|
Percy Johnston (speed Skater)
Percy Edward Johnston (May 18, 1930 – March 20, 1993) was an African-American poet, playwright, and professor. He was also a founder of the Howard Poets and publisher of ''Dasein'' literary journal. Life and career Johnston was born in New York City, son of a jazz drummer and a concert harpist and grandson of a concert singer. Johnston chose not to pursue a career in music, but the influence of his background can be seen in some of his titles such as ''Concerto for a Girl and Convertible'' and “Round about Midnight, Opus# 6.” He was educated in New York City, Washington, DC, and Richmond, Virginia. Before college, Johnston held a number of odd jobs as a florist, a policeman, and a member of the United States Air Force. He attended Howard University where he majored in philosophy and became a founding member of the Howard Poets in 1958. He continued into Howard's graduate English program, also working as a teaching assistant in that department. Washington, DC, remained John ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African-American
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. African Americans constitute the second largest ethno-racial group in the U.S. after White Americans. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of Africans enslaved in the United States. In 2023, an estimated 48.3 million people self-identified as Black, making up 14.4% of the country’s population. This marks a 33% increase since 2000, when there were 36.2 million Black people living in the U.S. African-American history began in the 16th century, with Africans being sold to European slave traders and transported across the Atlantic to the Western Hemisphere. They were sold as slaves to European colonists and put to work on plantations, particularly in the southern colonies. A few were able to achieve freedom through ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Owen Dodson
Owen Vincent Dodson (November 28, 1914 – June 21, 1983) was an American poet, novelist, and playwright. He was one of the leading African-American poets of his time, associated with the generation of black poets following the Harlem Renaissance. He received a fellowship from the Rosenwald Foundation for a series of one-act plays. Biography Born in Brooklyn, New York, US, Dodson attended Thomas Jefferson High School (Brooklyn) June 1932. Studied at Bates College (B.A. 1936) and at the Yale School of Drama (M.F.A. 1939). He taught at Howard University, where he was chair of the Drama Department, from 1940 to 1970, and briefly at Spelman College and Atlanta University.Hatch, James V. ''Sorrow is the Only Faithful One: The Life of Owen Dodson.'' (Illinois, 1993). James V. Hatch has explained that Dodson "is the product of two parallel forces—the Black experience in America with its folk and urban routes, and a classical humanistic education." Dodson's poetry varied wide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beat Poet
The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-World War II era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by members of the Silent Generation in the 1950s, better known as Beatniks. The central elements of Beat culture are the rejection of standard narrative values, making a spiritual quest, the exploration of American and Eastern religions, the rejection of economic materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration. Allen Ginsberg's ''Howl'' (1956), William S. Burroughs' ''Naked Lunch'' (1959), and Jack Kerouac's ''On the Road'' (1957) are among the best-known examples of Beat literature.Charters (1992) ''The Portable Beat Reader''. Both ''Howl'' and ''Naked Lunch'' were the focus of obscenity trials that ultimately helped to liberalize publishing in the United States ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civil Rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' political freedom, freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of society and the State (polity), state. Civil rights generally include ensuring peoples' physical and mental integrity, right to life, life, and safety, protection from discrimination, the right to privacy, the freedom of freedom of thought, thought, freedom of speech, speech, freedom of religion, religion, freedom of the press, press, freedom of assembly, assembly, and freedom of movement, movement. Political rights include natural justice (procedural fairness) in law, such as the rights of the accused, including the right to a fair trial; due process; the right to seek redress or a legal remedy; and rights of Participation (decision making), participation in civil society and politics such as freedom of association, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poetry Reading
A poetry reading is a public oral recitation or performance of poetry. Reading poetry aloud allows the reader to express their own experience through poetry, changing the poem according to their sensibilities. The reader uses pitch and stress, and pauses become apparent. A poetry reading typically takes place on a small stage in a café or bookstore where multiple poets recite their own work. A more prominent poet may be chosen as the " headliner" of such an event and famous poets may also take the stage at a bigger venue such as an amphitheater or college auditorium. How early poems like the '' Illiad'' were transmitted to audiences is not clear. Modern poetry readings only became popular in the last half of the twentieth century, at least in the United States, with stars like Dylan Thomas and Robert Frost. Live poetry reading competitions, called poetry slams and beginning in the 1980s, also remain popular. Background Voice is an active, physical thing in oral poetry. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, hymns, marches, vaudeville song, and dance music. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. However, jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bebop
Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early to mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo (usually exceeding 200 bpm), complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous Modulation (music), changes of key, instrumental virtuosity, and Jazz improvisation, improvisation based on a combination of harmonic structure, the use of scales, and occasional references to the melody. Bebop developed as the younger generation of jazz musicians expanded the creative possibilities of jazz beyond the popular, dance-oriented swing music-style to a new "musician's music" that was not as danceable and demanded close listening.Lott, Eric. Double V, Double-Time: Bebop's Politics of Style. Callaloo, No. 36 (Summer, 1988), pp. 597–605 As bebop was not intended for dancing, it enabled the musicians to play at faster tempos. Bebop musicians explored advanced harmonies, complex syncopation, altered chords, extended chords, cho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cultural Relativism
Cultural relativism is the view that concepts and moral values must be understood in their own cultural context and not judged according to the standards of a different culture. It asserts the equal validity of all points of view and the relative nature of truth, which is determined by an individual or their culture. The concept was established by anthropologist Franz Boas, who first articulated the idea in 1887: "civilization is not something absolute, but...is relative, and... our ideas and conceptions are true only so far as our civilization goes". However, Boas did not use the phrase "cultural relativism". The concept was spread by Boas' students, such as Robert Lowie. The first use of the term recorded in the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' was by philosopher and social theorist Alain Locke in 1924 to describe Lowie's "extreme cultural relativism", found in the latter's 1917 book ''Culture and Ethnology''. The term became common among anthropologists after Boas' de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phenomenology (philosophy)
Phenomenology is a philosophical study and movement largely associated with the early 20th century that seeks to Subjectivity_and_objectivity_(philosophy), objectively investigate the nature of subjective, consciousness, conscious experience. It attempts to describe the universal features of consciousness while avoiding assumptions about the external world, aiming to describe Phenomenon, phenomena as they appear, and to explore the meaning and significance of lived experience. This approach, while philosophical, has found many applications in qualitative research across different scientific disciplines, especially in the social sciences, humanities, Phenomenology (psychology), psychology, and cognitive science, but also in fields as diverse as health sciences, Phenomenology (architecture), architecture, and Human–computer interaction, human-computer interaction, among many others. The application of phenomenology in these fields aims to gain a deeper understanding of subjectiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nationalism
Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History''. Polity, 2010. pp. 9, 25–30; especially with the aim of gaining and maintaining its sovereignty ( self-governance) over its perceived homeland to create a nation-state. It holds that each nation should govern itself, free from outside interference (self-determination), that a nation is a natural and ideal basis for a polity, and that the nation is the only rightful source of political power. It further aims to build and maintain a single national identity, based on a combination of shared social characteristics such as culture, ethnicity, geographic location, language, politics (or the government), religion, traditions and belief in a shared singular history, and to promote national unity or solidarity. There are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aesthetics
Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,'' , accessed on 15 September 2024. Aesthetics examines values about, and Critical thinking, critical judgments of, artistic taste and preference. It thus studies how Artist, artists imagine, create, and perform works of art, as well as how people use, enjoy, and criticize art. Aesthetics considers why people consider certain things beautiful and not others, as well as how objects of beauty and art can affect our moods and our beliefs. Aesthetics tries to find answers to what exactly is art and what makes good art. It considers what happens in our minds when we view Visual arts, visual art, listen to music, read poetry, enjoy delicious food, and engage in large artistic projects like creating and experiencing plays, fashion shows ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Arts Movement
The Black Arts Movement (BAM) was an African Americans, African-American-led art movement that was active during the 1960s and 1970s. Through activism and art, BAM created new cultural institutions and conveyed a message of black pride. The movement expanded from the accomplishments of artists of the Harlem Renaissance. Famously referred to by Larry Neal as the "aesthetic and spiritual sister of Black Power", BAM applied these same political ideas to Visual arts, art and literature. and artists found new inspiration in their African heritage as a way to present the African-American culture, black experience in America. Artists such as Aaron Douglas (artist), Aaron Douglas, Hale Woodruff, and Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller pioneered the movement with a distinctly modernist aesthetic. This style influenced the proliferation of African American art during the twentieth century. The poet and playwright Amiri Baraka is widely recognized as the founder of BAM. In 1965, he established the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
