4/19 – The Strange Career Of Porgy And Bess
The Ph.D. Program in History
and American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
Invite you to a talk and reception to mark the publication of
THE STRANGE CAREER OF PORGY AND BESS
Race, Culture, and America’s Most Famous Opera
by
Ellen Noonan
Historian, American Social History Project
FRIDAY, APRIL 19, 4pm / History Lounge (Room 5114)
The Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street
Winner, 2012 George C. Rogers Jr. Book Award, South Carolina Historical Society
“This captivating read is an important contribution to the scholarship surrounding Heyward’s and Gershwin’s work.”
—Library Journal
“Ellen Noonan digs deep into the production and reception history of what has been called ‘the most contradictory cultural symbol ever created in the Western world.’ In this richly detailed book, Porgy and Bess becomes a prism refracting myriad triumphs and tragedies, collusions and fissures, in the American history of race, region, and culture. It is about white fantasy and black jobs, the slippery intersection of cultural and political representation, the problems of canonization, and, ultimately, the distorted feedback loop between the imaginary Catfish Row and the realities of everyday life for African Americans in Charleston. I was on the edge of my seat until the curtain call.”
—Karl Hagstrom Miller, University of Texas
“Noonan’s incisive book explores the social, aesthetic, and cultural dynamics that shaped this significant American opera. Her analysis of this play and its production history provide important insight into the continually evolving politics of race in the United States. The successful 2011 Broadway revival of Porgy and Bess makes Noonan’s contribution all the more relevant to our present moment. Engaging and informative, this is a most notable book for scholars and students interested in American cultural history.”
—Harry J. Elam, Jr, Olive H. Palmer Professor in the Humanities, Stanford University
For more information: http://uncpress.unc.edu/browse/book_detail?title_id=3052
