A musical about Latino communities in New York – it’s not Steven Spielberg’s long-awaited remake of West Side Story but In the Heights – by Hamilton creator Lin Manuel Miranda. It’s all singing, rapping and dancing and screams “summer”! It’s a feelgood story about a Manhattan neighbourhood threatened with gentrification, and the aspirations of the … Continue reading “Musical New York Taken to New Heights”
Author and illustrator Eric Carle passed away on 23 May at the age of 91. He had enchanted children the world over with his colourful picture books, and especially the best selling The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Carle was born in New York state in 1929 but his German immigrant parents were homesick and they returned … Continue reading “Death of Eric Carle, Enchanter of Childhoods”
Jazz singer Billie Holiday’s 1939 recording of “Strange Fruit” has become one of the most potent protest songs in U.S. history. Its images of lynched African Americans accompanied the civil-rights movement but still evoke uncomfortable truths today. The song was written by a Jewish Communist high-school teacher, Abel Meeropol. It was originally a poem, written … Continue reading ““Strange Fruit”: a Searing Protest Song”
A new biopic of Billie Holiday alleges the blues singer was persecuted by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics over her support for the civil rights movement and her insistence on singing the powerful anti-lynching anthem “Strange Fruit.” Jazz singer Andra Day won a Best Actress Golden Globe for her portrayal of Holiday. The United States … Continue reading “Billie Holiday: Blues and Civil Rights”
In our series of author videos presenting different chapters of Shine Bright AMC, here is File 5 Black Lives Matter, presented by its authors Lynda Itouchène and Laura Pires. This file fits into the Première theme Représentations Axe 1 Faire entendre sa voix : représentation et participation. You can browse this file and all the … Continue reading “Shine Bright AMC File 5 Black Lives Matter”
News of the World is a not-so-classic Western starring Tom Hanks as a newsreader travelling across the U.S. during a violent and tumultuous period after the American Civil War. In a neat inversion of Indian abduction narratives like John Ford’s classic The Searchers, the Confederate veteran here is trying to return a child to her … Continue reading “News of the West”
News of the World has many features of a Western but its hero has much more psychological depth than Western heroes of old. The film takes its title from the main character’s job. Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd is a Civil War veteran who now makes his living by travelling from one small frontier town to … Continue reading “Searching for Answers in the West”
How have women been portrayed in U.S. TV series in the past, and how has that been changing since #MeToo? That’s the topic of an online talk from the Institut Franco-Américain in Rennes on 23 March. Anaïs Le Fèvre-Berthelot from Rennes 2 University will take a look back at some significant female characters in the … Continue reading “A History of Women in U.S. TV Series”
The line-up for the Biden-Harris Presidential Inauguration includes an extraordinary young poet. Andrea Gorman was named the country’s inaugural National Youth Poet Laureate in 2017, at just 18. The Inauguration swearing-in ceremony traditionally includes a religious invocation and blessing, given by Father Leo J. O’Donovan and Reverend Dr. Silvester Beaman, a recitation of the Pledge … Continue reading “Presidential Poet”
Assuming that anything happens as planned in this extraordinary election campaign, Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th President of the United States, and Kamala Harris as Vice-President, on Inauguration Day, 20 January, 2021. The ceremony and traditional celebrations that follow will be much smaller than in previous years because of the coronavirus … Continue reading “Inauguration Day”
