Women Take the Reel Film Festival: Passing
Monday, March 7, 6:00 – 7:00 pm ET
Zoom– Register here
Screen the film Passing on Netflix ahead of time (or at our virtual “live” screening on Zoom on Friday, March 4 at 7:30 pm) and join the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program for a discussion of the film and novel with Professor Carla Kaplan (English; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Cultures, Societies, and Global Studies) and Professor Régine Jean-Charles (Africana Studies; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Cultures, Societies, and Global Studies). We will discuss the phenomenon of “passing” and other themes that come up in the film. This event will be held on Zoom and is free and open to the public. Register for the event here.
Passing is a novel by American author Nella Larsen, first published in 1929. Set primarily in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in the 1920s, the story centers on the reunion of two childhood friends—Clare Kendry and Irene Redfield—and their increasing fascination with each other’s lives. The film is based on the novel and is directed by Rebecca Hall, and stars Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson. It deals with themes of race, gender, and belonging.
This event is part of the 2022 Women Take the Reel Film Festival, organized by the Consortium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality.
Speakers:
Carla Kaplan is the Davis Distinguished Professor of American Literature at Northeastern University, where, as the Founding Director of the university’s Humanities Center, she created a conversational hub dedicated to diversity. She has held positions at Yale University, the University of Southern California, and the University of Illinois and also teaches writing through arts councils and writers’ centers. Her most recent book Miss Anne In Harlem draws on her 30 years as a white scholar in Black studies to examine cultural crossovers.
Régine Michelle Jean-Charles is the Director of the Africana Studies Program and Dean’s Professor of Culture and Social Justice. She is a Black feminist literary scholar and cultural critic who works at the intersection of race, gender, and justice. Her scholarship and teaching in Africana Studies includes expertise on Black France, Sub-Saharan Africa, Caribbean literature, Haiti, and the diaspora. She is the author of Conflict Bodies: The Politics of Rape Representation in the Francophone Imaginary (Ohio State University Press, 2014), and A Trumpet of Conscience for the 21st Century: King’s Call to Justice (Orbis Press, 2021), as well as the forthcoming Looking for Other Worlds: Black Feminism, Literary Ethics, and Haitian Fiction (University of Virginia Press). She is also a regular contributor to media outlets like The Boston Globe, Ms. Magazine, WGBH, America Magazine, and Cognoscenti, where she has weighed in on topics including #metoo, higher education, and issues affecting the Haitian diaspora.
