Event

The Renaissance

Renaissance /rensäns/ : A rebirth. A revival. A reawakening.

The European Renaissance is defined in history as a time that broke from the medieval practices of the Middle Ages. It was an enlightenment that spoke to the concept of Humanism. The idea that we are more than utilitarian, that we have ideas, that we have passions, that we are citizens and our civic life is one defined by virtuous acts. It was a turn to focus on the humanities: grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry, music, art, and philosophy.

The Harlem Renaissance was another rebirth. A rebirth of the African-American and in many ways the African diaspora. Writers like Alain Locke, Langston Hughes, Zora Neal Hurston, and James Weldon Johnson. Musicians like Ma Rainey, Gladys Bentley, Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong. The Harlem Renaissance embraced feminism and queer culture, Self-determination and civil rights. It was the movement of the "New Negro", and through the movement developed much of the literature, art, music, fashion, and social construct that has defined the lives for African Americans, and the African diaspora since.

We are in desperate NEED of another Renaissance. One that follows the basic tenets of our previous rebirths, but with the added insight and critique that has come since our last cultural reawakening.