As part of SUNY Orange’s celebration of Black History Month, in conjunction with The New York Council for the Humanities’ Speakers in the Humanities program, we are proud to present “Fugitive Art and Fugitive Testimony: Slave Narratives Then and Now,” a lecture by Dr. Janet Neary on Tuesday, February 28, 2012 at 4pm in the Great Room, Kaplan Hall 101.

This lecture brings together contemporary “visual slave narratives” and classic slave narratives from the 19th century to examine the way black artists and writers respond to institutional constraints placed on their cultural production and examines the “fugitive” meanings within slave narratives which remain uncontained or challenge editorial constraints.
In the 1990s a number of visual artists (including Kara Walker, Glenn Ligon and Ellen Driscoll) created art that used literary slave narratives as templates for their work. Slave narratives of the 19th century told the story of enslavement and escape from the perspective of those who had been enslaved themselves. Often the contemporary artists place themselves or viewers in the position of the ex-slave narrator.  Slave narratives, called a “black message in a white envelope” by one critic, were constrained by the goals and directives of white editors. However, ex-slave narrators found creative ways to circumvent this narrative containment.

This event is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by Cultural Affairs at the SUNY Orange Newburgh Campus and is made possible through the support of the New York Council for the Humanities’ Speakers in the Humanities program.

For further information, please call the Cultural Affairs office at the Newburgh Campus of SUNY Orange at (845) 341-9386.