Guest Seminar with Dr Douglas Field
Thursday 10th December | 5:30-7:00pm | Microsoft Teams
For our fourth
session – and last of 2020 – we are welcoming Dr. Douglas Field! Dr. Field is a
Senior Lecturer in 20th Century American Literature at the
University of Manchester. He is also a co-founding editor of the James
Baldwin Review. He will be chairing the session and has chosen to discuss
Baldwin’s essay ‘Stranger in the Village’ (1953) and Teju Cole’s 2014 rereading
of Baldwin, titled ‘Black Body’.
Baldwin’s essay
describes his experiences in a remote village in Switzerland, a place he
believes he may be the first black man ever to visit. Recounting the reception
he receives from the inhabitants, he compares the village to the “West” and
turns his attention back to the US. He argues that while he may be considered a
stranger in the Swiss village, no American has the ‘luxury’ of being able to
look on their black countrymen as strangers.
Cole’s response
describes his own experience and reflections as he retraces Baldwin’s steps and
returns to the village more than 60 years later.
The meeting will
be hosted on Microsoft Teams. To join us on Thursday 10th December
for the meeting, please email Joseph on en17jog@leeds.ac.uk.
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