Terms of the Day for October 19

• Modern Age– the post-medieval historical period which was marked by the move from feudalism toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance.
• Late Modern Era – the final phase of the Modern Age, occurring between 1900 and the 1970s, which was marked by extreme industrialization, urbanization, and strides toward race and gender equality.
• Modern Art – artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation.
• The “New Negro” – a term popularized during the Harlem Renaissance implying a more outspoken advocacy of dignity and a refusal to submit quietly to the practices and laws of Jim Crow racial segregation. The term was made popular by Alain Locke.
• The Harlem Renaissance - a period in the 1920s and 1930s when African-American achievements in art and music and literature flourished, characterized by a deliberate reconnection with traditional and ancient African arts.

Slide Images for October 16

 Cakewalk on the Pier

Atlantic City

1902

Cakewalk

The American Mutoscope and Biograph Company

1903

Wade in the Water (performed by The Blind Boys of Alabama)
Traditional
First published in 1901

Negroe Dance Hall

Stuart Davis

1913

 Tapdancing Negro

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

1914

 The Souls of Black Folk

W.E.B. Du Bois

1903

 Negro Woman (from “Types of Negroes”

compiled by W.E.B. Du Bois)

Thomas E. Askew

c.1899-1900

 Advertisement for “The Birth of a Nation

Directed by D.W. Griffith

1915

Clip from “Birth of a Nation"

D.W. Griffith

1915

 NAACP Protestors Outside a Theater

Showing “Birth of a Nation”

New York

1915

 The Awakening of Ethiopia

Meta Warrick Fuller

c. 1914

 Fredrick Douglass

Isaac Scott Hathaway

1919

 Advertisement for Banania

France

1917

The Soldier

(Used as a book cover illustration)

Edwin A. Harleston

1919

Terms of the Day for October 16

• Double-consciousness – a term coined by W. E. B. Du Bois used to describe an individual whose identity is divided into several facets. Du Bois saw double consciousness as a useful theoretical model for understanding the psycho-social divisions existing within African American society.
• Negro Spirituals – religious (generally Christian) songs that were created by enslaved African people in the United States.  Originally an oral tradition that imparted Christian values while also describing the hardships of slavery, this historic group of uniquely American songs is now recognized as a distinct genre of music.
• The Birth of a Nation –  a 1915 silent drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and based on the novel and play The Clansman, both by Thomas Dixon, Jr.  The film follows the lives of two families through the Civil War, the Reconstruction period, and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.
• “Love and Theft” –  a term which refers to the tendency of certain cultures to be genuinely fascinated with aspects of another culture to the point of adopting some of that culture’s characteristics, albeit with a misinterpreted understanding of that culture.

Slide Images for October 14

 Illustration from Crania Americana

Samuel George Morton

1839

 The White Man’s Burden

Rudyard Kipling

1899

 Invitation to the Pan-African Conference

London

1900

 American Negro Exhibit

Paris, France

1900

 Cover of “Little Black Sambo”

Helen Bannerman

1899

 Illustration from “Little Black Sambo”

Helen Bannerman

1899

 Minstrel Show 

Advertisement Poster

c1900

 Cover of sheet music for “All Coons Look Alike to Me”

Written by Ernest Hogan

1896

Click HERE to listen to the audio.

 The Banjo Lesson

Henry Ossawa Tanner

1893

 The Thankful Poor

Henry Ossawa Tanner

1894

Bible Quilt

Harriet Powers

c. 1895-98

Terms of the Day for October 14

• Ethnology – the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.  During Victorian imperialism, this science was used to classify certain ethnicities as “primitive” and “inferior” to whites and in need of white social control.
• Darky Iconography – a term which refers to overly cartoonish and highly stereotypical depictions of African Americans in the late 19th and into the 20th centuries often used for mass-market items and in literature.

Slide Images for October 12

 Las Castas (The Castes)

Annoymous

Late 18th century

 The Emancipation Memorial

Thomas Ball

1876

 The Spirit of Freedom

Ed Hamilton

1998

 Negro es Bello II

Elizabeth Catlett

1969

 NO MORE O’ THIS SHIT

Rupert Garcia

1969

 Cream of Wheat Advertisements with Rastus

c. 1920s

JamPactJelliTite

Jeff Donaldson

1988

Terms of the Day for October 12

• Diaspora – meaning “a scattering” and originally used as a term for the dispersal of the Hebrews after the Babylonian occupation, this word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of people with common roots, particularly movements of an involuntary nature, such as the African Trans-Atlantic slave trade.
• Imperialism –  the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationship between states or cultures, often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination.  Also referred to as Colonialism, this term is often specifically applied to the period of western domination during the 19th-20th centuries.