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Ray Smith Symposium:
Workers Struggles in the 21st Century: The Role of Art
Since the 19th century, workers and labor leaders in this country have turned again and again to the arts—to music, drama, the graphic arts, poetry, writing, testimony, and now, increasingly, photography, video, and digital technology—to tell their stories, to raise consciousness, to educate, to reach new audiences, to rile people up, to forge solidarities, to embolden the fearful, to unleash creativity, to bring people to their feet, to fight for dignity and justice. This symposium asks how the arts are being used by workers and their leaders today. What are the realities of cultural activism on the ground? How are today’s workers using artistic and cultural expression to empower, energize, educate, communicate, organize and mobilize? How are they using culture in action? When and how has such action made a difference, and what difference does it make? This symposium brings together presentations of scholars, activists, and performers in a variety of genres.
Andy Stern, President of SEIU, and Esther Cohen, Executive Director of Bread and Roses, will co-present the keynote at the conference.
Of particular interest to those interested in writing/rhetoric, the symposium will feature a community writing project sponsored by The Writing Program with the Syracuse Workforce Development Council. For two years, The Writing Program sponsored writing groups for local labor union members. This work has resulted in Working: An Anthology of Writing and Photography, published by New City Community Press/Syracuse University Press. On the night prior to the Symposium, there will be a public reading by these authors. On the first day of the symposium, scholars and union members will discuss the goals of linking writing to forming a common labor identity in Syracuse. In addition, the symposium has partnered with local unions on “art-in -action” projects undertaken in the weeks leading up to the symposium: writing/photography and graphic banner projects with SEIU 1199 and a dramatic performance project with SEIU 200United.
The Event Schedule will appear here soon.
Presenters: |
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Graphic Arts: |
Mike Alewitz (muralist, labor activist, professor at Central Connecticut State University)
Lincoln Cushing (author, activist, archivist at the University of California, Berkeley)
Peter Sawchuk (sociology, University of Toronto) |
Performance Art: |
Worker Defense Project
Marty Pottenger (labor artist)
Jan Cohen Cruz (Imagining America) |
Documentary Filmmaking: |
Kathy Leichter (independent filmmaker)
Vivian Price (California State University) |
Writing: |
Nick Pollard (Sheffield University)
Anne Marie Taliercio (UNITE-HERE)
Helena Worthen (labor educator, University of Illinois) |
Photography: |
Esther Cohen (Executive Director, Bread and Roses)
Gert Danzy (SEIU 200United, Syracuse University)
Tamara Kay (sociology at Harvard) |
Music: |
Elise Bryant (labor artist and musician)
Tom Juravich (labor musician, and professor of Sociology at University of Massachusetts, Amherst) |
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