Claude McKay From Harlem to Marseille: Screening and Discussion

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This event will be held in English.

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Filmmaker Mathieu Verdiel presents his documentary film Claude McKay From Harlem to Marseille (2021). The screening will be followed by a round table discussion between Verdiel, Jason Allen- Paisant, poet and Fellow at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination, and Claudine Raynaud, Professor Emerita, Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier. The conversation will be moderated by Keithely Woolward, Columbia Master's HiLi Associate Director.

Claude McKay From Harlem to Marseille: Infused with jazz, literature, and poetry, this film takes us on a thrilling journey through the 1920s, from Marseille to Harlem, via Jamaica, Russia, and Morocco, following in the footsteps of Claude McKay, the Jamaican-American poet and novelist. A rebellious figure of the Harlem Renaissance and a pioneer of Black literature and advocacy, McKay was a voluntary exile, a Marxist flirting with anarchism, who wandered for over a decade through Europe, engaging with artistic and political avant-gardes. The film highlights his political commitments, his search for a sense of belonging, and the complexity of a major figure in the Black diaspora.

This event is co-organized by the Columbia Master's HILI Program, the Columbia Global Paris Center, and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination.

This event will take place in Reid Hall’s Grande Salle Ginsberg-LeClerc, built in 1912 and extensively renovated in 2023 thanks to the generous support of Judith Ginsberg and Paul LeClerc.

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