The Africana West in Film and Television The American West(s) in Film and History Conference Kansas City, Missouri The Kansas City Marriott, Country Club Plaza November 7 – 10, 2002 Please join The American West(s) in Film and History Conference meeting in Kansas City, MO and consider giving a (multimedia or other) presentation or panel on The Black / Africana West in film, television and music. Papers and proposed panel sessions are welcome for discussion topics that include but are not limited to the following: Which movies, what television shows and what musical selections depict Africana characters as contributors to Western History and which ones follow the traditional canon, rendering them a footnote? What did you think about the Black father/son team in PBS’s Frontier House? Did they get their just due or were the unique experiences of African Americans in the West minimized in this series? Did the interracial marriage affect the telling of the Africana tradition or was it yet another chapter in African American history in the West? Is Herbert Jeffries the first great Black cowboy star or overrated jazz singer tossed into film? Is "Blazing Saddles" a Black Western (even though Mel Brooks is Jewish)? Is Mario Van Peebles production of "Posse" fact, fiction or just another Hollywood formula Western fantasy? Why is James Beckwourth depicted as a White man in the movie, "Tomahawk?" and what role does this kind of reverse "passing" and exclusion employ for White American psychology? Does Mantan Moreland's presence in early Black Westerns undermine or otherwise denigrate them? Or does his satire add necessary folk humor? What were the successes and failures of the 1972 production of "Buck and the Preacher?" How did the production of The Negro Cowboys by Philip Durham and Everett Jones (1965) contribute to the growing presence of Black cowboys in Western film? Clint Eastwood as "Dirty Harry" is to "The Man with No Name" what Richard Roundtree in "Shaft" is to . . . ? (fill in the blank or create your own) What have you discovered about the life of Woody Strode and his depiction in John Ford's "Sergeant Rutledge?" What is the role of comedy in the Black West, as depicted by actors such as Sinbad in the film, "The Cherokee Kid?" And speaking of Cherokees and kids, where are the Black Indian stories? How are they depicted in film, music or television? Was the film, Buffalo Soldiers, a disastrous insult to the loyalty of African American soldiers on the Western frontier or a humanizing, compassionate account of the complexities of Black and Native histories? The Hip Hop West What is a "Ghetto Cowboy?" How has the meaning of "Posse" changed? Is it still cool to be an outlaw if you're Black? Or are you an outlaw, automatically, if you're Black? When N.W.A. sang "F*ck the Police," was that an appropriate Western trope or the utterances of a menace to society? The West in the Civil Rights Movement? The West in the Black Power Movement? Depictions of Black Panthers as New Age Cowboys and Girls? Black Women in the West Are Ruby Dee and Dawnn Lewis (stellar though they are) the extent of the vision of Black women in the West? Feel free to develop more ideas on your own. Based on the contributions, the panels and presentations will be organized accordingly. Independent scholars are welcome! Email is preferable. Send all individual papers (no more than 400 words) and panel proposals (no more than 1000 words) with a short biographical paragraph and/or resume/vitae by September 15, 2002 to the AREA CHAIR: Dr. Kimberly C. Ellis 204 Emison Art Center Greencastle, IN 46135 (765) 658-6098 [log in to unmask] ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu