Join us on Friday, April 11, 12-3pm at Mason Exhibitions Arlington to imagine joy with James Baldwin in the current art exhibition, Nothing Personal: A Collaboration in Black and White.

12:00PM-1:00PM - Enjoy coffee, tea, light breakfast and experience a one-of-its-kind art exhibit

1:00PM-2:30PM - Meet others and participate in a reading group with Kritikos. Theme of this semester is The Power of Imagining, and this session will highlight the influential James Baldwin.

About Kritikos

Members of the community (near and far) are called to meet online each semester for a 90-minute session once a week with a goal of long-term commitment to relationship building, awareness, reimagining, transformation, and action, around anti-racist practices, racial justice, and the creation of conversations as well as systems of compassion and healing. We continue to focus on anti-Black racism and its effects on society.  
  
Grounded in the knowledge that it is not a question of whether we are racist, but rather, how racism is expressed and experienced in ourselves, our lives, our behaviors, and our institutions, we explore books, music, art, essays, podcasts, and documentaries that allow us to critically question and consider our roles as artists, thinkers, citizens, and creatives in a society founded on racist values and practices. All are welcome.

Join us for an evening of critical discourse and creative responses to Blues for Mister Charlie and other works on Monday, September 9, 7-9pm at the Center for the Arts Concert Hall.

In Blues for Mister Charlie, James Baldwin turns a murder and its aftermath into an inquest in which even the most well-intentioned whites are implicated—and in which even a killer receives his share of compassion. 

In a small Southern town, a white man murders a black man, then throws his body in the weeds. With this act of violence, James Baldwin launches an unsparing and at times agonizing probe of the wounds of race.

Begun in Instanbul in 1963, you can read about the writing of Blues for Mister Charlie in this 1964 edition of Playbill where the interviewer asks: When and where did you write Blues for Mister Charlie?

Join us for the ‘James Baldwin Abroad’ series, including 3 rare films on Thursday, April 17, 1:30-4:30pm in the Johnson Center Room B.

The Johnson Center is building #30 on the campus map and the nearest paid visitor parking is in the Mason Pond Parking Deck.

Screening at 1:30pm:

James Baldwin: From Another Place
1973, 12 minutes

“Sedat Pakay was a Turkish photographer and filmmaker who specialized in portraits of artists, including Andy Warhol, Gordon Parks, Mark Rothko, and many others. Shot in Istanbul - where Baldwin lived off and on throughout the 1960s - James Baldwin: From Another Place finds the author in a reflective mood, discussing his work, sexuality, and complex feelings about the United States. Preserved by the Yale Film Archive with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation.”

Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris
1970, 26 minutes

“Returning to Paris, where he first moved (or escaped to) in 1948, James Baldwin visits the Place de la Bastille in the company of white British filmmaker Terence Dixon to discuss the contradictory manner in which revolutions (French, Colonial, and Black American) are portrayed and considered. Sparring verbally with Dixon - to whom he could issue a knockout intellectual blow at any moment - Baldwin once again proves himself to be the great thinker of modern times. Picture and audio restoration by Mark Rance, Watchmaker Films, London.”

Screening at 3pm:

Baldwin's N*****
1968, 46 minutes

“In this riveting short documentary by pioneering Trinidadian-British filmmaker Horace Ové, James Baldwin and comedian-activist Dick Gregory speak to a group of radical West Indian students in London about everything from the state of the civil rights movement to the perils of false consciousness. The provocative title, drawn from Baldwin’s words, refers to one of the painful realities of Black American identity: that even his name conjures a history of slavery. Restoration courtesy of the British Film Institute.”

Note of thanks and acknowledgement:

These film resources are prepared by: Cindy Badilla-Melendez, GMU’s Music, Films Studies, and Media Librarian.

Initiative support and coordination: Anne Osterman, GMU Dean of Libraries and University Librarian.

This event was organized by the Cheuse International Writers Center and the Baldwin100 Host Committee.

"LOOKING FOR JIMMY" with David Leeming  

A lecture & conversation: 1:30-2:45 pm, Center for the Arts, GMU, Fairfax, VA

Prof. Keith Clark will host David Leeming. David Leeming met James Baldwin in Istanbul in 1961. In 1994, Knopf published Leemings “James Baldwin: A Biography.” Leeming will give a 30-45 minute presentation followed by a conversation with Keith Clark. 

"WHY BALDWIN MATTERS" 

Panel Discussion: 3:00pm-4:30 pm, Center for the Arts, GMU, Fairfax, VA

Why Baldwin Matters - Friendship, Scholarship and Imagination - a panel led by Keith Clark - featuring Nicholas Delbanco, Deborah Tulani Salahu-Din, and Rae Mitchell.

Reception to follow in the same space.

The Center for the Arts is building #7 on the campus map. The nearest paid visitor parking is available in the Mason Pond Parking Deck.

Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of noted scholar and author James Baldwin

Author and activist James Baldwin would have turned 100 years old in 2024. In numerous essays, novels, plays and public speeches, the eloquent voice of James Baldwin spoke of the pain and struggle of Black Americans and the saving power of brotherhood. Join the Library in reading one of Baldwin's best-known works during the month of February - "The Fire Next Time." The Library will have unlimited eAudiobook copies of this work available, along with a few others of Baldwin's works, from January through March. 

On Thursday, February 29, join the Library for a community discussion of this pivotal work with George Mason University Distinguished Professor Keith Clark. Then, join us for our Arlington Reads spring series for continued discussions, featuring four acclaimed authors, of Baldwin and his continued relevance in today's society.

For more information, contact LibraryPrograms@arlingtonva.us

This event supports the Baldwin100 Initiative and Arlington Library's recognition of Black History Month. 

For the second Cheuse Center's Busboys and Poets Lecture, we present Nikki Giovanni, whose friendship with James Baldwin formed the cornerstone of deeply personal public conversations. In this centennial year of James Baldwin’s birth, Baldwin’s friend, the award-winning writer and pubic intellectual, Nikki Giovanni, will reflect on her friendship with Baldwin, and why Baldwin matters. By touching on James Baldwin’s journey inside and outside America, Giovanni will discuss his legacy, include themes of belonging and exile, friendship, sexuality, community and interconnected idealism: black and white collaborators and their impact on internationalism and justice. How James Baldwin belongs to us all in profound interconnection. 

In 1971 James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni taped a two-hour “dialogue” for a public TV show called Soul! At forty-seven years old, Baldwin was a legend for 'The Fire Next Time' and countless other essays, novels, and criticism. Giovanni, then twenty-eight, was a luminary of the Black Arts Movement as the author of the 1968 poetry collection 'Black Feeling, Black Talk.' Their conversation was subsequently published in book form as 'A Dialogue.'

For more on Nikki Giovanni: https://nikki-giovanni.com

The Busboys and Poets Lecture is an annual lecture of ideas brought to you in collaboration with the founder of Busboys and Poets, Andy Shallal. 

Read more about our inaugural lecture here. 

Join Mason Exhibitions and the Cheuse International Writers Center on Wednesday, November 8 from 7-9pm for an anthology reading of "In the Hour of War: Poems from Ukraine", featuring Carolyn Forché, Ilya Kaminsky, Lyudmyla Khersonska, and Boris Kershonsky. 

The event will take place at Mason Exhibitions Arlington. Street parking is available, and Virginia Square Metro Station is across the street.