Western Journal of Black Studies,
Studies in American Culture, Film History, Journal
of Film and Video, et. al. Currently, she co-edits the
Oscar Micheaux Society Newsletter (published by Duke University)
and serves as an editorial board member of the Journal
of Film and Video. As a film historian, she has interviewed
for and appeared in documentaries on Hattie McDaniel (sponsored
by American Movie Classics) and "I'll Make Me a World"
(PBS documentary produced by the makers of the Civil Rights
documentary, "Eyes on the Prize").
"EXCLUSIVE! JOAN DARLING MEETS THE FYS PRESS,"
a presentation of SLAV/WMST 006: The Actress: Celebrity
and the Woman, taught by Beth Holmgren. SLAV/WMST 006
media critics-in-training conduct an exclusive live interview
with Playmakers star Joan Darling, posing to her those questions
we've delineated in our readings and viewings of other actresses'
lives and works. We realize the impossibility of knowing "all
about Joan," but we hope to learn more about her call
to act, her definition of her vocation, her pursuit of a career,
her perceptions of the actress's public roles, and her balancing
act between celebrity and private life. (All rights reserved;
no flash photos, please.)
Joan Darling is an Emmy Award-winning director, actor and
drama coach, as well as a visiting professor in the Writing
for the Screen and Stage Program in UNC's College of Arts
& Sciences, where she teaches classes in acting and directing.
One of the first women directing film and television during
the 1970s, Darling is the recipient of an Emmy and a Director's
Guild Award. She directed many popular television shows including
"M.A.S.H.," "Magnum PI," "Phyllis,"
"Rhoda," and "Mary Tyler Moore," including
one episode of the latter that a New York Times critic dubbed
"the funniest half hour on television." Darling
also created the "Directing the Actor" workshop
for Robert Redford's Sundance Institute, where she has been
a creative advisor for the past decade.
Students from ROML 006E: The Value of Language in Identity,
Hispanics in the United States will present their research
on Hispanic identity formation. This research forms the
foundation of the publication the class will produce to reflect
their work during this semester. This course explores the
cultural challenges for Spanish speaking immigrants in the
United States, particularly the importance of language in
culture and identity. Students are encouraged to consider
news reporting and public policies regarding the Hispanic
community and the importance of linguistic identity in artistic
expression. Class members were encouraged to form personal
ties with organizations and individuals from the Spanish speaking
community. This course was taught by Julia Cardona Mack.
POLI 006E students learned about the historic Plessy v.
Ferguson case that first created the racist "separate
but equal" doctrine. The course introduced students
to law, Southern history and culture, and civil rights through
writing, producing, and performing a play. Their study included
Homer Plessy, his lawyers, and New Orleans citizens who convinced
Plessy in 1892 to break the law that made it a crime for whites
and African Americans to sit together. Their play, written
by one group of students and performed by others, addresses
contemporary racial bias. It is one of five plays written
by the class, which the students will publicly perform at
the end of the semester. This course was taught by Donna LeFebvre.
With special thanks to:
David Sontag (Communication Studies)
Lucia Binotti (First Year Communication Program)
Kim Burton-Oakes (Johnston Center)
Tim Carter (Music)
Beth Holmgren (Slavic Languages and Literature)
Donna LeFebvre (Political Science)
Julia Cardona Mack (Romance Languages)
Charlene Regester (African and African-American Studies)
A complete listing of all events at the Johnston Center for
Undergraduate Excellence is available at our Event
Calendar.
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