This student-curated exhibition was created as part of the American civilization course, Jewish Americans: Film and Comics, taught by Paul Buhle. The seminar examined the rise of Jewish themes and personnel in the Hollywood film, comic strips, and comic books, and studies the ways in which the role of Jewish Americans have shaped popular art forms and developed new understandings of art. The exhibition featured art spanning more than a century, Yiddish and English languages, famous artists (Rube Goldberg, Will Eisner, Jules Feifer, R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman) and today's rising young stars. As part of the exhibition, James Sturm, comic artist and the director of the Center for Cartoon Studies, delivered a keynote address.
Press release from Brown University Media Services
November 20, 2008 – January 30, 2009
John Nicholas Brown Center
357 Benefit Street
Monday – Friday, 2 – 5 p.m.
Emancipated Memories: Uncovering the Hidden Faces of Slavery was a solo exhibition of the work of New England artist Cora Marshall, whose mixed media artwork draws from the history and legacy of slavery. Her portraits of slave women, men, and children combine archival documents, in the form of sale and runaway advertisements, to make connections to the past and honor the memory of lives in pursuit of freedom.
February 5 – April 5, 2009
John Nicholas Brown Center
357 Benefit Street
Monday – Friday, 2 – 5 p.m.
More events related to the Emancipated Memories exhibition
In the spring of 2008, students enrolled in AMCV1903G: Oral History and Community Memory, embarked on a project to document the history of Providence’s Fox Point neighborhood. Fox Point, an area that borders the Brown University campus, currently serves as a home to students and staff from the nearby universities, numerous restaurants and upscale shops, and India Point Park, now a destination for boaters, soccer players, walkers, and joggers. Before the 1960s, however, Fox Point’s residents – primarily first and second-generation immigrant families from Portugal and Cape Verde – labored on the waterfront, worked in industries, worshipped at the neighborhood’s churches – Holy Rosary, Sheldon Street, and St. Joseph’s – and managed the corner markets and ethnic bars that dotted the area. The rerouting of highway I-195, now under construction, promises even further transformations in Fox Point.
In order to understand the causes and the impact of these changes, students in the class, under the direction of Anne Valk, associate director for programs at the JNBC, set out to record life history interviews with current and former residents, business owners, and others with a stake in the area. The students collected approximately 35 interviews that will become available through Brown University’s digital library and, in their original form, at the John Hay Library. Using their interviews, along with photographs generously provided by Mr. Lou Costa, the class created a children’s book and audio documentaries, and a Web site, where further information will be made available, is under development
The research and presentation of materials about Fox Point is ongoing and will continue with future classes.
Learn more about the Fox Point Community History Project and Faces of Fox Point
JEWS AND AMERICAN COMICS
This student-curated exhibition is based on research done by Paul Buhle in his recent book, Jews and American Comics: An Illustrated History of an American Art Form.
EMANCIPATED MEMORIES
Cora Marshall's piece Hannah was inspired by an advertisement for a runaway slave published in the the Connecticut Courant and Weekly Intelligencer in 1784.
faces of fox point
Students from the public humanities program created an exhibit on the history of Fox Point for the walls of the Vartan Gregorian Elementary School.