CURRENTS: Earl Brooks and Bill Shewbridge
Humanities Work Now
CURRENTS: Humanities Work Now
is lunchtime series that showcases exciting new faculty work in the humanities
in a dynamic and inter-disciplinary setting.
Get Out, Sorry to Bother You, and the Sonics of White Supremacy
Earl Brooks, Assistant Professor, English; Inclusion Imperative Faculty Collaborator (Fall 2021)
Earl Brooks explores the symbolism of
sound in the films Get Out (2017) and
Sorry to Bother You (2018). Through
an expansion of the rhetorical implications of Michel Chion’s notions of the
semiotic function of sound (onscreen, offscreen and nondiegetic), this talk
positions these two films within the intersection of sonic rhetorics and
racialized oppression. Get Out,
directed by Jordan Peele, lays bare the social anxieties of our current
political moment of emboldened white supremacy, while Sorry to Bother You, directed by Boots Riley, grapples with the
nuances of voice and racial identity as a critical intervention in the long
history of racial passing narratives.
AND
“I’ve Endured”: The Music and Legacy of Ola Belle Reed
Bill Shewbridge, Professor of the Practice, Media and Communication Studies; Dresher Center Summer Faculty Fellow (Summer 2021)
Bill Shewbridge will discuss his
upcoming documentary on musician/songwriter Ola Belle Campbell Reed
(1916-2002). Ola Belle’s story mirrors that of more than 20 million
southerners, who migrated to the north and west in search of work between 1900
and 1980. More information on the film is at olabellefilm.org.
Image description: Side by side photos - On the left, a man wearing a suit, gestures while speaking. On the right, a black and white close up on the face of a man with white hair and a beard.