Events

Past Event

Looking For Langston: A Film Screening Celebrating Queer Harlem

December 9, 2020
2:00 PM - 4:30 PM
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Online Event

VIEW THE EVENT LIVESTREAM HERE

Isaac Julien’s Looking for Langston at 30: A Film Screening and Roundtable Celebrating Queer Harlem, in support of Harlem Renaissance 100

As part of Columbia’s contributions to the 2020 celebration of the centennial of the Harlem Renaissance, The Forum will be hosting an online screening of Isaac Julien’s landmark 1989 film Looking for Langston followed by a discussion with the director and a roundtable of commentators. This event recognizes the significance of the thirtieth anniversary of Looking for Langston in black studies, queer studies, and cultural studies, and will explore Julien’s gorgeous meditation on black art, poetry, music, community, and intimacy.

This free public event, which will be entirely online, joins the program for Harlem Renaissance 100, bringing to celebration a signal film and lively discussion that focuses on queer Harlem. Isaac Julien, filmmaker and installation artist, is Distinguished Professor at University of California, Santa Cruz. His work has been exhibited worldwide, and he was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to the Arts in 2017. 

Roundtable Speakers:

  • Isaac Julien (filmmaker and installation artist; Distinguished Professor at University of California, Santa Cruz)
  • Jack Halberstam (Director of the Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality; Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University)
  • Monica L. Miller (Professor of English and Africana Studies; Dean of Faculty Diversity and Development, Barnard College and Columbia University) 
  • John T. Reddick (Architectural historian; A'lelia Bundles Community Scholar; member of Harlem Cultural Collaborative)

Moderators:

  • Ellie M. Hisama (Professor of Music, Music Theory and Historical Musicology; Executive Committee, Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Columbia University)
  • Isaac Jean-François (Columbia College '20; Ph.D. student in the departments of African-American and American Studies, Yale University)

To learn more about the speakers participating in the roundtable discussion, please view the event program here

Presented by The Forum at Columbia University,
in collaboration with the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement; Columbia Neighbors; Harlem Cultural Collaborative; the Center for Jazz Studies; the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department; the Department of Music; the Institute for Research in African American Studies; the Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality; and the Society of Fellows/Heyman Center for the Humanities.