This course explores the ways in which objects and material culture embody personal narrative. Moving back and forth from ephemeral traces of events and experiences to the culturally invested luxury goods that create legacy to the objects that facilitate daily life, this class will use, as its primary references, examples that draw from queer and African American cultures to underscore the potential of objects to tell the stories that not only reflect majority traditions and experiences but those of the disenfranchised, the details of whose lives are often obscured. In addition to readings that will provide background for class discussion, student will be asked to play the roles of detectives, archeologists, and curators at various sites around New York City. Each student will also be asked to create an annotated material record that reveals the public and private lives of one individual. That record may consist of texts, objects or any variety of media chosen or designed by the student. This blogs serves as an archive for the work done in the context of this course and related materials that become relevant to this exploration.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

The Nicholas Brothers, Fayard and Harold.

I recently came across an interesting clip from the movie Down Argentine Way, on The New Yorker's website. It briefly discusses the unrecognized talents of the Nicholas Brothers, who were performers during the golden age of musicals in the 50s. The clip is short, around three minutes, but offers interesting thoughts on the Fayard and Harold's 'lost' careers. Their talent was comparable to, if not surpassed, that of Gene Kelly or Bing Crosby, though because of their race the brothers were not given the opportunities that they deserved...
(by Isabelle Hay)

"The history of Hollywood is the history of the subjects and the people it showed—and those it didn’t. The Nicholas brothers would have been naturals for a wide range of movies that were made at the time. They should have done comedy, they should have done drama; instead, they got to dance. They did it brilliantly —better than anyone else before or since. "


 http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/movie-week-argentine-way?utm_source=tny&utm_campaign=generalsocial&utm_medium=tumblr&mbid=social_tumblr
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