“From Watts to Dakar: A View of African American Culture in Los Angeles and Beyond”

The Center for Black Studies Research invites you to the eighth annual Shirley Kennedy Memorial Lecture
WHO: Jayne Cortez, award-winning poet, musical performer, filmmaker, and social activist
WHAT: “From Watts to Dakar: A View of African American Culture in Los Angeles and Beyond”
WHEN: Tuesday, April 6, 2010, 4:00 p.m.
WHERE: UCSB MultiCultural Center Theater
COST: FREE

We are excited to welcome poet, musical performer, filmmaker, and social
activist Jayne Cortez to the MCC Theater for the premier Black Studies
event on our campus. Ms. Cortez, who divides her time between New York City
and Dakar, Senegal, won the 1980 American Book Award for “Mouth on Paper.”

We hope you’ll join us at this year’s Shirley Kennedy Memorial Lecture.
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About Jayne Cortez

Poet Maya Angelou has said of Ms. Cortez that she “has been and continues
to be an explorer, probing the valleys and chasms of human existence. No
ravine is too perilous, no abyss too threatening for Jayne Cortez.” Ms.
Cortez – whose career has encompassed writing, performing, and teaching –
is the author of twelve books of poetry and has performed her poems with
music on nine recordings. Her voice is celebrated for its political,
surrealistic, dynamic innovations in lyricism, and for its visceral sound –
“Jayne Cortez’s poems are filled with images that most of us are afraid to
see,” according to novelist Walter Mosley. Ms. Cortez’s poems have been
translated into many languages and widely published in anthologies,
journals, and magazines. She is the recipient of numerous awards,
including: Arts International, the National Endowment for the Arts, the
International African Festival Award, the Langston Hughes Medal, and the M.
Thelma McAndless Distinguished Professorship in the Humanities at Eastern
Michigan University. Her most recent books are The Beautiful Book (Bola
Press, 2007), On The Imperial Highway (Hanging Loose Press, 2009), and Jazz
Fan Looks Back (Hanging Loose Press, 2002). Her latest CDs with the
Firespitters are Find Your Own Voice and Borders of Disorderly Time (Bola
Press), and Taking the Blues Back Home (Harmolodic/Verve). Cortez also
directed the documentary films Slave Routes: Resistance, Abolition &
Creative Progress (2009), Yari Yari Pamberi: Black Women Writers Dissecting
Globalization (2007), and Yari Yari: Black Women Writers and the Future
(1998). She is co-founder and president of the Organization of Women
Writers of Africa, Inc. and can be seen onscreen in the films Women In Jazz
and Poetry In Motion.

The Shirley Kennedy Memorial Lecture is the premier Black Studies event on
our campus. Dr. Shirley Kennedy was a social justice activist in Santa
Barbara, a faculty member in UCSB’s Black Studies Department, and the
community affairs coordinator in the Center for Black Studies Research.
This lecture series honors her memory as one who merged academia and
community service in her life and work. Past speakers have included Robert
Bullard, Lani Guinier, Manning Marable, and Beverly Tatum.

The Center for Black Studies Research gratefully acknowledges our
co-sponsors for this event: American Cultures & Global Contexts Center,
Asian American Studies, Black Studies, Chicano Studies Institute, Chicano/a
Studies, College of Creative Studies, Feminist Studies, Film and Media
Studies, Global & International Studies, Interdisciplinary Humanities
Center, Luis Leal Endowed Chair, Mbanefo Foundation, MultiCultural Center,
New Racial Studies, Office of Equal Opportunity & Sexual Harassment, Office
of the Chancellor, Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and Office of
the Associate Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Academic Policy.

hm 3/30/10