Proof of registration, via a QR code on your phone or on paper, will be required to enter Reid Hall. Entry will be refused to those who are not registered. Please note that access will not be permitted 15 minutes after the start of the event.
This event will be held in English.
Co-organized by the Columbia HiLi Master’s Program, the Columbia Global Paris Center, and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination.
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Filmmaker Matthieu Verdeil presents his documentary film Claude McKay: From Harlem to Marseille (2021). The screening will be followed by a round table discussion between Verdiel, Jason Allen-Paisant, poet and Fellow at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination, and Claudine Raynaud, Professor Emerita, Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier. The conversation will be moderated by Keithley Woolward, Associate Director of Columbia University’s M.A. in History and Literature.
Synopsis
Infused with jazz, literature, and poetry, this film takes us on a thrilling journey through the 1920s, from Marseille to Harlem, via Jamaica, Russia, and Morocco, following in the footsteps of Claude McKay, the Jamaican-American poet and novelist. A rebellious figure of the Harlem Renaissance and a pioneer of Black literature and advocacy, McKay was a voluntary exile, a Marxist flirting with anarchism, who wandered for over a decade through Europe, engaging with artistic and political avant-gardes. The film highlights his political commitments, his search for a sense of belonging, and the complexity of a major figure in the Black diaspora.
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This event will take place in Reid Hall’s Grande Salle Ginsberg-LeClerc, built in 1912 and extensively renovated in 2023 thanks to the generous support of Judith Ginsberg and Paul LeClerc.
Reid Hall, the Columbia Global Paris Center, and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination are not responsible for the views and opinions expressed by their speakers and guests.
