• 5pm Reception

• 6pm Welcome

• 6:15 Panel of 4 Talks

• 8pm Documentary Screening, Betty - They Say I’m Different. Watch the Trailer on Vimeo.

• 9pm Q&A w/ filmmaker, Phil Cox

Symposium Website forthcoming

Use the hashtag #BettyDavisBK to discuss on Social Media.

SPEAKERS

Kwami Coleman is a pianist, composer, producer, and an assistant professor of musicology at the NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study. He released an album of original recordings titled Local Music in 2017, and he is working on a monograph currently titled Change: The "New Thing" and Modern Jazz.

Phil Cox - Director / Writer of BETTY - THEY SAY I'M DIFFERENT: Phil studied languages and literature before creating Native Voice Films in London in 1998 as a collective of independent filmmakers aiming to collaborate on innovative and cinematic documentary and reportage. Phil has been awarded the Rory Peck Award for his work covering the conflict in Darfur and also a British Grierson Award and Royal Television Society Award. His recent feature documentaries have been WE ARE THE INDIANS which premiered in Sheffield Doc Fest and won BAFICI Buenos Aires FF award, THE BENGALI DETECTIVE which premiered at Sundance and Berlin, winning a GRIERSON AWARD and LOVE HOTEL which premiered at Toronto and won a Berlin Film festival award. BETTY - THEY SAY I”M DIFFERENT his latest feature documentary premiered at Amsterdam IDFA in late 2017. Phil is currently working on a theater production entitled 40 DAYS OF KHARTOUM.

De Angela L. Duff is a designer, photographer, web developer, DJ & podcaster. She is also the Co-Director of Integrated Digital Media (IDM) & Industry Associate Professor at NYU Tandon in Brooklyn. De Angela has spoken at the Prince from Minneapolis Symposium, Purple Reign Conference, EYEO, Black Portraiture[s] IV, III, II & II: Revisited, NYC's Creative Tech Week and Raising The Bar, AIGA’s Social Studies and Massaging Media 2 Conferences, and HOW’s Annual Design Conference. She currently, produces, co-hosts, and edits the Prince & Prince-related podcasts on Grown Folks Music's podcast network. Her research currently combines music, photography, and technology.

Emily J. Lordi is associate professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is the author of two books: Black Resonance: Iconic Women Singers and African American Literature (Rutgers UP, 2013) and Donny Hathaway Live (Bloomsbury 33⅓ series, 2016). In addition to scholarly articles on topics ranging from literary modernism to Beyoncé, she has published essays on such sites as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Slate, The Root, and the Los Angeles Review of Books—the latest of which (for The New Yorker) is about Betty Davis: They Say I’m Different. She is now writing a book on soul aesthetics.

Greg Tate is a writer, musician, and cultural provocateur who lives on Harlem’s Sugar Hill and whose books include Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America (Duke University Press, 1992) and Everything But the Burden: What White People are Taking from Black Culture (Broadway Books, 2004). His most recent publication is Flyboy 2: The Greg Tate Reader (Duke University Press, 2016). Tate has also led the Conducted Improv big band Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber since 1999, and is a proud member of Howard University’s Bison Nation. He has formally taught at the universities of Yale, Columbia, and Brown, and Williams College. His most recent Visiting Faculty appointments were at Princeton University, where he taught ‘The Loud Black and Proud Musicology of Amiri Baraka’, and New York University, where he debuted ‘A Brief History of Woke Black Music'.

DONATE

This is a free entry event but Betty Davis & the film team would be very happy if folks donated to the empowerment program for female youths of all definitions, abilities, & backgrounds: Girls Rock Pittsburgh! or at the event itself.

You can contact the organizer at bettydavisbk [at] gmail [dot] com or @polishedsolid.

SPONSOR