In September 2017, the first-ever feature documentary, Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart, screened at the Toronto Film Festival; in January 2018, the film makes its television debut as part of the American Masters PBS series. Throughout 2018, the film will be joined by a number of new print biographies.
race
Co-presented by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust
WHEN
Thursday, March 22, 2018
Panel Discussion 6:30–8:00pm
Public Reception 8:00–9:00pm
WHERE
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 515 Malcolm X Blvd (135th St and Malcolm X Blvd), New York, NY, 10037
This is a free event but as space is limited, please RSVP here.
Seat reservations begin on Thursday March 8, 2018!
In 2016, London's National Theatre revived Lorraine Hansberry’s unfinished, ambitious drama about African politics, Les Blancs (The Whites), at the Olivier Theatre and directed by the South African Yael Farber (watch a short video trailer here).
Hansberry’s biographer, Margaret Wilkerson, says Les Blancs has plenty of relevance today as it looks at racial tensions in Africa just as the underpinnings of colonialism are starting to shift.
On April 23, 1995, as a new Fellow, Margaret Wilkerson delivered the lecture “Lorraine Hansberry: The Making of A Woman of the Theatre” to the College of Fellows of the American Theatre at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC.
Dr. Wilkerson reads an excerpt from her 1995 manuscript:
On March 22, 2018, the Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture will co-present Lorraine Hansberry: Reimagining Biography. The four panelists will share how they navigated the feminisms, intersectionalities, political, and private-public voicings that shaped Hansberry’s life in their biographical treatments of the artist, activist, and public intellectual.
Over the next two weeks we will be sharing information about the panel participants as well as information about the Lorraine Hansberry Papers, held at the Schomburg Center. Today we are highlighting panelist Imani Perry, author of Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry forthcoming from Beacon Press, in September 2018.
Dr. Imani Perry discusses Lorraine Hansberry in Salamishah Tillet's New York Times essay, "For Lorraine Hansberry, 'A Raisin in the Sun Was Just the Start,” noting Hansberry's commitment to the ongoing project of social change:
On March 1, 2017, for the Princeton University African Amercian Studies AAS 21podcast, "A Through Line for African American Studies," Dr. Imani Perry was interviewed by colleague Dr. Eddie Glaude, Jr. about her current book projects, ideas about methodology, and her habits of reading, including her forthcoming book on the life of Lorraine Hansberry (listen at 30:15) Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry (Beacon Press, September 2018).
On March 22, 2018, the Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture will co-present Lorraine Hansberry: Reimagining Biography. The four panelists will share how they navigated the feminisms, intersectionalities, political, and private-public voicings that shaped Hansberry’s life in their biographical treatments of the artist, activist, and public intellectual.
Over the next two weeks we will be sharing information about the panel participants as well as information about the Lorraine Hansberry Papers, held at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Today we are highlighting Soyica Colbert, author of the forthcoming Lorraine Hansberry: Artist/Activist (Yale University Press, 2019) and professor of African American Studies and Theater & Performance Studies at Georgetown University.
On March 27, 2017, Georgetown University Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics presented Dreams Deferred: Crossing Continents and Cultures with ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ in celebration of World Theatre Day. The one-night event, moderated by Soyica Colbert, was in advance of the Arena Stage Mead Center for the American Theatre’s 2017 production of A Raisin in the Sun in Wahington, DC and productions in Sweden at the Riksteatern, directed by Josette Bushell-Mingo, OBE, and at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg, directed by James Ngcobo.
On Thursday, March 22, 2018, the Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture will co-present Lorraine Hansberry: Reimagining Biography. In addition to the AMERICAN MASTERS documentary, Sighted Eyes|Feeling Heart, three biographical treatments of the artist, activist, and public intellectual will be published in the next several years. The four panelists will share how they navigated the feminisms, intersectionalities, political, and private-public voicings that shaped Hansberry’s life in their biographical treatments of the artist, activist, and public intellectual.
Over the last two weeks we have been sharing information about the panel participants as well as information about the Lorraine Hansberry Papers, held at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library.