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Projects
Langston Hughes National Poetry Project, "Speaking of
Rivers: Taking Poetry to the People"
As of fall 2004, the African American Literature and Culture Society
and Marygrove College, one of the twenty nation-wide poetry circle
sites of the Langston Hughes National Poetry Project, "Speaking
of Rivers: Taking Poetry to the People," have partnered with five
national poetry sponsors, including the Langston Hughes Society,
the American Academy of Poets (AAP), the American Jazz Museum, National
Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), and the Audio Reader Network
at the University of Kansas, to create new opportunities for reading
and discussing Hughes' works.
Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and
housed at the University of Kansas (http://www.kuce.org/hughes),
since the centennial celebration of Hughes' life and works in 2002,
the specific goal of the project is to increase interest in and
exposure to poetry as a spoken and written art.
Plans are on the way for a March 18, 2005 workshop to bring 30-40
young aspiring high school poets, a guest lecturer and poet to Marygrove,
which will culminate in an evening coffee house sponsored by Sigma
Tau Delta, the International English Honor Society. In the future,
members of the AALCS will also be asked to give presentations, lectures,
and workshops at Marygrove.
Japan Project
In June 2004, funded by a grant, six scholars traveled to Japan,
including former president, Wilfred D. Samuels (University of Utah),
and Keith Byerman (Indiana State University), coordinator of the
project. In 2005, near the end of July, a group of Japanese scholars
will meet at Indiana State University, along with two members of
the executive committee of the African American Literature and Culture
Society (AALCS), College Language Association (CLA), National Council
of Black Studies (NCBS), The Association for the Study of African-American
Life and History (ASALH), and the National Association of African
American Studies (NAAAS), to make plans for future exchanges and
scholarly pursuits.
After the summer of 2005, we look forward to an exchange with
Japan and the US for several years to come. More information and
pictures are forthcoming in the newsletter next spring.
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