Madea's Big Scholarly Roundtable to Examine the Media of Tyler Perry at Northwestern University

Madea's Big Scholarly Roundtable to Examine the Media of Tyler Perry at Northwestern University

Northwestern University’s Block Cinema and department of radio/TV/film organize panel discussion

A Nov. 28 daylong symposium of film screenings and discussion will explore African-American media mogul Tyler Perry’s work.

EVANSTON, Ill. --- A daylong symposium of film screenings and discussion about the work of actor, director, screenwriter, playwright and producer Tyler Perry -- who is known for creating and performing in drag the cantankerous character of Mabel “Madea” Simmons in his feature films -- will be held on Northwestern University’s Evanston campus in late November. 

While the African-American media mogul’s 2012 film “Alex Cross,” about a homicide detective “who is pushed to the brink of moral and physical limits” may have disappointed at the box office, Perry remains a powerful force in Hollywood. Each of the 13 films Perry has produced since 2002 have enjoyed opening weekends with top earnings. The writer-producer-director-actor also continues to produce the wildly popular gospel stage plays that constitute his show business origins, while at the same time overseeing two commercial cable sitcoms.

The Tyler Perry symposium will be hosted by Northwestern’s Block Cinema and the School of Communication’s department of radio/TV/film.

“Madea’s Big Scholarly Roundtable: Perspectives on the Media of Tyler Perry,” Wednesday, Nov. 28, includes a panel discussion as well as film screenings with moderated conversations. All events take place on the University’s Evanston campus and are free and open to the public.

• “Madea’s Family Reunion” will be screened at 9:30 a.m. and “The Family That Preys” at 1 p.m., at Annie May Swift Auditorium, 1920 Campus Drive.

• The panel discussion on Perry’s work begins at 5 p.m. at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, 40 Arts Circle Drive

“This program marks a turn toward serious academic consideration of Perry’s media that has been a long time in coming, but is nonetheless right on time,” said Miriam Petty, assistant professor of radio/TV/film and African American studies, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, the organizer of the symposium and moderator of the panel.

“For someone like me, who is interested in Hollywood film as well as African-American popular culture, the complexities and contradictions inherent in what Perry does and how he does it make his work compelling to discuss, study and think and write about,” said Petty.

Featured panelists will consider Perry’s extensive body of work from a variety of perspectives, exploring such topics as his theatrical roots, the influence of the African- American church on his work, the highbrow/lowbrow tensions his works stir up, and the ways that class, region, gender and sexuality are reflected in his screen and stage productions and in discussions of Perry himself.

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Moderator: Miriam Petty (Assistant Professor, Departments of Radio/TV/Film and of African American Studies, Northwestern University)

Participants:

Mark Anthony Neal (Professor of Black Popular Culture in the Department of African & African-American Studies, Duke University)

Racquel Gates (Assistant Professor, Department of Media Culture, CUNY College of Staten Island)

Daniel O. Black (Novelist; Professor of English, Clark-Atlanta University)

Brittney Cooper (Assistant Professor of Women's and Gender Studies & Africana Studies, Rutgers University)

E. Patrick Johnson (Carlos Montezuma Professor of Performance Studies and African American Studies, Northwestern University)

Madea’s Big Scholarly Roundtable is co-sponsored by Northwestern University’s Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities, Block Cinema, the black arts initiative, departments of radio/television/film, African American studies and performance studies, School of Communication, Center for Screen Cultures, Screen Cultures Program and Gender and Sexuality Studies.

Free parking is available during the panel discussion portion of the symposium. For more information, call (847) 491-4000 or visit blockmuseum.northwestern.edu.

'Left of Black' S2:E8 w/ E. Patrick Johnson and Honoreé Fanonne Jeffers

Left of Black S2:E8

w/ E. Patrick Johnson and Honoreé Fanonne Jeffers

October 31, 2011

Host  and Duke UniversityProfessor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype© by E. Patrick Johnson, author of Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South; an Oral History.  A Professor of Performance Studies at Northwestern University, Johnson’s ethnographic work on this book evolved into a play called Pouring Tea: Black Gay Men of the South Tell Their Tales.  Johnson shares his motivation to turn his book into a play, and also discusses how his journey through these projects helped him better come to terms with his own personal issues.  He shares his reactions to the different responses he’s gotten so far from to the stage performance.  Johnson, whose play premiered in Chicago’s About Face Theater and was recently staged at The Signature Theater in Arlington Virginia, also discusses the significance of the title.  

Later Neal is joined by Honoreé Fannone Jeffers, poet, commentator, satirist, blogger and professor of English at the University of Oklahoma.  Jeffers, author of several collections of poetry including The Gospel of Barbecue and Red Clay Suite, discusses her blog Phillis Remastered and her work-in-progress on the 18^th century poet Phillis Wheatley.  In a wide ranging conversation, Neal and Jeffers also discuss the legacy of Aishah Shahidah Simmons’ groundbreaking film NO! The Rape Documentary,  the Slut Walk protest & the concept of Post-Black. 

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Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

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Episodes of Left of Black are also available for download @ iTunes U

October 31st 'Left of Black' Explores The Experiences of Black Gay Men in the South and the Legacy of 18th Century Poet Phillis Wheatley

October 31^st Left of Black Explores The Experiences of Black Gay Men in the South and the Legacy of 18^thCentury Poet Phillis Wheatley

Host  and Duke UniversityProfessor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype© by E. Patrick Johnson, author of Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South; an Oral History.  A Professor of Performance Studies at Northwestern University, Johnson’s ethnographic work on this book evolved into a play called Pouring Tea: Black Gay Men of the South Tell Their Tales.  Johnson shares his motivation to turn his book into a play, and also discusses how his journey through these projects helped him better come to terms with his own personal issues.  He shares his reactions to the different responses he’s gotten so far from to the stage performance.  Johnson, whose play premiered in Chicago’s About Face Theater and was recently staged at The Signature Theater in Arlington Virginia, also discusses the significance of the title.  

Later Neal is joined by Honoreé Fannone Jeffers, poet, commentator, satirist, blogger and professor of English at the University of Oklahoma.  Jeffers, author of several collections of poetry including The Gospel of Barbecue and Red Clay Suite, discusses her blog Phillis Remastered and her work-in-progress on the 18^th century poet Phillis Wheatley.  In a wide ranging conversation, Neal and Jeffers also discuss the legacy of Aishah Shahidah Simmons’ groundbreaking film NO! The Rape Documentary,  the Slut Walk protests & the concept of Post-Black. 

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Left of Black airs at 1:30 p.m. (EST) on Mondays on Duke's Ustream channel: ustream.tv/dukeuniversity. Viewers are invited to participate in a Twitter conversation with Neal and featured guests while the show airs using hash tags #LeftofBlack or #dukelive. 

Left of Black is recorded and produced at the John Hope Franklin Center of International and Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University.

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Follow Left of Black on Twitter: @LeftofBlack

Follow Mark Anthony Neal on Twitter: @NewBlackMan

Follow Honoreé Fannone Jeffers: @BlkLibraryGirl

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