1 00:00:08,940 --> 00:00:15,660 Good evening and thank you for joining us for the first in a series of four terror elections in American art. 2 00:00:15,660 --> 00:00:22,500 The series is sponsored by the Tara Foundation for American Art, which is dedicated to fostering exploration, 3 00:00:22,500 --> 00:00:29,860 understanding and enjoyment of the visual arts of the United States for national and international audiences. 4 00:00:29,860 --> 00:00:33,910 In collaboration with the Department of History of Art at Oxford and Worcester College, 5 00:00:33,910 --> 00:00:40,190 Oxford, the foundation grants an annual scholarship to a leading scholar of American art. 6 00:00:40,190 --> 00:00:43,070 My name is Phillip Bullock. Director of Torch, 7 00:00:43,070 --> 00:00:51,770 the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities Torch is delighted to host this lecture series as part of our Big Tent Life Event series, 8 00:00:51,770 --> 00:01:00,470 which forms part of the humanities cultural programme. One of the founding stones for the future, Stephen A. Schwartzmann Centre for the Humanities. 9 00:01:00,470 --> 00:01:03,320 If you have any questions during this evening's lecture, 10 00:01:03,320 --> 00:01:12,090 then please do put them in the YouTube chat box and we'll do our best to answer as many of them as we can by the end of the session. 11 00:01:12,090 --> 00:01:17,970 Tonight's lecturer, Amy Mooney, visiting professor in American Art for twenty nineteen twenty. 12 00:01:17,970 --> 00:01:27,550 We'll be introduced by Professor Alister Wright, head of the History of Art Department and Tutorial Fellow in. 13 00:01:27,550 --> 00:01:34,320 Just publications include Mateys and the Subject of Modernism from 2004 and Paradise Remembered. 14 00:01:34,320 --> 00:01:44,050 No, I know a suite from two thatt and he has also published essays and articles on topics ranging from Case on Dongen to Maximilian Luce to Ford, 15 00:01:44,050 --> 00:01:47,500 Maddox, Brown and non Western modern listeners. 16 00:01:47,500 --> 00:01:54,190 So it's my great pleasure to welcome Alice to this evening and without further ado, to hand the proceedings over to him. 17 00:01:54,190 --> 00:01:58,490 Thank you. Thank you, Philip. 18 00:01:58,490 --> 00:02:04,330 And thanks to all the other people at Torch who have helped so much in setting up this event. 19 00:02:04,330 --> 00:02:10,640 I'd also like to join Phillip in thanking the Terra Foundation for American Art and Worcester College, Oxford, 20 00:02:10,640 --> 00:02:14,780 both of whom have provided very generous support not only for this lecture series, 21 00:02:14,780 --> 00:02:21,110 but also for the visiting professor programme that has brought Professor Amy Mooney to Oxford this year. 22 00:02:21,110 --> 00:02:26,750 The terror programme has been utterly transformational for the study of American art in Oxford. 23 00:02:26,750 --> 00:02:33,440 Each year that we have a professor, it's built up an ever expanding group of students and faculty who are engaged with American art. 24 00:02:33,440 --> 00:02:38,810 So, again, thank you to the terror. Thank you to you, sir, for making this possible. 25 00:02:38,810 --> 00:02:43,190 It is a real pleasure to introduce Amy today. She is a wonderful colleague. 26 00:02:43,190 --> 00:02:53,860 And since arriving as the terror professor in October, she has in innumerable ways enriched the study of American art and culture here in Oxford. 27 00:02:53,860 --> 00:03:00,130 At the end of the year, she will return to her permanent position as associate professor at Columbia College, Chicago, 28 00:03:00,130 --> 00:03:08,740 where she teaches courses on modern and contemporary American art with a particular focus on African-American art and visual culture. 29 00:03:08,740 --> 00:03:16,600 This is a field in which she has published widely. In 2004, her brilliant monograph on the Chicago painter Archibald J. 30 00:03:16,600 --> 00:03:22,450 Mottley Junior appeared in the David C. Driskell series on African-American art. 31 00:03:22,450 --> 00:03:33,850 Amy has also contributed to numerous anthologies and catalogues. These include, to name just a few remain appeared in the Modernist Tradition 2009. 32 00:03:33,850 --> 00:03:42,230 Black is Black. Eight 2013. Archibald Mufleh Jazz Age Modernist 2014. 33 00:03:42,230 --> 00:03:49,700 And most recently, The Armed Face. New Perspectives in Portraiture 2018. 34 00:03:49,700 --> 00:03:56,180 AIDS research has contributed enormously to our understanding both of the careers of a number of important but understudied 35 00:03:56,180 --> 00:04:06,290 artists and of the wider political and racial discourses by which art and portraiture have been and often still are framed. 36 00:04:06,290 --> 00:04:09,410 The high esteem in which a scholarship is held is reflected in a series of 37 00:04:09,410 --> 00:04:14,860 prestigious fellowships awarded by the American Council of Learnt Study Societies, 38 00:04:14,860 --> 00:04:23,060 the Black Metropolis Research Consortium, in association with the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the National Portrait Gallery, 39 00:04:23,060 --> 00:04:29,900 the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Tara Foundation for American Art. 40 00:04:29,900 --> 00:04:39,200 Amy is currently working on two major research projects. The first entitled titled Say It With Pictures Then and Now is a collaboration with the photo 41 00:04:39,200 --> 00:04:44,690 historian Deborah Willis at the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College, 42 00:04:44,690 --> 00:04:51,470 Chicago, taking the form of a digital humanities project together with an exhibition and catalogue. 43 00:04:51,470 --> 00:04:58,520 Say It With Pictures recovers and critically examines the work of African-American photographers active in Chicago. 44 00:04:58,520 --> 00:05:06,470 Between the 80s, 90s and the 1930s, the second major project on which Amy is currently working is a book entitled 45 00:05:06,470 --> 00:05:12,890 Portraits of Noteworthy Character Negotiating a Collective American Identity, 46 00:05:12,890 --> 00:05:15,380 to be published by Duke University Press. 47 00:05:15,380 --> 00:05:24,090 The book investigates the ways in which individuals and institutions used portraiture to affect social change. 48 00:05:24,090 --> 00:05:30,110 What we'll hear today in this, the first of Amy's four terror lectures draws on material from that book. 49 00:05:30,110 --> 00:05:40,300 I'm very excited to hear what she has to say and I'm sure the audience is also. So without further ado, I will hand over to Amy. 50 00:05:40,300 --> 00:05:46,450 Thank you, Alastair, for that very kind introduction and thank you all for joining us today for these lectures. 51 00:05:46,450 --> 00:05:52,480 I very much appreciate also Alastair's willingness to be the moderator for the post lecture discussion. 52 00:05:52,480 --> 00:05:56,170 I, too, would like to express my appreciation for my colleagues in the Department of the 53 00:05:56,170 --> 00:06:01,390 History of Art at Oxford and at Wooster College who have so warmly welcomed me. 54 00:06:01,390 --> 00:06:06,460 I must also offer profound gratitude to the Terra Foundation and to Columbia College, 55 00:06:06,460 --> 00:06:13,330 Chicago for supporting such opportunities, as well as my Oxford students who I am been so privileged to work with. 56 00:06:13,330 --> 00:06:17,800 Finally, I need to express my sincere appreciation to our colleagues at Oxford Research 57 00:06:17,800 --> 00:06:32,600 Centre for the Humanities for providing the platform for this evening's Lifestream. 58 00:06:32,600 --> 00:06:38,060 This is the first of a four part lecture series, as Allaster said, that is drawn from my forthcoming book, 59 00:06:38,060 --> 00:06:42,800 Portraits of Noteworthy Character Negotiating a Collective American Identity, 60 00:06:42,800 --> 00:06:49,250 in which I explore the central role that Porchester played in fostering social change in the United States as 61 00:06:49,250 --> 00:06:56,630 progressive individuals and institutions relied on its cultural capital to further their political ideologies. 62 00:06:56,630 --> 00:07:02,720 Today's lecture examines the factors that influence the development of pedagogical strategies for reading 63 00:07:02,720 --> 00:07:08,720 and realising the portrait as conceived for students at historically black colleges and universities. 64 00:07:08,720 --> 00:07:17,480 During the post bellum era and its dissemination then to broader audiences through popular media, visual culture and fine art. 65 00:07:17,480 --> 00:07:25,460 Looking to illustrations and early photography, I will trace the precedents for the ideological situating of black subjectivity within 66 00:07:25,460 --> 00:07:31,310 the politics of respectability that later will inform the retort trope of the new Negro, 67 00:07:31,310 --> 00:07:46,710 which we further explored in the lecture on June 1st. I'd like to begin with two of the most iconic portraits of Americans ever produced. 68 00:07:46,710 --> 00:07:47,160 In fact, 69 00:07:47,160 --> 00:07:57,090 I'm going to use these portraits as a sort of anchor for the lecture series is that you represent two Americans held in the highest of regards. 70 00:07:57,090 --> 00:08:03,600 It's an interesting turn of phrase, took hold, one high in regard signalling the feelings of respect, 71 00:08:03,600 --> 00:08:08,190 admiration, perhaps even an underlying desire for emulation. 72 00:08:08,190 --> 00:08:12,960 Regard expresses connectivity as in regards to this matter. 73 00:08:12,960 --> 00:08:20,730 And finally, perhaps most importantly, for an art historian to regard is to look and by all means. 74 00:08:20,730 --> 00:08:26,430 These are amongst the most looked at contemporary portraits in vaccines they're unveiling in. 75 00:08:26,430 --> 00:08:32,790 More than four million people have visited the Natural Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., to see these portraits. 76 00:08:32,790 --> 00:08:39,450 Their popularity is such that Director Kim's agent organised a five city nationwide tour of the portraits 77 00:08:39,450 --> 00:08:45,010 to give audiences who might not otherwise have an opportunity to see these remarkable paintings. 78 00:08:45,010 --> 00:08:47,220 And according to the gallery's Web site quote, 79 00:08:47,220 --> 00:08:56,640 This special presentation will enhance the conversation surrounding the power of portraiture and its potential to engage communities and quote, 80 00:08:56,640 --> 00:09:00,680 Indeed, people are engaged with these portraits. 81 00:09:00,680 --> 00:09:09,210 The ubiquitous selfie with portraits with their subsequent circulation within social media testifies to the desire to be seen with, 82 00:09:09,210 --> 00:09:13,020 associated with and defined by these portraits. 83 00:09:13,020 --> 00:09:21,480 Though we certainly could argue that there are compelling works of art masterfully in innovatively rendered by Candi Wiley in any shelled, 84 00:09:21,480 --> 00:09:28,710 I'm not entirely convinced that this phenomena can be explained as a massive wave of newly found art appreciation. 85 00:09:28,710 --> 00:09:40,920 Instead, I want to query if these portraits serve as a primer teaching us how to look and how to be see both as individuals and as a nation. 86 00:09:40,920 --> 00:09:46,650 The Obamas represent a set of collectively held values that have long defined American aspirations, 87 00:09:46,650 --> 00:09:52,020 including ambition, optimism and perseverance in the face of adversity. 88 00:09:52,020 --> 00:09:58,710 For eight years, they literally performed the body politic in taking a portrait with representations of them. 89 00:09:58,710 --> 00:10:04,470 Perhaps it's possible to identify these characteristics within oneself and align oneself 90 00:10:04,470 --> 00:10:10,920 with the body politic represented by the first African-American president and first lady. 91 00:10:10,920 --> 00:10:19,320 Then by sharing on social media. This portrait of a portrait becomes an opportunity to negotiate one's place within the collective. 92 00:10:19,320 --> 00:10:27,780 Extending self-determination into the public sphere. The portrait allows for critical consideration of one's self in relation to others, 93 00:10:27,780 --> 00:10:35,100 teaching lessons of value to looking and its subsequent determinations of the social, political and economic status. 94 00:10:35,100 --> 00:10:39,250 It can be an empowering medium through which one can subvert the status quo. 95 00:10:39,250 --> 00:10:43,980 Yet at the same time be subject to historic hierarchies and inequities. 96 00:10:43,980 --> 00:10:48,480 For this reason, a historic examination of the ways that we categorise, 97 00:10:48,480 --> 00:10:54,900 compare and connect with one another through portraiture seems not only relevant, but necessary. 98 00:10:54,900 --> 00:10:59,760 There are many points within the United States history upon which one could press this enquiry. 99 00:10:59,760 --> 00:11:06,300 But the one that seems most charged is in the 80s 90s, especially after the Supreme Court decision, 100 00:11:06,300 --> 00:11:10,890 Plessy vs. Ferguson, with the passing of legal segregation. 101 00:11:10,890 --> 00:11:17,160 The ability to discern categorise racial identity took on a new urgency. 102 00:11:17,160 --> 00:11:21,120 Evaluative looking. The scrutiny attended to skin tone, 103 00:11:21,120 --> 00:11:26,850 hair texture and facial features afforded the denial of citizenship in the inequalities of Jim 104 00:11:26,850 --> 00:11:33,090 Crow and the terrorism of white supremacy in an effort to counter these oppressive measures. 105 00:11:33,090 --> 00:11:41,850 African-Americans develop strategies of resistance that drew upon the categories of class and gender and the values of dignity and respect. 106 00:11:41,850 --> 00:11:49,350 Examining the sources that conditioned American visuality reveals why the Obama portraits are in fact held in such high 107 00:11:49,350 --> 00:12:00,120 regard during an era marked by racist stereotypes that sought to dehumanise black subjects as seen in this character. 108 00:12:00,120 --> 00:12:09,920 I would just call the press. Science and spacecraft is just a little out of order. 109 00:12:09,920 --> 00:12:17,000 Here we go. Our first two start primer directly addresses self fashion in a conversational manner. 110 00:12:17,000 --> 00:12:24,020 The African-American author Elias Inwood queries See girls, I know you'd like to take pictures. 111 00:12:24,020 --> 00:12:32,690 Naturally pretty, wouldn't you? Well, the next time you give your photographer Sediq be yourselves and well, published in 1899, 112 00:12:32,690 --> 00:12:41,210 the Negro in Adequate Novelty counselled African-American audiences through text and illustration that walked a fine line between sincerity, 113 00:12:41,210 --> 00:12:46,130 satire and stereotype. Then we followed a late 19th century gendered prescription. 114 00:12:46,130 --> 00:12:48,860 The girls would desire to be naturally pretty. 115 00:12:48,860 --> 00:12:57,770 What was unique in addressing photographies role in generating a representation of a real self and what constitutes such a consciousness? 116 00:12:57,770 --> 00:13:03,890 In a chapter titled Primping the Face would advise sitters that they should avoid peppering the lips, 117 00:13:03,890 --> 00:13:12,050 squinting and even allowed for some short haired girls, if necessary, to wear wigs as long as it was not intended to deceive the boys here. 118 00:13:12,050 --> 00:13:17,300 These are his words. Yet the author's most critical and repeated charge is that the photographic 119 00:13:17,300 --> 00:13:22,880 portrait provides an opportunity to fashion an assured like this so distinctly 120 00:13:22,880 --> 00:13:27,290 in a tone that simultaneously chiding and encouraging would address as one of 121 00:13:27,290 --> 00:13:31,130 the most critical issues facing African-Americans at the turn of the century. 122 00:13:31,130 --> 00:13:45,280 That of self representation. 123 00:13:45,280 --> 00:13:53,420 An era marked by racist stereotypes that sought to dehumanise black subjects as seen in this caricature from the World's Columbian Exposition. 124 00:13:53,420 --> 00:14:00,830 The other calls for self-determination and self acceptance, recognising the potential of the portrait as a tool for social change. 125 00:14:00,830 --> 00:14:06,500 His words also resonate with the developments in contemporary thinking that propose the possibility of modern 126 00:14:06,500 --> 00:14:15,770 black objectivity that sought to reconcile how one saw oneself versus how that himself was seen by others. 127 00:14:15,770 --> 00:14:21,820 The etching that accompanies Wood's recommendations illustrates the development of self criticality for black subjects. 128 00:14:21,820 --> 00:14:26,730 It also satirically works against the subject's the ability to see men. 129 00:14:26,730 --> 00:14:33,190 Yet readers are presented with an African-American woman seated in a white photographer's studio, positioned in profile. 130 00:14:33,190 --> 00:14:37,080 She's formally dressed with a hat adorned with flowers and feathers. 131 00:14:37,080 --> 00:14:43,690 Her ramrod straight posture is facilitated by the heads down attached to the divine upon which she's seated. 132 00:14:43,690 --> 00:14:50,650 Despite the degree of detail in the setting and clothing, the women's facial features are not distinctly legible due to the artist's reliance 133 00:14:50,650 --> 00:14:55,780 on a heavy layering of black lines to generate the tonal values of her skin. 134 00:14:55,780 --> 00:15:02,710 It's as if the meeting medium itself thwarts the possibility of the subject and the viewer from seeing her real self. 135 00:15:02,710 --> 00:15:09,910 Ironically, the use of etching to represent photography prevents the exact ITU promised by the new technology. 136 00:15:09,910 --> 00:15:18,550 As if reading the woman's mind, the words into argumentum appear just below the figure and the photographer looking askance at his subject, 137 00:15:18,550 --> 00:15:22,120 removed lens to begin the exposure in the farming scene. 138 00:15:22,120 --> 00:15:29,440 The scene woman with her Hattan waistcoat removed holds up her portrait with her mouth open and exclaims, That's not me. 139 00:15:29,440 --> 00:15:35,800 As if she does not recognise her own Bosarge. Although the woman holds the resulting object of her scrutiny, 140 00:15:35,800 --> 00:15:42,700 she cannot see herself as she was seen by the photographer is strange from her image and therefore from her real self. 141 00:15:42,700 --> 00:15:47,860 The woman demonstrates the need for proper self criticality advocated by the author. 142 00:15:47,860 --> 00:15:54,970 The overarching lesson is that such an experience is embarrassing but can be avoided by following the rules of respectability, 143 00:15:54,970 --> 00:15:59,620 honing one's visual acuity and consciously constructing one's representation. 144 00:15:59,620 --> 00:16:07,330 Thus not only becoming what would defines as the real self, but also how to hold that self in high regard. 145 00:16:07,330 --> 00:16:14,660 This text in image testified to the impact of prescriptive literature on the formation of a black modern subjectivity, 146 00:16:14,660 --> 00:16:21,640 and then one to consider how the ideation of respectability is presented by words and other prescriptive artists and authors was 147 00:16:21,640 --> 00:16:30,510 a set aside and internalised into a visual language that affected the portrayal in regard of African American subjectivity. 148 00:16:30,510 --> 00:16:35,340 Respectability, projections of chastity, intelligence, nobility, self-control, 149 00:16:35,340 --> 00:16:44,580 self-awareness and virtue were amongst the values espoused in direct contradiction to the racist caricatures that dominated popular culture. 150 00:16:44,580 --> 00:16:54,840 As the pads diagram from Boldon Thoughts testifies, the politics of respectability were profoundly gendered and structured by class and skin colour. 151 00:16:54,840 --> 00:17:01,500 With advancements in printing, illustrations and photographs played a significant role in communicating how respectability might be 152 00:17:01,500 --> 00:17:09,330 visualised and thereby realised the main focus on case studies were written by and for African-Americans. 153 00:17:09,330 --> 00:17:14,370 The publication and circulation of etiquette text are part of a larger discursive movement in the 154 00:17:14,370 --> 00:17:20,310 United States that encouraged the adoption of certain social conventions as a means of becoming urban, 155 00:17:20,310 --> 00:17:26,700 modern selves worthy of citizenship from the late 18th 70s well into the early 20th century. 156 00:17:26,700 --> 00:17:35,820 A surge of prescriptive literature sought to fulfil the promise of democracy for its ever evolving citizenry. 157 00:17:35,820 --> 00:17:41,340 Immigrants and migrants alike were directed to the text with injunctions on manners, deportment, 158 00:17:41,340 --> 00:17:50,040 character building and household management as a means of conforming to a Middle-Class Progressivist idea of the American citizen. 159 00:17:50,040 --> 00:17:55,470 Due to developments in publishing distribution through direct mail and cereal formats and newspapers, 160 00:17:55,470 --> 00:17:59,400 these guides became financially accessible and widely available. 161 00:17:59,400 --> 00:18:06,360 Their lessons were promptly promoted widely from the pulpit to the classroom to the platform of the daily press. 162 00:18:06,360 --> 00:18:12,750 For African-American audiences, these prescriptions were picked up, picked up the vestiges of abolitionist literature, 163 00:18:12,750 --> 00:18:20,940 informing the pedagogy of historically black colleges and universities. 164 00:18:20,940 --> 00:18:23,160 At Hampton University, for example, 165 00:18:23,160 --> 00:18:31,140 on habits and manners promise a better life for those who earnestly and persistently followed its principles, laws of good society. 166 00:18:31,140 --> 00:18:35,160 Similar sentiment was espoused in Hall's moral and mental capsule. 167 00:18:35,160 --> 00:18:42,420 The determination of what comprises, though a good society or even a better life merits critical consideration, 168 00:18:42,420 --> 00:18:48,480 given that self realisation and representation is never unequivocal. 169 00:18:48,480 --> 00:18:55,350 The definition of who and what constitutes polite behaviour reveals and reifies social hierarchies. 170 00:18:55,350 --> 00:18:59,550 Scholars have really considered etiquette as a divisive force between classes. 171 00:18:59,550 --> 00:19:02,760 Yet to an era fraught with the oppositional politics of Booker T. 172 00:19:02,760 --> 00:19:09,900 Washington and DWB Dubois, the codes of conduct proved to be a viable means of self determination, 173 00:19:09,900 --> 00:19:19,590 whether in support of strategies of accommodation and self-help or the agency of the elite talented tenth conduct manuals deeply influenced. 174 00:19:19,590 --> 00:19:27,810 Have students learnt to look at themselves and others. Course catalogues from the 80s 90s well into the 1920s at Atlantic University. 175 00:19:27,810 --> 00:19:34,440 Hampton and Fisk included required classes in elocution, morality and manners. 176 00:19:34,440 --> 00:19:43,110 Students who took photography classes with Kornelius Embody at Tuskegee Institute not only learnt how to lie and position their subjects, 177 00:19:43,110 --> 00:19:50,910 but we're also exposed to the self evaluative prescriptions. Bhatti's classroom handouts, such as the Ten Commandments, cornflake, 178 00:19:50,910 --> 00:20:01,180 moral responsibility with self imaging continuing the character lessons that Washington had delivered in the chapel talks at Tuskegee. 179 00:20:01,180 --> 00:20:06,250 Purchase provided documentation of having good moral character in the critical consciousness of 180 00:20:06,250 --> 00:20:12,010 how its performance impacted others because of the deeply ingrained racism that marked this era. 181 00:20:12,010 --> 00:20:18,370 One cannot avoid the heavy charge of the portrait, which is why WGC two boys assemble the collection of portraits to demonstrate to the 182 00:20:18,370 --> 00:20:24,850 world the social and economic progress of the African-Americans since the Civil War. 183 00:20:24,850 --> 00:20:33,550 And yet, even in its most quotidian role of documenting the everyday life of black subjects, the portrait bore the weight of subjugation. 184 00:20:33,550 --> 00:20:37,870 Although subjects can negotiate the correction, correctives of coercion and constraint, 185 00:20:37,870 --> 00:20:44,590 every image of African-Americans was subject to the same visual scrutiny that historically had been used to deny, 186 00:20:44,590 --> 00:20:52,300 refute and decimate the black body by looking to the influential strategies offered by the authors of prescriptive literature. 187 00:20:52,300 --> 00:20:58,270 We come to a better understanding of the purpose of portraiture, both in its possibilities and limitations, 188 00:20:58,270 --> 00:21:06,550 in securing one's presence, recognising one's ambition and assuring one's absolute insistence on personhood. 189 00:21:06,550 --> 00:21:10,810 Considering the context in which the illustrated text are created and consulted, 190 00:21:10,810 --> 00:21:18,100 I argue that etiquette afforded the opportunity to disassemble society expectations encounter the racist assertion that 191 00:21:18,100 --> 00:21:28,930 civility was the exclusive property of whiteness and could only be enacted by African-Americans as a form of mimicry. 192 00:21:28,930 --> 00:21:31,750 Though interactions through interactions presented in books, 193 00:21:31,750 --> 00:21:37,630 newspapers and periodicals and posit etiquette as a means of mobility for the working class, 194 00:21:37,630 --> 00:21:43,690 the rising black middle class also employed it as a distinguishing buffer against racism. 195 00:21:43,690 --> 00:21:48,970 Further, the proliferation of advice literature during this era reflects a shift in the black athletes attitude 196 00:21:48,970 --> 00:21:56,900 toward the masses as they adopted complicated positions that were both inclusive and exclusive. 197 00:21:56,900 --> 00:22:02,630 Dubois advocated that the study and presentation of values collectively held by African-Americans would refute, 198 00:22:02,630 --> 00:22:08,150 quote, a deep seated feeling that the real bias basis of colour prejudice in America is, 199 00:22:08,150 --> 00:22:11,360 in fact that Negroes as a race are rude, 200 00:22:11,360 --> 00:22:17,630 thoughtless and manners and altogether quite hopeless and sexual morals in regards to property rights and reverence for truth. 201 00:22:17,630 --> 00:22:24,020 And it is 1914 nationwide survey. Morals and manners are run amongst Negro Americans. 202 00:22:24,020 --> 00:22:28,460 Counter the false generalisations of inherent black inferiority. 203 00:22:28,460 --> 00:22:35,130 With the presentation of specific social circumstances that prevented full participation, incivility including poverty, 204 00:22:35,130 --> 00:22:44,240 a lack of education and employment as well as Jim Crow practises as part of the moral awakening called for by Dubois, 205 00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:49,220 the author, so prescriptive that Ature assume public roles and iconographic positions within 206 00:22:49,220 --> 00:22:54,500 the community of black elite becoming advocates and potential models to emulate. 207 00:22:54,500 --> 00:23:01,130 It, as several scholars have noted, their self-help ideology espoused within prescriptive literature was more likely to perpetuate a 208 00:23:01,130 --> 00:23:08,180 psychology of compulsion and coercion than a realisation of self autonomy and social equality. 209 00:23:08,180 --> 00:23:15,320 Further, the purported uplift of respectability reveals that the desperate circumstances in which black elites 210 00:23:15,320 --> 00:23:21,800 defensively appropriated dominant racist theories reaffirming their own positions of privilege and power, 211 00:23:21,800 --> 00:23:28,040 beginning with the first wave of the great migrations, many believed that their so-called racial progress was threatened by public 212 00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:32,720 deportment and social practises of migrants in order to protect their status. 213 00:23:32,720 --> 00:23:36,980 Many saw etiquette as a means of continuing the promises of the reconstruction, 214 00:23:36,980 --> 00:23:43,670 generating proof that African-Americans merited full civil rights through agendas of uplift. 215 00:23:43,670 --> 00:23:46,580 The codes of respectability were widely disseminated. 216 00:23:46,580 --> 00:23:53,450 Yet there were audiences who did not meet or even desire to a teen particular aspirations of the bourgeoisie. 217 00:23:53,450 --> 00:23:57,500 For some, the circulation and codification of comportment allowed emulation. 218 00:23:57,500 --> 00:24:03,740 But others approached such materials with a sceptical negotiation and or outright rejection. 219 00:24:03,740 --> 00:24:06,590 Too often within the history of American portraiture, 220 00:24:06,590 --> 00:24:11,720 representations of black subjects are read only through the lens of a progressive racial character. 221 00:24:11,720 --> 00:24:16,790 This chapter in my book, Seeds, seeks to interrupt incompetent hate that trajectory, 222 00:24:16,790 --> 00:24:22,400 calling out the agency of black subjects as they sought to imagine better selves and better futures. 223 00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:28,220 That did not necessarily conform to a singular vision of middle class propriety in these sources. 224 00:24:28,220 --> 00:24:32,870 We see the complex negotiations that engage black subjects as they determine the values and 225 00:24:32,870 --> 00:24:40,550 behaviours that constituted their own personhood and how that personhood could be represented. 226 00:24:40,550 --> 00:24:48,080 Instead of a fixed point, the real self called for by words and others necessitated the malleability and multibillions of performance. 227 00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:54,410 It's a continual process of negotiation between self and society is performative and situational. 228 00:24:54,410 --> 00:24:59,630 Be it sincere internalisation, hostile rejection or an ambivalent acknowledgement. 229 00:24:59,630 --> 00:25:07,310 This chapter elucidates the ways that the performance of the polite informs the formation of a modern black's objectivity. 230 00:25:07,310 --> 00:25:11,300 To understand the interdependence of portraiture and the performance of the polite. 231 00:25:11,300 --> 00:25:14,240 Let's return to the Negro in etiquette. 232 00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:21,020 While their lives and words offered African-American audiences strategies for achieving social equality through self-improvement, 233 00:25:21,020 --> 00:25:26,030 inspired by the success of a series of lectures on proper comportment at historically black colleges, 234 00:25:26,030 --> 00:25:33,260 as well as a serial advice column in mainstream magazines, newspaper the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 235 00:25:33,260 --> 00:25:38,420 this African-American author not only made it clear connexion between manners and social justice. 236 00:25:38,420 --> 00:25:43,760 He called upon these codes to end the horrific resurgence of lynching in the 80s 90s. 237 00:25:43,760 --> 00:25:52,070 His dedication reads, quote, to my sainted mother, whose early teachings inspired my youthful heart to battle for the right to the logical 238 00:25:52,070 --> 00:25:57,800 obliteration of lynch law and mob violence into the unity of the north and south. 239 00:25:57,800 --> 00:26:02,130 This book is dedicated and quote, Following your stated purpose, 240 00:26:02,130 --> 00:26:10,850 Woods reason that the gestures of civility countered the mythology of inferiority supported by eugenics, eugenicists and social Darwinism. 241 00:26:10,850 --> 00:26:14,960 You also argued that because of the insidious nature of such falsehoods, 242 00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:19,780 African-Americans needed to carefully construct all aspects of their public persona, 243 00:26:19,780 --> 00:26:24,740 malling a corrective and superior herself to white and black audiences alike. 244 00:26:24,740 --> 00:26:26,630 Yet at times, with its prescriptions, 245 00:26:26,630 --> 00:26:35,740 also present a contradictory subscription to resist tropes that are especially parent in the 16 drawings that accompany the text unattributed. 246 00:26:35,740 --> 00:26:41,480 The illustrations engage in the author's points, but they do not act as a direct core, Larry. 247 00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:45,140 In some chapters, such as the one in which the author despairs, 248 00:26:45,140 --> 00:26:52,010 the cakewalk the artist drew from the minstrel tropes that predominate in American visual culture during the 80s 90s. 249 00:26:52,010 --> 00:26:55,730 For some, the council provided by Woods was purportedly tinged with. 250 00:26:55,730 --> 00:27:02,240 Satire acknowledging the reader's awareness of the racist circumstances in which the words would be received. 251 00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:08,330 A review from the African-American newspaper, The Freeman notes that, quote, a gentleman of culture and refinement. 252 00:27:08,330 --> 00:27:13,580 The author's talk never drags. It's punctuated by wit, sarcasm and satire. 253 00:27:13,580 --> 00:27:19,520 And the best and most effective means winning attention and respectful hearing in court. 254 00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:23,840 Other reviews presented an internalisation, the racist perspectives, noting that, 255 00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:27,890 quote, the aim of the author is to raise the ethical standard of our race. 256 00:27:27,890 --> 00:27:32,840 He exposes the evils and the rudeness that are so common in our race. 257 00:27:32,840 --> 00:27:40,460 According to scholar William Gatewood, once drew upon one of the most revered sources of etiquette, La Chesterfield's letters to his son, 258 00:27:40,460 --> 00:27:48,970 published in 1774 as a means of educating his illegitimate son to the social codes of British aristocracy. 259 00:27:48,970 --> 00:27:52,840 This source became a classic text by the 19th century. 260 00:27:52,840 --> 00:27:58,100 Significantly with his council was not really aimed at those at the top rung of the black class structure, 261 00:27:58,100 --> 00:28:05,270 but those who were upwardly mobile, ambitious and persons of the middle and lower classes. 262 00:28:05,270 --> 00:28:13,130 Following the precedent of the France peace portraits and literary works such as the one scene in Villa Suite, these poems on various subjects, 263 00:28:13,130 --> 00:28:21,630 religious and moral, or the autobiographical work such as the narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave written by himself. 264 00:28:21,630 --> 00:28:28,400 Woods included a photograph of himself to establish a visual, authoritative presence in this bustling portrait. 265 00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:34,280 Woods positions his body to the left, but turns his face to directly gaze at the camera. 266 00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:39,800 This act of direct engagement conveys the author's apogee of self empowerment, 267 00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:45,140 as cultural historian Byron Wear reminds us upon the threat of lynching. 268 00:28:45,140 --> 00:28:51,550 Social restrictions in the South prohibit black men from looking a white person directly in the eyes. 269 00:28:51,550 --> 00:28:56,090 Thus, Woods begins his behaviour prescriptions with the oppositional gaze, 270 00:28:56,090 --> 00:29:04,970 modelling the necessity for black individuals to negotiate but not to accept the constraints and convit pensions of white culture in history. 271 00:29:04,970 --> 00:29:09,740 In keeping with the Washingtonian aesthetics of self-discipline through the exterior discipline, 272 00:29:09,740 --> 00:29:13,100 he is impeccably groomed and formally attired for the occasion. 273 00:29:13,100 --> 00:29:21,830 Wearing a dark suit, a crisp white shirt and a dapper bow tie, the author's propriety in dress becomes the uniform for the race man, 274 00:29:21,830 --> 00:29:25,940 signalling the intellectual vocation a sense of rendering service. 275 00:29:25,940 --> 00:29:34,910 By means of critical intelligence and moral action like Douglass and others before him would sign this name beneath his photograph, 276 00:29:34,910 --> 00:29:40,340 authenticating his own likeness. But importantly, he adds the words sincerely yours, 277 00:29:40,340 --> 00:29:44,720 thereby personalising the dedication to the reader and by beginning the text with this 278 00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:49,820 visual affirmation of self self-possessed self-possession and extension of civility. 279 00:29:49,820 --> 00:29:55,610 The other models, the very best behaviours that he prescribes for Boyd's the photographic portrait, 280 00:29:55,610 --> 00:30:00,590 was an essential means of establishing subject hood and promoting social exchange. 281 00:30:00,590 --> 00:30:09,020 Throughout his text, he conveys confidence to presume black readers encouraging to believe in and value their true selves as worthy subjects, 282 00:30:09,020 --> 00:30:16,740 making their progress from enslavement visible to themselves and others, and classed themselves amongst those who enjoyed social status. 283 00:30:16,740 --> 00:30:22,940 He's critical of effort, though, of African-Americans who collect photographs of their white colleagues and employers that, quote, 284 00:30:22,940 --> 00:30:29,270 are ashamed to hang the pictures of distinguished friends or departed relatives would called for 285 00:30:29,270 --> 00:30:36,590 readers to teach the children to revel and love our own heroes and heroines through portraits. 286 00:30:36,590 --> 00:30:45,250 Yet going back to our first image in uncritical self admiration is not the goal is education of entire Hilson as it 287 00:30:45,250 --> 00:30:52,730 satirically reprimands the woman who believes herself to be attractive would seems in keeping with contemporary social mores. 288 00:30:52,730 --> 00:31:01,670 That cautioned against female Vanity Fair that the shift from the dialect expression of eight are handsome to the self-critical judgement. 289 00:31:01,670 --> 00:31:06,530 That's not me. It's not merely a linguistic turn. 290 00:31:06,530 --> 00:31:13,850 Instead, it signals the dropping of the minstrel mask when considering how one wants to be seen by oneself in this way. 291 00:31:13,850 --> 00:31:19,490 Woods, in his illustrator, seem to chart the dialectics of representing black womanhood for their readers. 292 00:31:19,490 --> 00:31:23,780 The author offers a judgement against the pride that the woman takes in her appearance, 293 00:31:23,780 --> 00:31:29,120 reflecting the tension between the perception of herself as worthy of admiration and the social and cultural 294 00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:36,620 forces that relentlessly denied that status in countless examples circulating throughout visual culture. 295 00:31:36,620 --> 00:31:44,210 Black women were cast as racist, captures and mocked for their desire for a true representation of Victoria. 296 00:31:44,210 --> 00:31:48,860 New Year's car from the 80s 90s, for example, presents a stereotypical mammy figure holding, 297 00:31:48,860 --> 00:31:53,750 flailing black child on her lap as they sit before the photographer for their portrait. 298 00:31:53,750 --> 00:32:01,860 They represent the antithesis of black. Stability and progress. As the caption satirically notes, they face is ever dear to me. 299 00:32:01,860 --> 00:32:08,730 Images such as these speak to the ways that white culture producers used humour to refute the possibility of black subjects, 300 00:32:08,730 --> 00:32:13,860 knowing how to properly present themselves as subjects as argued by Tanya Sheehan. 301 00:32:13,860 --> 00:32:20,310 Such humour reflected white America's desire for a sense of superiority in the face of black emancipation. 302 00:32:20,310 --> 00:32:25,890 Waves of immigration and further efforts to bring others into the national body. 303 00:32:25,890 --> 00:32:31,440 With his assertion that primping the face for the photographic portrait was an essential part of black life, 304 00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:39,040 countered the racist humour upon the assumption that the black SIDOR could never become the proper subjects of photography, 305 00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:44,850 just as they could never be integrated into the concepts of a white national body. 306 00:32:44,850 --> 00:32:51,030 Yet blacks subject could have been established within the realm of visual culture by the time of Woods production. 307 00:32:51,030 --> 00:32:56,400 Images of Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington and Sojourner Truth were in broad circulation, 308 00:32:56,400 --> 00:33:01,920 countering the tropes and promoting their campaigns for abolitionism and self-determined ANC. 309 00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:08,280 In fact, the seemingly indecorous declaration of eight handsome reverberates with an earlier historic 310 00:33:08,280 --> 00:33:15,630 and potent query posed by truth in her Ain't I a Woman speech from 1854 to implode. 311 00:33:15,630 --> 00:33:22,200 This rhetorical device to challenge the racist and sexist presumptions ascribed to black womanhood. 312 00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:29,200 In this famous speech, she calls out the way that her physical strength and mental intelligence is equal to that attributed to men. 313 00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:32,610 Truth then pivots describing her experience of motherhood, 314 00:33:32,610 --> 00:33:37,920 the most hallowed expectation of 19th century womanhood, noting that unlike her white sisters, 315 00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:45,240 she's denied the social graces of being lifted into a carriage, helped over a mud puddle or given the best of anything. 316 00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:52,410 In short, she lays bare the systematic denial of black women's personhood, describing the liminal space in which she exists. 317 00:33:52,410 --> 00:34:00,240 Her assertions are levelling force that resonate even into a contemporary moment. 318 00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:08,160 Likewise, entire handsome emphatically proclaims the categorical denial of black women's lives for words in his audiences, 319 00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:10,740 recasting the derogative structures, 320 00:34:10,740 --> 00:34:17,610 the historic denial of selfhood to the present acuity of those engaged to performing black feminine respectability. 321 00:34:17,610 --> 00:34:20,850 It models the conscious cultivation of activism. 322 00:34:20,850 --> 00:34:29,900 Subject to incept activity that was expected from audiences who purchased and followed Woulds Council in the following close reading. 323 00:34:29,900 --> 00:34:37,830 I look for the ways that these stretch she's expanded to allow modern black subjectivity to assert itself through the lens of the polite dissemblers. 324 00:34:37,830 --> 00:34:40,560 Seven years after the publication of words its primer. 325 00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:46,200 Another African-American author approached the topic of etiquette through moralising storytelling. 326 00:34:46,200 --> 00:34:52,170 Silas Floyd, a graduate of Atlanta University and a contributor to the literary journal Voice of the Negro, 327 00:34:52,170 --> 00:34:56,820 authored prescriptive Floyds Flowers Duty's and Beauty for Coloured Children, 328 00:34:56,820 --> 00:35:01,590 working with illustrator John Henry Adams and unidentified photographers Floyd 10. 329 00:35:01,590 --> 00:35:09,060 One hundred stories that range from models of useful lives to bad boys and girls and their troubles in this text. 330 00:35:09,060 --> 00:35:12,910 Accompanying visuals were expected to play a connective role with readers not 331 00:35:12,910 --> 00:35:17,370 only facilitating their internalisation of the Morell's communicated by FOID, 332 00:35:17,370 --> 00:35:24,690 but also providing inspiring evidence of racial progress. 333 00:35:24,690 --> 00:35:31,110 Heavily advertised in the voice of the Negro in Crisis magazine. The text represented a move towards inclusive city. 334 00:35:31,110 --> 00:35:33,180 As one contemporary reviewer noted, quote, 335 00:35:33,180 --> 00:35:40,740 The illustrations will serve to inculcate the young folks in the idea that coloured people can get their pictures in a book as well as white children, 336 00:35:40,740 --> 00:35:47,160 and thereby stimulate race pride at a time when it will do the most good in the portrayals in this tax. 337 00:35:47,160 --> 00:35:54,000 Not only shape the expectation that black children should be represented, but also how these representations should be read. 338 00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:58,320 Authors such as Floyd sought to increase readers awareness of social typologies, 339 00:35:58,320 --> 00:36:04,350 honing their skills to discern and further securing their subscription to the values espoused within the text. 340 00:36:04,350 --> 00:36:09,420 Several additional strategies were employed to develop readers a cue with critical acuity. 341 00:36:09,420 --> 00:36:15,600 Drawing upon an established trajectory for self-improvement, authors simultaneously provided an opportunity to look up at one. 342 00:36:15,600 --> 00:36:25,150 Better's at the same time that they were looking down at one's inferiors, testifying to portraitist efficacy as a tool for social change. 343 00:36:25,150 --> 00:36:31,130 In the short story, Rowdy Boy Floyd employed looking down visual strategy as a cautionary tale, 344 00:36:31,130 --> 00:36:35,870 giving readers the opportunity to study negative types that were beyond saving. 345 00:36:35,870 --> 00:36:40,700 The inclusion of such stereotypical images incited the readers desire to negate the image, 346 00:36:40,700 --> 00:36:47,540 to nullify it by and acting the opposite, assuring readers that you can tell him whenever you see him. 347 00:36:47,540 --> 00:36:53,780 Floyd directs the readers attention to certain marks that allude to his problematic disposition, 348 00:36:53,780 --> 00:37:00,020 such as the cigarette hanging from his mouth, his cap cocked to the side and his hands stuffed in his trousers. 349 00:37:00,020 --> 00:37:05,120 Indeed, the portrait of a rowdy boy depicts a young boy bearing all of these exterior signs. 350 00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:08,450 Yet the altar goes beyond the mere description of physical, 351 00:37:08,450 --> 00:37:17,090 creating a one to one system of attribution that enables the reader to decode the boy's character through the independence, 352 00:37:17,090 --> 00:37:24,590 interdependence of text and image. The reader learns that the undesirable intangible traits are sauciness and impudence 353 00:37:24,590 --> 00:37:29,750 are embodied through the boy SLAPP posture and directly confrontational gaze. 354 00:37:29,750 --> 00:37:37,330 Armed with a specific evaluation of another, readers could then turn his evaluative means upon themselves in their own public performance. 355 00:37:37,330 --> 00:37:43,310 The teaching them that occurs in these texts was not only about specific practises of self presentation or social decorum. 356 00:37:43,310 --> 00:37:51,800 Rather, it could be argued that the real lessons offered were those of an evaluative measured looking for in this learning to lock. 357 00:37:51,800 --> 00:38:00,020 One could determine how best present to protect oneself, using polite semblance to one's advantage. 358 00:38:00,020 --> 00:38:05,660 For other chapters, strategies of disciplines are conveyed through constructing an us versus them lens through 359 00:38:05,660 --> 00:38:10,190 which one could filter good behaviours from those that were less desirable portraits of 360 00:38:10,190 --> 00:38:16,330 social types such as the loud girl who you see captioned here as blabbermouths and noisy sured 361 00:38:16,330 --> 00:38:22,320 class distinction and privileged elite 19th century patriarchal conception of womanhood. 362 00:38:22,320 --> 00:38:27,170 Yet the ambiguity of dissemblers allows a more nuanced reading. 363 00:38:27,170 --> 00:38:34,880 The author's situates the readers in a streetcar, where they witness the sorrowful spectre of three girls misbehaving. 364 00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:41,990 After describing their transgressions, which consist of giggling, wearing conspicuous and vivid clothing, including boys hats, 365 00:38:41,990 --> 00:38:48,620 the author then details the ways in which the girls are inconsiderate to fellow passengers in the corresponding photograph. 366 00:38:48,620 --> 00:38:55,700 Two of the three young women discussed are posed against a plane studio backdrop with no other contextual details. 367 00:38:55,700 --> 00:38:59,930 They wear the affer me mentioned hats and loose blouses over long skirts. 368 00:38:59,930 --> 00:39:06,210 The girl on her left has her arm around, the girl on the right in a vertically gestures with her hands, with open mouths. 369 00:39:06,210 --> 00:39:13,790 They appear to be talking at the same time. Within the text, Floyd guides readers into participating in the evaluation of the girls, 370 00:39:13,790 --> 00:39:20,930 stating that they were, quote, regarded with dislike, distrust and even disdain by the better class of people. 371 00:39:20,930 --> 00:39:26,630 In fact, it's here that Floyd not only extended the controlling gaze of social judgement to empower readers, 372 00:39:26,630 --> 00:39:33,350 but also determines whose judgement is to be the most valued that of the better class of people. 373 00:39:33,350 --> 00:39:36,890 In practise, such discernment becomes a qualifier of the reader. 374 00:39:36,890 --> 00:39:42,710 If one looks correctly, with disdain upon the style, address and manners exhibited by these young women, 375 00:39:42,710 --> 00:39:48,650 then surely one must belong to quote the people of refinement who will not associate with low girls. 376 00:39:48,650 --> 00:39:55,520 And thus Floyd and other authors who employ this approach not only codified the behaviour and appearance of others, 377 00:39:55,520 --> 00:40:04,010 they also sought to control their readers conception of self-worth and class ambitions, relying upon the disciplinary deterrent of shame. 378 00:40:04,010 --> 00:40:11,840 The author counsels the reader that if the loud girl was self-aware, she would view herself as a sorry object. 379 00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:20,450 In her insightful study of nineteenth century black girlhood, a right contextualises Floyds, harsh judgement of the girls, 380 00:40:20,450 --> 00:40:28,820 good time and camaraderie against the reality of their own ability to rape and sexual abuse at the hands of white men by attracting attention. 381 00:40:28,820 --> 00:40:34,130 The girls, quote, would be perceived as not caring about the value and safety of their own bodies 382 00:40:34,130 --> 00:40:39,920 and thereby became willing participants in any violence inflicted on their bodies. 383 00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:47,540 Yet the depiction of the girls behaviour is assertive, collective and self-absorbed in a protective way that seemingly contradicts the text. 384 00:40:47,540 --> 00:40:50,060 Importantly, they are not being depicted in public space. 385 00:40:50,060 --> 00:40:55,490 Rather, they sit together in a bench in the intimacy of a photographic studio removed from the public sphere. 386 00:40:55,490 --> 00:41:02,360 They have dropped Mascot Dissemblers to enjoy their affection for one another, offering an alternative model. 387 00:41:02,360 --> 00:41:07,340 Perhaps readers could look to these portraits of young women and imagine what Cydia Hartman 388 00:41:07,340 --> 00:41:13,460 scholars City Hartman calls a wayward moment where one was conscious of the expectations. 389 00:41:13,460 --> 00:41:16,610 Yet deliberately acting in defiance. 390 00:41:16,610 --> 00:41:24,400 In this way, the photograph demonstrates the girl's own autonomy to determine what circumstances necessitate the performance of the plight for Floyd. 391 00:41:24,400 --> 00:41:27,500 However, it's not about the one individual transgression. 392 00:41:27,500 --> 00:41:36,680 Instead, he compels his readers to understand that the judgement and missions inflicted on these black girls threaten all black girls. 393 00:41:36,680 --> 00:41:40,720 By doing so, the authors shores the message of his social, 394 00:41:40,720 --> 00:41:47,500 social responsibility and collective racial identity that runs throughout the text, collectivity and celebration. 395 00:41:47,500 --> 00:41:53,190 Also motivated the visualisation of the New Negro, a social construct launched by Booker T. Washington, 396 00:41:53,190 --> 00:41:57,130 Fanni Barrier, Williams and several other black intellectuals. 397 00:41:57,130 --> 00:42:04,050 The promise of the new influenced illustrator John Henry Adams to write and illustrate an article for The Voice of the Negro, 398 00:42:04,050 --> 00:42:11,110 a literary magazine published by Atlanta University on the character and appearance of the new Negro man. 399 00:42:11,110 --> 00:42:18,160 According to Adams, the new Negro man's character was determined by contemporary intellectual discourse and career achievement, 400 00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:20,620 rather than behavioural prescriptions. 401 00:42:20,620 --> 00:42:29,550 Adams fully identified his male subjects by First and Lessoning position, each as an inspiring individual rather than a general social type. 402 00:42:29,550 --> 00:42:37,200 There is fighting. Adam characterises his co-worker, editor Jesse Max Barber, as studious, confident and capable of working through, 403 00:42:37,200 --> 00:42:41,570 quote, the awkward and oftentime ugly circumstances of racial prejudice. 404 00:42:41,570 --> 00:42:50,700 And in the corresponding portrait Barbours depicted seated in elegantly carved chair reading at his desk, dressed formally in a three piece suit, 405 00:42:50,700 --> 00:42:58,560 Barbara concentrates on the open book before him and his poise, his head and hand quotes from the most contemplated of thinkers. 406 00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:06,630 It is in keeping with the captions that relay that he is a very close student of current economic and sociological questions. 407 00:43:06,630 --> 00:43:09,420 The article leads with a photographic portrait of the artist, 408 00:43:09,420 --> 00:43:14,550 as if he wanted to ensure a sort of objectivity in the representation of his own desires, 409 00:43:14,550 --> 00:43:18,840 certifying that was truly representative of the real and unique romance. 410 00:43:18,840 --> 00:43:23,520 In the accompanying caption, Adam quotes the Atlanta Constitution's proclamation of his genius, 411 00:43:23,520 --> 00:43:27,540 letting readers know that modesty is not a required virtue for men. 412 00:43:27,540 --> 00:43:32,970 Inspired by his studies with Dubois, Adam references the sociologist Theory of Double Consciousness, 413 00:43:32,970 --> 00:43:37,200 recently published in Souls of Black Folk, writing that the new Negro man has, 414 00:43:37,200 --> 00:43:42,450 quote, reasonable understanding of what it actually costs of human effort to be a man 415 00:43:42,450 --> 00:43:46,830 and at the same time a Negro that allows him to rise above the newspapers. 416 00:43:46,830 --> 00:43:52,080 And evil men who paint the new Negro out of pigments of senseless antipathy and call 417 00:43:52,080 --> 00:43:57,600 him a brute allows us to seek to revert to the cast of manhood into a cowardly, 418 00:43:57,600 --> 00:44:06,210 cringing, wilful serfdom. And quote, The author counsels his ability to protect himself and others and relies upon the cultivation of an inner life, 419 00:44:06,210 --> 00:44:13,440 imagining how he wants to be perceived. And then he can willed that into being through his writing and through portraiture. 420 00:44:13,440 --> 00:44:18,240 It seems that Adams earlier work not only inspired by many lessons for its flowers, 421 00:44:18,240 --> 00:44:25,160 it also reinforced the efficacy of using the image proper to represent the proper image. 422 00:44:25,160 --> 00:44:34,320 Further, this representation from the physical features of the individual's representative to the mental image of the race. 423 00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:40,260 Collectively, prescriptive literature's emphasis on seeing in consciousness of how one is being seen 424 00:44:40,260 --> 00:44:45,480 significantly contributed to the possibilities that one could have imagined by readers. 425 00:44:45,480 --> 00:44:49,770 At the same time, it sought to constrict its adherence behaviours. 426 00:44:49,770 --> 00:44:55,770 Historian Michelle Mitchell notes that those who consumed prescriptive texts were most likely to be aspiring class, 427 00:44:55,770 --> 00:45:00,720 including self schooled strivers, graduates of colleges and normal schools. 428 00:45:00,720 --> 00:45:07,470 But the audiences of newspapers were far more diverse, making it a far more influential primer. 429 00:45:07,470 --> 00:45:14,670 By 1919, the national circulation of the Chicago Defender reached an impressive two hundred and thirty thousand copies. 430 00:45:14,670 --> 00:45:20,700 Though founder and editor Robert Abbott has used his paper to inspire Southern migrants to make their way to Chicago, 431 00:45:20,700 --> 00:45:25,470 the rapid population growth and the reality of racially restrictive covenants 432 00:45:25,470 --> 00:45:29,820 led many to be anxious about the impact of new migrants on the city's social, 433 00:45:29,820 --> 00:45:39,760 political and economic life. Abbott, a graduate of Hampton University, was especially concerned that new arrivals conform to social norms and manners. 434 00:45:39,760 --> 00:45:47,280 Abbott imagined the defender to be a migrants book of dreams and etiquette due to its nixing reports on employment opportunities, 435 00:45:47,280 --> 00:45:52,000 advertisements for consumer products and editorial conduct advice. 436 00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:58,750 Abbott frequently included counsel for newly arrived to ensure that they did not continue to humiliate, quote, 437 00:45:58,750 --> 00:46:07,020 all of the respectable classes of coloured citizens, unquote, and to give their enemies grounds for complaint. 438 00:46:07,020 --> 00:46:11,430 In his 19 17 editorial things that should be considered, 439 00:46:11,430 --> 00:46:16,620 Abbott's note the disparity between white and black migrants, though both came to Chicago for work. 440 00:46:16,620 --> 00:46:25,050 With an all the similar ignorance of laws and customs, the save for the maintenance of health and sobriety and morality amongst people in general. 441 00:46:25,050 --> 00:46:30,420 And it was only the black migrants who faced harsh criticism and violence for their transgressions. 442 00:46:30,420 --> 00:46:35,730 He goes on to list twenty one points of prescription raising, ranging from, quote, 443 00:46:35,730 --> 00:46:45,300 don't appear in Streeton or dust caps and dirty aprons and ragged clothes and quote, too, don't act discourteously to other people in public places. 444 00:46:45,300 --> 00:46:51,780 All of Abbott's points emphasise the performance of the play in the public eye as a means of disarming what he termed, 445 00:46:51,780 --> 00:46:56,160 quote, those who are endeavouring to discredit our race. 446 00:46:56,160 --> 00:47:03,720 And in addition to publishing news stories regarding progress, columns on etiquette and promoting political engagement, 447 00:47:03,720 --> 00:47:13,020 Abbott also directed his editorial cartoonists to provide a single panel corrective that admonish those who engaged in unacceptable behaviours. 448 00:47:13,020 --> 00:47:19,590 For nearly five years, Leslie and Rogers and then Daniel Day visualise various transgressions of the Ill-mannered, 449 00:47:19,590 --> 00:47:24,680 making their advice acceptable to all as illustrator, as the illustrator. 450 00:47:24,680 --> 00:47:29,190 A day noted, quote, People can see cartoons who cannot or do not. 451 00:47:29,190 --> 00:47:37,380 The time to read and he said there's no profession that places its members in the public limelight any quicker than the art of cartooning. 452 00:47:37,380 --> 00:47:50,530 They not only reflect to affect social conditions, but also materially influence the course of political and national affairs. 453 00:47:50,530 --> 00:47:55,870 Thus, the charge to, quote, reform character and manage the behaviour of the black masses, 454 00:47:55,870 --> 00:48:00,700 unquote, could not be left illustrations and photographs encountered in books. 455 00:48:00,700 --> 00:48:06,670 The directness of the cartoon titled People We Could Get Along Without broad evaluative looking in class, 456 00:48:06,670 --> 00:48:11,200 divisiveness of etiquette into a populous form. The surreal work, 457 00:48:11,200 --> 00:48:15,910 much like instalments from published and conduct manuals with weekly topics ranging 458 00:48:15,910 --> 00:48:20,080 from what is appropriate to wear in public to adopting a Protestant work ethic. 459 00:48:20,080 --> 00:48:28,300 In some cases, it seems that Rogers and De directly consulted Woods are Floyds Books as their concerns mirror one another. 460 00:48:28,300 --> 00:48:30,280 In a frame that appeared in 1931, 461 00:48:30,280 --> 00:48:39,210 audiences saw blabbermouth and noisy girls from Floyds Flowers continuing their disturbing behaviours on elevated cars as prim women. 462 00:48:39,210 --> 00:48:40,630 And similarly, 463 00:48:40,630 --> 00:48:49,480 the rowdy boy carries his antics into a young adulthood and was counselled to end his idle gossip and employ his mind in useful pursuits, 464 00:48:49,480 --> 00:48:58,480 equipping himself to assume the duties of citizenship. As in so many of his conduct manuals and emphasis on collective judgement prevails, 465 00:48:58,480 --> 00:49:05,350 accompanying captions related loitering on foot stoop stoops causes the entire race to suffer there. 466 00:49:05,350 --> 00:49:14,290 I saw their portraits of offending types are largely set in the public sphere and emphasise a collective responsibility for representing the race. 467 00:49:14,290 --> 00:49:22,510 Despite the stirring corrections de. Rendered his folks with a visual code associated with dignity, 468 00:49:22,510 --> 00:49:31,760 imbuing them with the potential of assimilating into their urban context and becoming part of our evolving new Negro. 469 00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:36,480 The collective identity that informed the newly privileged racial pride and a sense that 470 00:49:36,480 --> 00:49:41,280 the accomplishments of the extraordinary could influence the lives of the ordinary. 471 00:49:41,280 --> 00:49:47,310 This shared perspective paved the way for the aspirations of the individual, following the mandates for self understanding, 472 00:49:47,310 --> 00:49:54,420 self direction, self respect, self dependence and self-expression found in the prescriptive literature from the era, 473 00:49:54,420 --> 00:49:58,170 the formation and subsequent negotiation of contact literature and all of its 474 00:49:58,170 --> 00:50:03,090 forms influenced the visual portrayal of African-American subjectivity texts, 475 00:50:03,090 --> 00:50:09,360 illustrations, photographs and cartoons delivered in a wide array of visual strategies. 476 00:50:09,360 --> 00:50:14,760 Consider when, when crafting both public and private personal identity. 477 00:50:14,760 --> 00:50:21,840 Dramatic shifts in the dissemination of such media corresponded with migration, urbanisation of black populations, 478 00:50:21,840 --> 00:50:26,700 providing opportunities to fashion and refashion one's likeness, 479 00:50:26,700 --> 00:50:32,880 learning how to look in different ways within the racist infrastructure of the late 19th and early 20th century. 480 00:50:32,880 --> 00:50:37,710 Digital culture is perhaps the most important contribution of prescriptive literature as 481 00:50:37,710 --> 00:50:42,680 it is established a platform of self-possession that had been denied to black subjects. 482 00:50:42,680 --> 00:50:50,850 And if citizenship was contingent upon recognition from others, as it was imperative to develop a shared process of identification. 483 00:50:50,850 --> 00:50:55,350 And as a unit example seen in this lecture, 484 00:50:55,350 --> 00:51:03,690 attests to the fierce resolve that black individuals and institutions invested in achieving social equality for themselves and others. 485 00:51:03,690 --> 00:51:11,640 This strategy of looking to build portraits of individuals and social types provided possibilities for imagining social progress, 486 00:51:11,640 --> 00:51:17,040 in particular the tactic of using specific characteristics of the individuals to represent the larger character. 487 00:51:17,040 --> 00:51:25,290 The race will prove to have a lasting impact. As social progressives will adopt and employ it for the assimilation of immigrants to America, 488 00:51:25,290 --> 00:51:33,750 seeking to reform a national perception of African-Americans, the deliverers of the proper image helped to form the image proper constricting. 489 00:51:33,750 --> 00:51:37,440 At the same time that it created pathways for citizenship. 490 00:51:37,440 --> 00:51:46,290 In this respect, our regard for the Obama portraits reflects this complicated history, which I will continue to examine in next week's lectures. 491 00:51:46,290 --> 00:52:03,090 Thank you so very much and I look forward to your questions. Hello again. 492 00:52:03,090 --> 00:52:08,000 Thank you so much, Amy. That was absolutely fascinating. 493 00:52:08,000 --> 00:52:17,420 Such incredible primary archival material, but also telling a really interesting you use it to tell a really interesting story. 494 00:52:17,420 --> 00:52:24,480 So very bits. I was really kind of blown away by what was the what you said about the Woods photograph, 495 00:52:24,480 --> 00:52:29,520 the photograph of Woods himself on the frontispiece that looks at us. 496 00:52:29,520 --> 00:52:33,150 And of course, an image that looks at you, particularly photograph has a certain kind of power. 497 00:52:33,150 --> 00:52:39,030 But, you know, the idea that this had a very particular kind of meaning, pure kind of significance in the day. 498 00:52:39,030 --> 00:52:46,770 I thought that was really, really interesting. And also the rowdy boy looking at us as well. 499 00:52:46,770 --> 00:52:51,950 So we have various questions coming in. But I will try to keep track of. 500 00:52:51,950 --> 00:52:59,010 I wanted to start by asking you, you were saying something really interesting with a photograph of the loud girls in the studio, 501 00:52:59,010 --> 00:53:03,120 the two girls, two young women talking to each other. 502 00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:10,140 You said something about dissembling or dissembling. So I wondered if you might just say a little bit more about that. 503 00:53:10,140 --> 00:53:18,900 How do you how does that work in that image here? I'm drawing on the scholarship of Darlene Clark Hine and basically Shubert's report, 504 00:53:18,900 --> 00:53:27,600 this theory that the culture of assemblance relies on strategies of invisibility in secrecy that are a means of achieving an interior autonomy, 505 00:53:27,600 --> 00:53:33,660 particularly employed by black women. So it's basically with this idea that you are putting a one face forward, 506 00:53:33,660 --> 00:53:37,950 but you might have an entirely different sense of yourself that they are not privy to. 507 00:53:37,950 --> 00:53:44,100 So it's that kind of sense of control within and using the polite to, you know, effect. 508 00:53:44,100 --> 00:53:51,550 But at the same time, having an entirely different sense of yourself in self-control. 509 00:53:51,550 --> 00:54:00,280 Interesting. So then the photograph becomes very complicated because they may be withholding something from the photographer. 510 00:54:00,280 --> 00:54:05,200 And then the photo ends up in a book where the photo is asked also then to mean something else. 511 00:54:05,200 --> 00:54:10,920 And then imagine also in one way, you're being counselled to look at this in a schats, you know, kind of a figure finger wagging, 512 00:54:10,920 --> 00:54:16,720 which what if you looked at it in a kind of amazed way and you're like, oh, they're having such a good time. 513 00:54:16,720 --> 00:54:26,590 And yes, I be engaged in the same way. So I think that that's the key thing, is that the individual may look one way, but definitely feel another way. 514 00:54:26,590 --> 00:54:35,230 And I think that kind of opens up that space. And then especially, again, we can look to Darlene Clark Hine to kind of articulate this in some way. 515 00:54:35,230 --> 00:54:39,510 But said Hartman, likewise is forward this idea in Shires. 516 00:54:39,510 --> 00:54:46,570 Another scholar that I would cite that likewise kind of again thinks to this idea of black women's interiority versus 517 00:54:46,570 --> 00:54:54,030 their exterior already and the social circumstances that they were always under pressure to perform in that way. 518 00:54:54,030 --> 00:54:59,480 Fascinating. Thanks. We also have questions about, I suppose, gender. 519 00:54:59,480 --> 00:55:03,170 So the be in the woods to a. 520 00:55:03,170 --> 00:55:11,390 Handsome is about a woman thinking that she's making herself attractive and then seeing the photograph and not being so sure. 521 00:55:11,390 --> 00:55:20,220 And then the racist New York need New Year's Day card is also about a woman and child who Hosie. 522 00:55:20,220 --> 00:55:27,000 So I suppose I wondered if you might say a little bit more about how gender plays zero or how modes of behaviour are different. 523 00:55:27,000 --> 00:55:38,250 Kinds of behaviour are seen as being bad both by people like Woods, but also by racists who are making this kind of New Year's cards are different. 524 00:55:38,250 --> 00:55:44,610 Kinds of behaviour are seen as bad depending on the gender of who is purportedly behaving badly. 525 00:55:44,610 --> 00:55:53,980 It's also like the gossip thing, right? Is a classically gossiping, being noisy, talking too much is a classically gendered attack on women. 526 00:55:53,980 --> 00:56:00,640 Right. Lots of couples fight and think you conform to a kind of Victorian cult of true womanhood. 527 00:56:00,640 --> 00:56:06,770 We're expecting women to be pious and to be modest and to not have a kind of cultivated of 528 00:56:06,770 --> 00:56:11,910 a public self and certainly not have the kind of intellectual opportunities or pursuits. 529 00:56:11,910 --> 00:56:17,640 And so when we see the representation of black women imagining themselves as beautiful. 530 00:56:17,640 --> 00:56:22,830 This is completely kind of countered. And that's actually where the title of my book comes from. 531 00:56:22,830 --> 00:56:28,350 There was a newspaper that I was reading and the author was kind of decrying the fact 532 00:56:28,350 --> 00:56:32,580 that there were no representations of African-American women who were beautiful, 533 00:56:32,580 --> 00:56:39,240 who were fluent, who are accomplished. And all you saw were, again, people who were not of noteworthy character, 534 00:56:39,240 --> 00:56:44,280 people who were buffoons, people who were criminalised or at least represented in that way. 535 00:56:44,280 --> 00:56:51,210 And so this kind of will to counter that, I think is one of the things that I'm going to explore significantly next week, 536 00:56:51,210 --> 00:56:59,850 where we'll see, especially with the advent of African-American beauty culture, there will be the celebration of black women's presence. 537 00:56:59,850 --> 00:57:07,350 Physically, we will see the kind of contests that will be organised where different women will submit their photos. 538 00:57:07,350 --> 00:57:12,600 And there's really this kind of counter to that particular gendered refusal. 539 00:57:12,600 --> 00:57:15,910 And I didn't have the opportunity to share it in this discourse. 540 00:57:15,910 --> 00:57:26,010 But John Henry Adams also depicts the new Negro woman, and he definitely really follows a kind of Victorian modest performance. 541 00:57:26,010 --> 00:57:35,310 And actually, even in Floyds, he counters his presentation of the loud blabbermouth girls with modest to quiet girl. 542 00:57:35,310 --> 00:57:37,260 So clearly there is, you know, 543 00:57:37,260 --> 00:57:48,330 absolutely these kind of standards and expectations that are both raised and also very much gendered in throughout the text. 544 00:57:48,330 --> 00:57:58,080 Good. Thank you. So we have a question here that asks if you could elaborate on the laws restricting direct eye contact. 545 00:57:58,080 --> 00:58:02,610 And was that explicitly discussed in texts like words? 546 00:58:02,610 --> 00:58:07,350 Did they talk about who it was like? Look at who was in property, did not profitable? 547 00:58:07,350 --> 00:58:09,960 It's funny. Words actually directly addresses it. 548 00:58:09,960 --> 00:58:19,770 So he's got this one chapter where he goes into this idea of the old Negro and the new Negro and the old Negro as he depicts him. 549 00:58:19,770 --> 00:58:28,650 I almost wish I had the image. Here is someone who does not greet people on the street in a straightforward way, is kind of fumbling and awkward, 550 00:58:28,650 --> 00:58:34,140 whereas the new Negro looks white people specifically would says this straight in the eye and 551 00:58:34,140 --> 00:58:40,950 greets them in a how do you know when a poor kind of cleaning space on the sidewalk as well. 552 00:58:40,950 --> 00:58:42,270 So it's really interesting. 553 00:58:42,270 --> 00:58:51,390 Again, Woods Council is so on the verge to know where, again, you have these elements that are derogatory and stereotypical. 554 00:58:51,390 --> 00:58:56,300 But you also have this kind of amazing agency and push that goes across that. 555 00:58:56,300 --> 00:59:01,580 And this is true, too, in a variety of the other sources that I cited. 556 00:59:01,580 --> 00:59:07,350 So definitely the authors. African-American authors were negotiating these conventions. 557 00:59:07,350 --> 00:59:13,200 And next week, I'll talk a bit about that, especially in regards to this idea of there being a Jim Crow etiquette. 558 00:59:13,200 --> 00:59:18,120 Some of it which was definitely prescribed in and legislated. 559 00:59:18,120 --> 00:59:22,770 Other is going to be much more around convention and expectation. 560 00:59:22,770 --> 00:59:25,980 And again, if we look to the history of the United States, 561 00:59:25,980 --> 00:59:34,380 all of the kind of horrific violence that continues is so much based again on this idea of looking how he looked at me or I looked at her. 562 00:59:34,380 --> 00:59:37,320 There's so much power in that social change. 563 00:59:37,320 --> 00:59:44,100 And so I think, again, that's one of the key things that we look to the early representations of Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth. 564 00:59:44,100 --> 00:59:50,430 They are looking to their respective audiences in a way that is, again, very commanding. 565 00:59:50,430 --> 00:59:56,710 And honestly, some people would even think accusatory. Fascinating. 566 00:59:56,710 --> 01:00:05,540 Thank you. So we have another question. It gets to the heart in some ways of what you've been talking about, which is so the question is, 567 01:00:05,540 --> 01:00:11,800 this person is interested in the relationship between self representation and self-determination. 568 01:00:11,800 --> 01:00:21,490 And I wonder if you could speak more about substituting the control of white supremacy for self control. 569 01:00:21,490 --> 01:00:33,370 Which I take to mean what? How is it that making images that on some levels repeat white supremacist racist tropes? 570 01:00:33,370 --> 01:00:39,430 What's involved in taking that back and making it meaningful for oneself? 571 01:00:39,430 --> 01:00:42,490 I think that there are a couple things to consider here. 572 01:00:42,490 --> 01:00:50,830 In regards to how works in some ways absorbed the literature that was coming from the abolitionist movement. 573 01:00:50,830 --> 01:00:54,760 And there is this idea of what constitutes freedom. 574 01:00:54,760 --> 01:00:58,850 Who can grant that? How is it represented? 575 01:00:58,850 --> 01:01:06,790 Especially, again, if we think about the kind of elements around the developed visual elements around the Emancipation Proclamation, 1863. 576 01:01:06,790 --> 01:01:12,250 And again, I'm drawing here from Cydia Hartmann's work significantly because in some way she argues that there is 577 01:01:12,250 --> 01:01:18,850 no ability to represent freedom or self-determination because you have it and if it is therefore denied, 578 01:01:18,850 --> 01:01:28,600 are granted to you. It is absolutely not being represented or experienced in the way that it extends in terms of humanity. 579 01:01:28,600 --> 01:01:37,450 And I think that when we look at to some of these councils, there's a kind of back and forth and especially through the work of DBP Dubois, 580 01:01:37,450 --> 01:01:44,470 where he sees this kind of negativity and it becomes internalised and you start to, you know, essentially see this. 581 01:01:44,470 --> 01:01:49,390 So how can you counter and look at yourself in a different way with different lens? 582 01:01:49,390 --> 01:01:55,450 And this is one of the projects that he then really spends the rest of his life doing everything from that. 583 01:01:55,450 --> 01:02:04,090 Nineteen hundred amazing albums that he assembles to subsequently the ways that he edits Crisis magazine to the ways again, 584 01:02:04,090 --> 01:02:16,210 that he involves himself in a debate symposium around how a Negro should be portrayed in Crisis magazine in 1926. 585 01:02:16,210 --> 01:02:22,990 So there's definitely this kind of awareness of visuality and imagining controlling that visuality. 586 01:02:22,990 --> 01:02:24,070 And to that end, 587 01:02:24,070 --> 01:02:32,590 to what I'd like to expound a little bit on is the fact that during this time period we have a massive expansion of African American media. 588 01:02:32,590 --> 01:02:35,790 So we have not only the Chicago Defender, as I mentioned, 589 01:02:35,790 --> 01:02:46,870 but we have numerous expounding through the images through the American Negro Associated Press that is established by Clyde Burnett. 590 01:02:46,870 --> 01:02:53,020 What that means, then, is that photographers can start to feed their images to a variety of newspapers. 591 01:02:53,020 --> 01:03:00,730 And so there's just a shift in visuality to see the black subject represented not only in the family portrait, 592 01:03:00,730 --> 01:03:05,530 but to actually see them then mediated in newspapers, cereal magazines. 593 01:03:05,530 --> 01:03:11,410 And we like to think that, oh, you know, Ebony is the first African-American illustrated magazine and it's absolutely not. 594 01:03:11,410 --> 01:03:17,050 There are so many that through this research that I've been doing, I've been able to discover some of them we know well, 595 01:03:17,050 --> 01:03:25,420 like the Crisis magazine, which was published by the NAACP or The Messenger, which was published by the Urban League. 596 01:03:25,420 --> 01:03:29,710 But there are also of magazines such as The Champion Reflexes. 597 01:03:29,710 --> 01:03:36,250 My favourite one of my absolute favourites of my own is called Heebie Jeebies and Half Century. 598 01:03:36,250 --> 01:03:42,760 They're phenomenally beautifully illustrated. So many photographs and different images are coming from this time period. 599 01:03:42,760 --> 01:03:46,300 And illustrators likewise to this is the golden era, so to speak. 600 01:03:46,300 --> 01:03:54,700 So I think that seeing yourself and being represented by someone that you identify with really mattered during this time period. 601 01:03:54,700 --> 01:04:00,550 And it's very much intended to be a kind of counterpoint, I think, to white supremacy that was engaged in, 602 01:04:00,550 --> 01:04:09,530 again, trying to reify itself and keep hold of its economic, social and cultural capital. 603 01:04:09,530 --> 01:04:15,260 Thank you. We have another question. This is someone who is mentioned, France Fanon, who had come into my mind, 604 01:04:15,260 --> 01:04:22,480 also pointing out that in black skin, white masks, Bannon notes that, quote, I don't regret it. 605 01:04:22,480 --> 01:04:23,210 I put it in quotes. 606 01:04:23,210 --> 01:04:31,820 A man who has a language, a man who has a language, consequently possesses the world express and implied by the language in question. 607 01:04:31,820 --> 01:04:36,590 And I think you've kind of you've kind of been answering this is how might this apply to portray here where the 608 01:04:36,590 --> 01:04:45,950 adoption of the length of the language of white portrayed confirms confers a form of whiteness on the black subject? 609 01:04:45,950 --> 01:04:51,350 That's a great question. Absolutely. I think one of the key things to remember is yes. 610 01:04:51,350 --> 01:04:58,880 When we look at the artists who were classically trained like John Henry Adams, we see him in almost like a point to point following it. 611 01:04:58,880 --> 01:05:04,790 In fact, actually, in the new Negro woman, he generates an African-American Gibson girl. 612 01:05:04,790 --> 01:05:08,750 And so he very much is engaged in a white language. 613 01:05:08,750 --> 01:05:16,760 But then to counter fennel and to counter that thinking, well, then what is a black language and who subsequently can generate that? 614 01:05:16,760 --> 01:05:21,210 And how is it that the two are uniquely in separate? 615 01:05:21,210 --> 01:05:27,080 Instead, I think as many scholars have said, is if we keep these binaries as absolute, 616 01:05:27,080 --> 01:05:31,850 we're not going to come to an understanding how they impact, reinforce and create one another. 617 01:05:31,850 --> 01:05:38,870 So very much if we think about blackness, we are in fact ascribing whiteness and the two are in this constant discourse. 618 01:05:38,870 --> 01:05:40,370 And this is better in my book. 619 01:05:40,370 --> 01:05:49,190 Things get very complicated in Chapter three because I try to, you know, untangle them, but actually show how interdependent they really are. 620 01:05:49,190 --> 01:05:55,640 And especially when we move to start to add even further ethnicities into our portraiture and portrayals, 621 01:05:55,640 --> 01:06:00,230 discussions through immigration, where we start to think about again, you know, 622 01:06:00,230 --> 01:06:06,290 the Italians and and likewise Slovaks and how race and ethnicity at this point were very 623 01:06:06,290 --> 01:06:12,230 fluidly discussed and not discerned in the same particularities that we tried to pass out. 624 01:06:12,230 --> 01:06:16,910 So I think to go back to the Finnane idea is, you know, very much like, yes, 625 01:06:16,910 --> 01:06:22,130 if you were given this image and you were still using those same tools, you perhaps have not evolved around it. 626 01:06:22,130 --> 01:06:26,540 But when my question is, is when do we how do we evolve? 627 01:06:26,540 --> 01:06:38,450 Is it when we instead take the tools as myriad as they are and utilise them and have us kind of self presentation and self-determination? 628 01:06:38,450 --> 01:06:41,810 And when we look at, for example, the images of the Obamas, 629 01:06:41,810 --> 01:06:46,850 isn't that absolutely one of the things that's done that isn't that so much the subversive practise, 630 01:06:46,850 --> 01:06:51,650 especially that is associated with Candy Whiley, where he's taking absolutely. 631 01:06:51,650 --> 01:06:57,710 You know, the tools of the white man on a new DVD and using them? 632 01:06:57,710 --> 01:07:05,810 Absolutely. In this most masterful and profound way where he disrupts the canon and he again places the black subject face forward. 633 01:07:05,810 --> 01:07:14,490 And then we have to subsequently have as viewers that kind of dialogue with ourselves. 634 01:07:14,490 --> 01:07:16,170 Good. Fascinating. 635 01:07:16,170 --> 01:07:23,010 We did have quite a few questions, actually, about questions that were bringing us forward to the contemporary moment, I think, around it. 636 01:07:23,010 --> 01:07:27,460 Obama and Michelle portraits. 637 01:07:27,460 --> 01:07:35,790 So people asking questions along the lines of how does the use of portraits, housing support, rights and image change over the. 638 01:07:35,790 --> 01:07:40,750 And how has Michelle Obama's portrayed Michelle? 639 01:07:40,750 --> 01:07:46,500 The idea, I guess, on the image of Michelle shaped the recent history of representation in this area. 640 01:07:46,500 --> 01:07:51,780 That's a big question. I mean, maybe you're gonna get to this in later lectures or not. 641 01:07:51,780 --> 01:07:58,650 I don't know if you want to try to grow up with it. It is a very big area to be get to be quite profound. 642 01:07:58,650 --> 01:08:05,490 And one of the things I think that draws me to Amy Childs first is that she's interested in these politics of respectability. 643 01:08:05,490 --> 01:08:13,200 This kind of idea of how do you position the individual, but also then how an individual shifts from not just representing themselves, 644 01:08:13,200 --> 01:08:20,090 but to becoming an archetype, you know, how is it that, again, in particular, Michelle Obama's image has done this in effect? 645 01:08:20,090 --> 01:08:25,950 Certainly the fact that Cheryl uses Foresi and that she is bringing. 646 01:08:25,950 --> 01:08:36,390 Yes. Into more the idea of imaging and not just keeping it specific to the individual, but obviously we all recognise the individual there, too. 647 01:08:36,390 --> 01:08:45,570 And in that same way, the individual, you know, who is extraordinary can then therefore inspire those of us who are more ordinary. 648 01:08:45,570 --> 01:08:49,140 And I think that that's one of the key things in particular that Michelle Obama has 649 01:08:49,140 --> 01:08:54,660 been incredibly savvy about in building her own representation and owning that. 650 01:08:54,660 --> 01:09:02,370 I mean, certainly from her profound book to the recent Netflix series becoming all of this is very much about 651 01:09:02,370 --> 01:09:09,180 that mode of empowerment and thinking again about how you can seise your image and utilise it again, 652 01:09:09,180 --> 01:09:20,710 not just for yourself and your own ambitions, but also imagine how your act of doing that models that kind of behaviour and inspires others. 653 01:09:20,710 --> 01:09:25,260 No, she has. I think she's been very successful in doing that. 654 01:09:25,260 --> 01:09:36,000 And when Cesar from time to time and gets a sense of the forces that are fighting and fighting against that or against which she has had to fight this 655 01:09:36,000 --> 01:09:47,110 racist Satur racist caricatures of her elected officials from whichever state it was saying something about her appearance compared to Trump's wife. 656 01:09:47,110 --> 01:09:53,420 Yeah. So there's a whole kind of weight of tradition still out there that needs to be needs to be contested. 657 01:09:53,420 --> 01:09:59,190 We have another very big subject of discussion that people have been raising, 658 01:09:59,190 --> 01:10:07,550 which is about social media and how portray a self-portrait, your the ability to represent one's self. 659 01:10:07,550 --> 01:10:11,420 Might be different now compared to an earlier moment. 660 01:10:11,420 --> 01:10:16,820 Again, as I said, it's a very big kind of question. I don't know if you have things that you would like to say about that. 661 01:10:16,820 --> 01:10:22,370 Well, it's really interesting because there's a lot of people riding on this selfie and thinking about what does it mean. 662 01:10:22,370 --> 01:10:26,750 And for me, it's always been a kind of negotiation. It's, you know, in one way, yes. 663 01:10:26,750 --> 01:10:34,020 Gratuitous and celebratory. And all of that can do wonders for one's ego if you get enough likes. 664 01:10:34,020 --> 01:10:38,300 And also on the other end can make a person feel disparaged and terrible. 665 01:10:38,300 --> 01:10:46,160 And I think that that's actually the emotional value and cultural capital of the portrait that we need to come to terms with. 666 01:10:46,160 --> 01:10:51,200 And I think it's that kind of thinking about these medias as negotiating the ethics of 667 01:10:51,200 --> 01:10:57,210 imaging and where and how you want to see yourself and how you want yourself to be portrayed. 668 01:10:57,210 --> 01:11:04,070 And in one way, it's also much more facile now. Right. Because we don't have to go to the studio portraits to get one done. 669 01:11:04,070 --> 01:11:08,450 You can just use our iPhones and it's kind of endless. And it's that kind of, I think, 670 01:11:08,450 --> 01:11:15,680 ubiquity that likewise is really of great interest to me in regards to thinking about wanting 671 01:11:15,680 --> 01:11:21,020 to have a fluidity and not only being defined in one particular point in time and era, 672 01:11:21,020 --> 01:11:28,250 but to have, again, this kind of continuingly sense of yourself is evolving potentially in gross and potentially, you know, 673 01:11:28,250 --> 01:11:38,120 just in style than an expression of that, I think is really what's facilitated by these formats and by our constant self imaging. 674 01:11:38,120 --> 01:11:42,680 But again, I don't think it's always as all the arguing throughout the articles. 675 01:11:42,680 --> 01:11:48,790 It's not just a kind of idea of how you see yourself. It's also how that self is seen by others. 676 01:11:48,790 --> 01:12:01,010 And how can you try to get control over that? And how can you hate to have that moment of negotiation where it feels like you belong? 677 01:12:01,010 --> 01:12:05,620 Glued. We have one last question. I think we maybe have time for this. 678 01:12:05,620 --> 01:12:09,730 We're just about out of time. And it is one that you might have. 679 01:12:09,730 --> 01:12:17,170 You might have a very interesting perspective on as an American who has been here for a bit in England for a bit. 680 01:12:17,170 --> 01:12:21,250 Which is. What do you make relatedly, Michelle Obama? 681 01:12:21,250 --> 01:12:30,170 I think what you make of the representation of Meghan Markle. Well, by no means am I an expert. 682 01:12:30,170 --> 01:12:33,820 Can I have my next article right? 683 01:12:33,820 --> 01:12:39,100 I said that's from next order. I don't know. I certainly have admired her sense of fashion. 684 01:12:39,100 --> 01:12:48,820 I did not want her series suit. So I can't really speak to her prior career or evaluate her as an actress. 685 01:12:48,820 --> 01:12:57,250 But I loved the spectacle. That was very much part of the wedding in the way that people seem to take some joy in that. 686 01:12:57,250 --> 01:13:03,700 I was concerned when I started to speak with people about the questions of racism and 687 01:13:03,700 --> 01:13:10,490 whether they read her as African-American or just the plurality or being multiracial. 688 01:13:10,490 --> 01:13:16,450 And I really don't know that I have anything that I can say that somehow illuminates further the 689 01:13:16,450 --> 01:13:27,130 discrimination and the subsequent loss that I think has been part of her experience here in in the U.K. 690 01:13:27,130 --> 01:13:32,200 I certainly had a variety of interesting conversations around race and racism here. 691 01:13:32,200 --> 01:13:41,110 I was really fortunate immediately to meet with Dr. Julius Smith when I was here, and we hosted a question around what constitutes black art. 692 01:13:41,110 --> 01:13:47,050 Here it was to college, which was a great workshop. And the students were really keen to have these kind of conversations. 693 01:13:47,050 --> 01:13:54,460 And likewise, we hope to reorganise a symposium around the idea of the average hope, 694 01:13:54,460 --> 01:14:00,240 a concept that puts put forth by Mr. Thompson and Huey Cocklin in collaboration with the cartel. 695 01:14:00,240 --> 01:14:04,690 But as you know, it had to be cancelled because of our current pandemic. 696 01:14:04,690 --> 01:14:10,640 Yes, we hope postponed, not cancelled. Right. So we are very much hoping it will still happen. 697 01:14:10,640 --> 01:14:18,460 I hope so. OK. So thank you very much. Said it's been a really fascinating debate and a wonderful first lecture. 698 01:14:18,460 --> 01:14:25,750 We are, I'm afraid, out of time. But thanks again to Amy for a really wonderfully fascinating lecture. 699 01:14:25,750 --> 01:14:29,140 It's very thought provoking, really rich material. 700 01:14:29,140 --> 01:14:36,910 And I'm very much looking forward to the next instalment thanks to offer to Torch for hosting our event tonight. 701 01:14:36,910 --> 01:14:43,120 And a big thank you also to everyone out there for watching and for submitting such interesting questions. 702 01:14:43,120 --> 01:14:49,480 I think we've covered a lot of them. I think there are probably some we've missed. So sorry that we haven't had time to answer everything. 703 01:14:49,480 --> 01:14:55,870 The conversation is, of course, as we know, not over. Amy, we'll be exploring related issues in the lectures to follow. 704 01:14:55,870 --> 01:15:00,970 So please do join us again for next week's event, the second in the Tara lecture series, 705 01:15:00,970 --> 01:15:06,740 which will take place on Monday, the 1st of June at five p.m. U.K. time. 706 01:15:06,740 --> 01:15:11,830 And we will be joined next week by her collaborator on set with pictures, Deborah Willis, 707 01:15:11,830 --> 01:15:19,750 who is university professor and chair of the Department of Photography and Imaging at the British School of the Arts at New York University. 708 01:15:19,750 --> 01:15:25,000 So that's something to look forward to for next week. Again, we very much hope you will be able to join us. 709 01:15:25,000 --> 01:16:05,107 And thanks again for watching day watching today and goodbye for now.