A Retrospective on African Canadian History

Speaker: Lawrence Hill
June 14-16, 2012
Ticket Price: $16.50 inclusive

As part of the fifth annual Promised Land Symposium “Claiming the Promise: A Retrospective on African Canadian History”, the symposium is offering an evening with award winning and international best-selling Canadian author Lawrence Hill. Among his work including Any Known Blood and Some Great Thing is the critically acclaimed and influential The Book of Negroes.
 Lawrence Hill’s talk this evening will touch on various topics from his personal experiences growing up in suburban Toronto and the effect of that experience on his creative work; his experiences writing about and researching “Black History” in this country and; the themes of this year’s Promised Land Symposium. 
 
Also this evening a special award ceremony will take place as representatives of Distinguished Women in International Service recognize the winners of a local youth Black History writing competition.  

Tickets for Lawrence Hill are available via this website and the Cultural Centre Box Office.
Tickets for the rest of the Promised Land Symposium are available by contacting Devin Andrews dandrewsplp@gmail.com or 519.436.0119 x351
For more information visit promisedland2012.inck.ca

Articulations of memory in cinemas

Friday 02 September – Saturday 03 September 2011
University of Ottawa, Canada

Download the Programme PDF or the timetable in French or English.

The subject of this interdisciplinary and bilingual (French and English) workshop is the articulations of memory in African, diasporic, national, and black cinemas. Representations of memory are linked with the questions of identity and identity structures, because they not only shed light on the past but also reflect on the actual constructions of the past. In our multicultural societies, audio-visual representations of memory seem to question individual identities (Histoires de Sable by Hyacinthe Combari 2004; Corps Plongés by Raoul Peck 1998; Ezra by Newton Aduaka 2006), as far as collectives ones (Camp Thiaroye by Sembene Ousmane 1988; Summer of ‘62 by Medhi Charef 2006; Africa United by Eric Kabera 2010). Through these examples, cinema can be a recording medium in which complex and trans-temporal structures of memory are “rebuilt” or “reinterpreted”.

Presentations

• For The Love of The Subject
  V.Y. Mudimbe
• Temporary Disarticulations
  George Lang
• Cinema In Nigeria
  Past, present and future directions for socio-cultural and economic development
  Levi Chinaka Nwodu
• Ifà Dynamics In Nollywood
  Compositions of memory in the Yoruùbà cosmological strata
  Nomusa Makhubu
• Remediation? Reparation—Reconciliation (And Intermediality)
  The genocide in Rwanda in the francophone documentary
  Marion Froger & Lucie Szechter
• “Reel” Rwandan Memories
  Emerging filmmaking in Rwanda
  Madelaine Hron
• Constructions of Memory
  and representations of history in Camp Thiaroye by Sembène Ousmane
  Fodé Sarr
• Memory And Cultural Transfers
  Reappropriation of memory and recognition of identity in the film Histoire de Sable (2004) by Hyacinthe Combari
  Karine Bertrand
• Mehdi Charef
  A memory of the war of Algeria (all) against an inventory history
  Djemaa Maazouzi
• Memory As Engagement
  The importance of personal histories in Sub-Saharan African cinema
  Sheila Petty
• Black Soul / Âme Noire Martine Chartrand
• Motherland / Chez Moi Mariette Monpierre
• A Time There Was
  Stories from the Last Days of Kenya Colony, 2009
  Donald McWilliams
• Memory And History On The Screen
  Raoul Peck’s Search for Lumumba
  Blandine Stefanson
• Epistemology
  of the process of memory
  Éric Méchoulan
• Amnesia Movies?
  Crossing of “Léthé”
  Pierre Kadi Sossou
• Historical Trauma
  Reading Slavery in the Cinematographic Archive
  Michael Martin
• How To Use Slave Memory
  In the struggle for citizenship: The Pinheiral case
  Pedro Simonard
• Memories of The Slaves, Memories of The Slavers
  Trauma of the Haitian debt
  Cilas Kemedjio
• Estamira, Gabriel, And Moacir
  Unreasoned memories of the Black African legacy in contemporary Brazilian cinema
  Hudson Moura
• Final Synthesis
  Claude-Alain Randriamihaingo

The Promised Land Project (PLP) is a multidisciplinary research project that focuses on the study the role and evolution of the early black settlements in the Chatham-Kent area, whose role has been uncelebrated and contributions neglected.

The description of such communities as the “final stop on the underground railroad” points to a historical ideology suggesting that this extraordinary heritage is simply an ending rather than the birthplace of something significant and unique. It is not widely known that when Canada became a country in 1867, the sixth-largest population group was people of African descent. The Canadian national history still terms these citizens as “fugitive slaves” disregarding their efforts towards the fight to end slavery in the United States, on the implementation of civil rights in modern Canada, and on the social, cultural and economic development of this region.The overall objectives of this project are:

1. to protect primary historical materials
2. to make these materials publicly accessible
3. to support new academic research and teaching
4. to promote community development in this historic region of Canada
5. to use the new knowledge generated by the project to frame current discussions of ethnoracial identity, social justice, migration and Canadian multiculturalism

Purpose

Firstly, the Promised Land Project works to preserve the historical materials documenting the experience of blacks in the Chatham-Kent area. The research team and community partners will create a comprehensive database of letters, tax records, journals, photographs, oral histories, family narratives, newspapers, and other important primary sources.

In a practical sense, it is crucial that the documents and narratives related to the Promised Land Project be preserved properly for most of them are held in fragile settings. For example, many are kept in basements and back rooms, and are often cared for by members of the community who have volunteered their time to gather the documents from families, churches, and town halls in an effort to keep them from being lost. The PLP will help catalogue and preserve these historical documents, covering the period in history beginning with the American Revolution, when this Southern Ontario area first began opening up to settlers in Canada, through to the birth of the modern Civil Rights Movement in Kent, and ending with an assessment of the contemporary black communities.
Then, reaching far beyond the collection and archival of primary materials, the PLP facilitates the integration of these materials and fresh insight within a common body of knowledge created through the interaction of community and academic partners. From this body of knowledge, the PLP team and community partners will develop the following: new educational materials, create new community projects in the arts and in public history, and further the debates on historical and contemporary manifestations of diversity in Canada, encourage new scholarship and teaching. The overall aim is to highlight the historical importance of the Promised Land communities as a pivotal story in Canada’s past, and draw attention to its current relevance as a model of multiculturalism predating the current discourse of multiculturalism in the global age.

Objectives

Central objective of the project is: to protect the primary historical materials and make them publicly accessible to support new academic research and teaching, to promote community development in this historic region of Canada, and to use the new knowledge generated by the project to frame current discussions of ethno racial identity, social justice, migration and Canadian multiculturalism.

• by extrapolating from land records and cross referencing with other primary sources  in order to explore contributions to the community by early blacks in the Chatham and Dawn settlements;
• To document articulations of racial identity and identification as well as inter-racial cooperation (and discrimination) in the context of the black settlement at Chatham and Dawn and to articulate these as a form of pre-multiculturalism community making;
• To create a database that will map and store historical materials in a single comprehensive archive;
• To open opportunities for action research and provide research training to graduate students;
• To contribute to historical frameworks that will inform and bring new insights into contemporary research on migration, race, social justice and multiculturalism;
• To develop educational materials, ranging from scholarly articles and books, interactive CD-ROMs and websites, theatre scripts and photo-essay exposition, for use in schools, universities and other public venues;
• To develop interdisciplinary curricula, integrating a better understanding of social history and social justice issues in the university classroom and in the community;
• To take advantage of the modern technologies of communication in order to render historical facts and documents accessible, (most are currently not centrally collected or widely known.)

Methods

In order to shed light on the experiences and contributions of blacks in Canadian history that have so far been silent from social-historical narratives, the PLP team of researchers will put together scholarly and public educational materials. In addition, they will work with the local community partners and municipalities to produce sustainable historical sites. This will include producing new resources to support local cultural heritage and educative initiatives, complemented with books scholarly articles, documentary video and theatre performances.

Academic Based Outcomes

• Digital preservation and collection of primary historical materials and national archives that will become references for further research;
• Training of graduate students in action-based research;
• Delivery of new scholarship that challenges historical stereotypes of blacks in Canada and creates a greater appreciation of the diverse backgrounds and talents of early black migrations to Canada;
• Creation of long term Canada-US cross border research partnership between all applicants and collaborators research units and institutions, helping to further the understanding of migration patterns, community building and contemporary issues of identity, multiculturalism and social justice. This cross-border research collaboration will be structure as academic symposia, moving from site to site in and across Canada and the US, after the term of this CURA.
• Edited books: in a collaborative was that involved academics and community researchers which will appeal to academic readers and the general public

Community Based Outcomes:

• With the support of the Municipality of Chatham-Kent, the PLP will identify special sites which will display the project markers in the community;
• Create mobile expositions, photo-essays, and theatrical scripts from found-historical artifacts and archives
• Strengthen local research sites and initiatives within the municipality of Chatham-Kent, through workshops, town hall meetings, and local theatre performances
• Establish yearly public events in order to present further research findings

2005

Mariette Monpierre

Mariette Monpierre is a filmmaker and a producer. She completed her Masters Degree in media and languages at the Sorbonne University and Smith College in Massachusetts. She lives in New York. She began her career as a producer at BBDO NY, then created documentaries (Sweet Mickey for President) and films (Rendez-Vous).

Motherland (2005; 5’00). A 10-year old girl from west Indian descent, claims to be at home at Paris, France during the 70’s. This film is part of Paris la Métisse, a feature length collection of 15 different stories.

Ending keynote

George Lang

George Lang is Emeritus Professor in Comparative Literature at the University of Ottawa (Canada). From 2004 to 2009, he was Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ottawa. He published several articles on African literature and poesy.

Three questions arise immediately from the terms set forth for this workshop, and a fourth, the nature of translation, hovers alongside by virtue of the fact that our theme and proceedings are bilingual. What is, or what isn’t, memory? How is memory articulated or deployed in cinema? Are there special ways in and particular ends to which memory is depicted or manipulated in African cinema? This last question begs, however, yet another: is there even an autonomous theoretical object by the name of African cinema, or is this entity a critical construct which, to borrow a now well-worn phrase coined by our distinguished colleague V.Y. Mudimbe, has been invented?

Unreasoned memories of the Black African legacy in contemporary Brazilian cinema

Hudson Moura

Hudson Moura is instructor at Ryerson University (Canada). He has created several Experimental and documentary works in digital video.

Speech as a discourse of the subject “in action” is seen in relation to social context, marked by tensions. These tensions are present in three black voices that retell Brazilian history from a particular perspective. Through mythical discourses, prophecies, fantastic imagery, and artistic endeavours, these voices express their inner worlds in an attempt to reregister their own history and their vision of the world. These three distinct voices, in a “subversive” and marginal way, reinstate the African Black legacy within Brazil’s history, a legacy of which they are very conscious and always reminding their “audiences.” This presentation will analyze the presence and legitimacy of African Black diaspora discourse in recent Brazilian cinema.

Trauma of the Haitian debt

Cilas Kemedjio

Cilas Kemedjio is Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Rochester (USA).

Through the conceptualization of the impossibility of speaking, listening and the remaining silence of trauma, this paper will analyze how the relationships between Haiti and France, haunted by the imposed repair of 1825’s trauma, block the emergence of any shared memory which may works as a site of conciliation between these two countries. To what extent, the French autism is symptomatic of what Glissant calls “the memory of the slavers” when the need to talk which characterized the Haitian may be a sign of a “memory of the slaves”. This analysis will keep in mind the Haitian’s difficulty, victims or butchers, to tell the memory of the recent traumas and more specifically the ravages caused by Duvalier.

The Pinheiral case

Pedro Simonard

Pedro Simonard is Associate Professor at Laval University (Canada). He made several documentaries and main publications on the artistic and cultural representations of Black history in Brazil and anthropological theories.

The Pinheiral jongueira community is known throughout Brazil. Its participants, mostly African-Brazilians, have developed projects and educational activities based on the “jongo”. This presentation will show how which elements and characteristics of the “jongo” were selected by the leaders of Pinheiral jongo community.

Reading Slavery in the Cinematographic Archives

Michael Martin

Michael Martin a Professor at the Department of Communication and Culture and American Studies Program at Indiana University (USA). He is also Director of the Black Film Center/Archive at Indiana University.

This address engages with memory, its historicity and importance to cinematic accounts and readings of historical trauma. It is also about the relevance of memory to the project of world-making. This paper will focus on the filmic depiction of slavery in plantation societies. Two films serve this purpose: Queimada! (1969) by the deceased Italian Marxist, Gillo Pontecorvo and La Rue Cases-Nègres (1982) by the Martinique filmmaker, Euzhan Palcy.

Crossing of “Léthé” Amnesia Movies?

Pierre Kadi Sossou

Pierre Kadi Sossou teaches at the Department of Languages and Modern Literatures at the University of Ottawa (Canada). He is also coordinator of the Canada Research Chair in Literary and Cultural Transfers. His research interests are on literature and cinemas of the African continent and Brazil.

This presentation will propose a philosophical analyze of the cinematographic art based on the study of commercial films, such as The Man Without a Past by Aki Kaurismäki, After Life by Hirokazu Koreeda and Atlântico negro by Renato Barbieri. The objective is to illuminate some specific issues of memory and on the reminiscence that comes when one is physically transported, either with the person’s agreement or by force, from one space to another, from a continent to another, and eschatologicaly from earth life to eternal life. This presentation will analyze these issues through the prism of platoon myth of the crossing of “Léthé”.