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Jun. 30 | 2012 Bode-Pearson Prize
Nominations for the 2012 Bode-Pearson Prize for Outstanding Contributions to American Studies due
Jun. 30 | 2012 Mary C. Turpie Prize
Nominations for the 2012 Mary C. Turpie Prize for Outstanding Contributions to American Studies Teaching, Advising, and Program Development due
Oct. 1 | Travel Grants for Graduate Students
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Resources: Abstracts of American Studies Dissertations
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Wilkinson, Michelle Joan. "In the Tradition of Revolution: The Socio-Aesthetics of Black and Puerto Rican Arts Movements, 1962-1982," Emory University, August 2001.
This dissertation documents the connection between the Black and Puerto Rican arts movements of the 1960s and 1970s and the socio-political activism of the period, particularly in the form of the Black Power Movement, the Black Panther Party, and the Young Lords Organization and Party. Plotting the points of convergence and divergence and highlighting alliances and exchanges between the Black arts Movement and the Puerto Rican arts movement, the dissertation identifies the creation of a new aesthetic sensibility. By examining the form, content, and function of poetry and visual art, in light of the aesthetic criteria defined by movement leaders such as Amiri Baraka and Miguel Alagarin, I argue that the emergent socio-aesthetics are informed by the cultural nationalisms of each group and by intercultural interactions between the groups. In particular, the poetry of Baraka, Algarin, Larry Neal, Sonia Sanchez, Victor Hernandez Cruz, and Pedro Pietri and the visual art of Jeff Donaldson, Faith Ringgold, and Juan Sanchez exemplify the range of socio-aesthetic possibilities. Unlike the social science scholarship on Black and Puerto Rican cultures of poverty, this study employs the interdisciplinary approaches of American, African American, and Latino studies to investigate a specific period in the cultural history of the two groups. I consider the autonomy of each group’s social movement as well as the shared political and aesthetic ideologies their cultural activists advocated across racial, ethnic, and linguistic boundaries. Mapping the trajectory of seminal Black and Puerto Rican organizations such as the Umbra Writer’s Workshop, the Black Arts Repertory Theatre School (BARTS), the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC), the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists (AfriCOBRA), Taller Boricua, and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, the project documents a rich legacy of literary and visual art activisms. In historicizing and theorizing the spaces of Black and Puerto Rican cultural production and exchange, I turn a critical eye toward the respectful appropriations and reciprocal appreciations that evidence a shared tradition of revolution.
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