A&S in the News – August 26-September 1

Art installation uses music to highlight African American migration
Crimson White – Aug. 29
Over the summer, Sharony Green, an assistant professor of history, asked her students to come up with a song that they thought described moving through space. What would they listen to on a road trip if they wanted to put everything that hurt them in their rear view? What would they play for someone their great grandparents’ age in the same situation? The goal was to have her students help create a playlist that will be used as the backdrop to Green’s digital art installation, “Mississippi and Miami,” showing on Monday night. The exhibit focuses on the stories of African-American migrants after World War II and how they claimed power through their migration, specifically migrants who moved to south Florida, like Green’s own family. “They were sharecroppers, so they used to follow the crops so when tomatoes were ready to be picked in Florida they would go down there just like migrants who would go anywhere,” Green said. “My mother had asthma and my grandparents realized her health was better in Florida. They sent for my mom and my aunt and then my great grandmother came too. In order to improve their lives they had to move.”

What’s not to love about romance novels?
Sydney Morning Herald – Aug. 28
A good measure of freedom in society, according to the US artist Sophia Wallace, is the distribution of orgasms among its citizens. Which casts the increasing eroticisation of romance fiction in a very happy light, says Wallace fan and University of Alabama Professor of Gender and Culture Studies Catherine Roach. I met Roach at the University of Love conference where she was speaking about “cliteracy”, Wallace, and other topics from her latest book Happily Ever After: The Romance Story in Popular Culture. Her alter ego, romance writer Catherine LaRoche, was there to plug her “slightly steamy” historical romances. Arranging to meet her in the lobby of the conference hotel, I did consider asking which Catherine to expect. LaRoche, according to Roach’s book, prefers glamorous floor-length gowns. But it is Roach who turns up: an attractive woman wearing glasses and a sensible aqua sweater over a white shirt. The only evidence of LaRoche is a husky voice left over from a cold.

“Black girls for change” exhibit depicts a Southern town through the eyes of young women
Crimson White – Sept. 1
Hobson City is the second oldest African-American town in the United States and the oldest in the state of Alabama. It is a small city with a population of only about 800, and it just celebrated its 117th Founders Day celebration. Though the area is full of history, there are many who aren’t aware of its existence. But Hobson has been documented through twenty-nine photos now on display at The University of Alabama’s Paul R. Jones Gallery of Art. The exhibit is titled “#blackgirls4change: The Hobson City 9, Cultivating Community and Creating Change.”

Clinton slams Trump’s ‘racist ideology’ that ushers hate groups into mainstream 
The Guardian – Aug. 25
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton today disparaged her Republican rival as a tool of the racist, radical right, a man who foments “paranoia and prejudice” and ushers hate groups into the mainstream. […] “In order to have this speech make any sense, she’s going to have to explain what the alt-right is – anime Nazis and frog memes … and undercurrents of white supremacy,” said George Hawley, assistant professor of political science at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, and author of the book Right Wing Critics of American Conservatism.

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