Jazz and Student Engagement

The set list for the Hurricane Jazz Orchestra

Over the summer, I attended a musical performance on campus by the Hurricane Jazz Orchestra.  Now, folks are lucky to get a handful of attendees for summer events – on any college campus – and it was exciting to see so many people in attendance for this event.  And the musicians?  Well, they brought it.

The ensemble performed a number of songs, ranging from the theme to the television show Family Guy, to Dave Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo a la Turk.”  My favorite, though, had to be when the group shared their version of “Hurricane Season,” a composition by Troy Andrews.  Those of you in the know will recognize that Andrews performs as Trombone Shorty.

Now, Trombone Shorty played a pivotal role in my attendance at the ensemble’s performance.  My student, Jomi Calhoun, regularly talks about music and his influences as he is a percussionist and jazz enthusiast.  In one of our conversational jam sessions after class, we talked about Trombone Shorty. Jomi mentioned that the ensemble, of which he is a part, would perform “Hurricane Season” at their event. 

It’s so fun and rewarding to see students in their own spaces outside of the classroom, so I try to take advantage of these situations – but knowing that they would perform this song sealed the deal.  And, Jomi would be on the drum set for “Hurricane Season” as part of the great rhythm section in the ensemble. When the song came, he let loose a flurry of syncopated and crushing notes, which moved the attendees to clap and cheer.  They were jamming!

Students come to campus, attend their courses, then many go home.  There are a number of students at each school who get involved and pursue their passions.  When those moments present themselves, faculty and staff shouldn’t miss opportunities to be a part of the communities created by involved, creative young scholars.  What a treat!

Frederick Douglass and the 4th of July

Frederick Douglass

The timing was right in our American Literature course last week.  On the last day we met prior to the holiday weekend, the class was ready to discuss the last section of Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.  We were able to broaden our conversation, fittingly, to incorporate Douglass's powerful speech, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July." 

Douglass spoke in 1852 in front of a massive audience in New York, an audience of Black and white individuals.  Invited to deliver a speech on the occasion of national celebration, Douglass took the US, and white society, to task in a scathing critique.  He states, "This Fourth of July is yours, not mine.  You may rejoice, I must mourn.  To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony." 

Students listened to an audio file of James Earl Jones performing the speech, and I had to smile as their eyes got bigger and bigger with each moment.  Many had previously mentioned their respect and admiration for Douglass based on his narrative, but reading and listening to this speech moved students to truly consider the courage evidenced by Douglass, as well as the danger in delivering such a speech.

When most folks are celebrating the usual suspects of founding fathers, many of whom willfully enslaved peoples of African descent, I hope students are also thinking about the contributions and bravery of those named heroes such as Frederick Douglass, and the multitudes of unnamed enslaved and free Black men and women who fought for freedom.

Black Women's Spoken Word

By Melissa Panayeta

Image from Prof. Ellis-William's Presentation on Black Women's Spoken Word

Black Women's use of spoken word is described by Antoinette Ellis-Williams, a professor of Women & Gender Studies, New Jersey City University, as an empowerment and resistance tool for African American Women. Professor Ellis-Williams presented her work and ideas at the annual UTSA African American Studies Symposium.  At this event, she noted that the sole purpose for spoken word is for expression of minorities to address ethical and political issues that affect them directly. She informs us that there are many different types of spoken words that can be used to convey a message, not just simply poetry.

The different types include prose, poetry, narrative, bios, lyrics that "provide authentic voice to stories," according to Ellis-Williams. These respond to linear and hierarchial power structures such as patriarchy, heteronomativity, and white supremacy. These types of spoken word also respond to capitalism, colonization, poverty, violence, marginalization, and isolation.

Spoken word used by Black Women has been long seen as a means to voice women's discomfort with politics and society. Dr. Ellis-Williams provided us with an amazing website which praises and celebrates Black Women's spoken word all over the country. Spoken word by Black Women has been shaping the minds of thousands for generations and will continue to shape the generations to come; it is an extremely important part of the societies, not only in America, but around the globe.

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Melissa is a nursing major at Lone Star College - North Harris, with a strong admiration for Black Women spoken word artists, which according to Melissa, helped her become a better, more knowledgeable woman. She identifies as an "aspiring nurse, artist, and poetry slam dunker."

Black Culture and Resistance: A Student's Experiences at the AASS

By Lena K. Al Abbasi

Image from Professor Lewis's Presentation

The African American Studies Symposium, which was held in April at the University of Texas at San Antonio, was a rich and successful event. In the first panel, titled “Nurturing Bodies, Energizing Spirits, Feeding a Movement,” featured Richard Lewis, a professor of sociology at UTSA, who constructed a timeline detailing overt racism before the Civil War up to the present where we still see covert segregation and what he called “racism byproducts.” Lewis showed shocking statistics of how African Americans are still being discriminated against by dominant society, and are still not offered the same life chances offered to whites.

The second speaker, Derek Hicks, an assistant professor of Religion and Culture at Wake Forest University, integrated the role religion and food played in healing the oppression of African Americans, both physically and spiritually, and how it’s also a form of rebellious protest. That piece was the most memorable as it was accompanied by repulsive images showing how African American flesh was seen as consumable by whites, metaphorically, for labor, abuse, and entertainment.

Among those images was a contemporary one of a cake made in the shape of a African female body, in the color of velvet red on the inside, symbolizing human flesh, decorated by a human head - a real human head. This image, expressing extreme savagery on the part of those responsible for and partaking in the cake, struck the audience, reminding us of how realistic the anguish of this struggle against slavery and oppression is, and the depth of our responsibility to fight and eliminate it.

Collectively, those presentations provided the audience with a better understanding of African American culture and how it developed through collective and individual struggles against oppression. Religion and food express a personal preference and provide a sense of identity. Joycelyn Moody, Professor of English at UTSA, in the ending described this as the thesis of the symposium : “this is the purpose of the symposium, we don’t like where we are, and we’re changing what we don’t like, we’re moving!”

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Lena is a student at Lone Star College - North Harris.

Amazing Grace

By Diamunn Chism

North Harris students Dejia Edison (left) and Diamunn Chism (right) with performer Grace Williamson (center)

Music is an form in which you may say whatever you want or express exactly how you feel. Music is not an illusion, but a conclusion to a problem. In era of slavery, African Americans used songs and music to demonstrate what they felt, what they went through, and most importantly who they believed in. 
 

I visited the 8thAnnual African American Studies Symposium at UTSA and it was absolutely amazing. Out of all of the presentations and panels, there was one participant who simply caught my eye by the name of Grace Williamson.  She caught my attention not because she is an African American woman, but because sang the famous Christian song “Amazing Grace” and it was like everyone could honesty understand and feel what she was feeling. This song talks about someone who basically cannot do anything with God. 

The power of the famous song is not about the music itself, but God’s grace and how important and powerful he is in this song. According to my belief, God gave us eternal life and there is nothing better than that, yet we fail to deserve it.  

I can see how astonishing the song is and the fact that Williamson performed the song as part of the symposium. Many of the visitors may not have understood the meaning of this famous song, but it was still moving to see the impact Williamson’s voice had on everyone in the room. This song made me realize how much of an impact it had on me.

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Diamunn Chism is currently a first year Associate of Arts student at Lone Star Community College – North Harris. After her first year at North Harris, she plans to transfer to Stephen F. Austin University where she will study Business and Fine Arts to obtain both Bachelor’s degrees.

Graduate Symposium on Healing

By Casey Shevlin

Dr. Pierce-Baker on campus at UTSA

On March 27th, the English graduate students at the University of Texas at San Antonio had the pleasure of hosting their annual Interdisciplinary Graduate Symposium, which was framed around the topic of “Social Healing.” Throughout the day, approximately 100 guests stopped by to attend several graduate student panels:

•  “Food Justice and Activism: Community Gardens, Decolonizing Urban Diets, and Alternative Food Systems”
•  “Fantasy, Music, and Dystopia: How Art Shapes the Female Image” 
• “Representations of Healing and Healers across Literary Genres” 
• “Negotiating the Body and Spirit: Questions of Corporeal Healing”

All of the panels consisted of new, important, and instructive work related to the topic of social healing.

It is our keynote address by Dr. CharlottePierce-Baker that I haven’t stopped thinking about, though.  Like much of her work, Pierce-Baker’s talk on “Gender, Rape, and Race: A Grammar of Violence” powerfully discussed the topic of violence against women and gave voice to the differing iterations of that violence—a different “grammar,” as Pierce-Baker says, for expressing and understanding women’s varying experiences with and contexts of violence and assault.

During the Q & A that followed Pierce-Baker’s address, it became obvious to me that—as Pierce-Baker had explained—almost every woman in the room had a grammar for violence. Hand after hand went up; every woman in the room had a sister, a daughter, a colleague who had been raped, assaulted, threatened. Though I know the statistics—1 in 4, I think—I was blown away and horrified by how pervasive this violence felt in that instant.

But, I was also moved by and grateful for Dr. Pierce-Baker’s bravery. Her insistence on breaking the silence surrounding rape and her courage in sharing her personal grammar of violence had given each woman in the room courage to do the same. And moreover, Pierce-Baker’s talk pushed me personally to think about bravery in the academy—especially the need for it.

I’m honored and grateful that I was there to hear her speak. She’s encouraged me to do embodied work in the academy. To try to be brave like her.

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Casey Shevlin is a second year English doctoral student at the University of Texas at San Antonio and a co-chair for the English Department's Interdisciplinary Graduate Symposium.  Her research interests include 19th C African American literature and print cultures, women's studies, and contemporary activist pedagogy.

Images of a Graduate Student Sympiosium

The graduate students of the English Department at the University of Texas at San Antonio recently hosted an Interdisciplinary Graduate Symposium on "Social Healing."  Below are some images from that event.

Panelists

UTSA English Department administrative associate Reina Vargas and
doctoral student Aravis Thomas

Dr. Joycelyn Moody, Dr. Charlotte Pierce-Baker, and Dr. Sonja Lanehart

Event keynote speaker Dr. Charlotte Pierce-Baker and
visiting scholar Dr. Trudier Harris