Bearing Witness to The International James Baldwin Conference in Paris
By Charles Reese
Photo: Carolyn A. Butts
“ No one can possibly know what is about to happen. It is happening each time, for the first time, for the only time.”— James Baldwin( 1924 – 1987)
Journalogue One: The James Baldwin International Conference at the American University of Paris( AUP), France
Celebrating 50 years of academic and cultural engagement, The AUP presented the International James Baldwin Conference“ A Language to Dwell In: James Baldwin, Paris, and International Visions” from May 26-28, 2016. The conference was organized by the AUP along with co-directors, Alice Craven and William Dow, in association with the Department of Comparative Literature and English.
The conference represented a broad array of global interdisciplinary explorations of Baldwin’ s life and work, with a special emphasis on Paris and his experiences throughout Europe and Africa. Each day of the conference featured exciting lectures, forums, and dialogues exploring the fiery spirit of this 20th century icon. It was an engaging, educational and entertaining intersection for students and global enthusiasts around Baldwin’ s work. Literary and cultural critics, historians, scholars of gender and same gender loving theorists to activists, filmmakers, musicians, and other artists gathered in Paris to share in a transforming experience.
As an actor, author, educator and one of the selected presenters from the United States, I was very excited to bear witness to the legacy of James Baldwin, an American writer, civil rights activist, and expatriate in his beloved second home in France. AUP was the perfect venue to re-ignite and re-discover what Baldwin’ s seminal work means for today’ s tech savvy and diverse global audiences. Baldwin enthusiasts have been pushing for a long overdue film about this great writer.
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