“AAST Spring 2017 Film Festival: When Bruce Lee Meets Bruce Leroy”

The African American Studies Program’s Spring 2017 Film Festival explores the complexities of political and cultural (dis)connections between African Americans, Asian Americans, and Asians in film. Taken together, these films raise questions about the possibilities for trans-Pacific and domestic political alliances among people of color as well as the line between Afro-Asian cultural syncretism and appropriation. The film screenings will be held in the Septima Clark Memorial Auditorium (Education Center Room 118) and will begin at 6:30 pm.

Enter the Dragon (1973)  ¾ Monday, March 20
The Last Dragon (1985)  ¾ Monday, March 27
Black Dynamite (2009)  ¾ Monday, April 3
Yojimbo (1961)  ¾ Monday, April 10
Afro Samurai (2007)  ¾ Monday, April 17

[Note: Liz Wayne and Xine Yao, the hosts of the PhDivas podcast, deserve all the credit for the title of the film festival, “When Bruce Lee Meets Bruce Leroy.” In an episode of the podcast by the same name, they discussed the potential for what Vijay Prashad has called a polycultural politics between African Americans and Asian Americans.]

Suggested Readings:
Gateward, Frances. “Wong Fei-Hung in Da House: Hong Kong Martial-Arts Films  and Hip-Hop Culture.” In Chinese Connections: Critical Perspectives on Film, Identity, and Diaspora, edited by Tan See-Kam, Peter X Feng, and Gina Marchetti. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009.

Hewitt, Kim. “Martial Arts is Nothing if Not Cool: Speculations on the Intersection between Martial Arts and African American Expressive Culture.” In Afro Asia: Revolutionary Political and Cultural Connections Between African Americans and Asian Americans, edited by Fred Ho and Bill V. Mullen. Durham,       NC: Duke University Press, 2008.

Ho, Fred. “Kickin’ the White Man’s Ass: Black Power, Aesthetics, and the Asian Martial Arts.” In Afro-Asian Encounters: Culture, History, Politics edited by Heike            Raphael-Hernandez and Shannon Steen. New York: New York University Press, 2006.

Ona-Jua, Sundiata Keita. “Black Audiences, Blaxploitation, and Kung Fu Films, and Challenges to White Celluloid Masculinity.” In China Forever: The Shaw Brothers and Diasporic  Cinema edited by Poshek Fu. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2008.

Prashad, Vijay. Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting. Boston: Beacon Press, 2002.

Whaley, Deborah Elizabeth Whaley. “Graphic Blackness / Anime Noir: Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocks and the Adult Swim.” In Watching While Black edited by Beretta E. Smith-Shomade. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2013.

Wilkins, Fanon Che. “Shaw Brothers Cinema and the Hip-Hop Imagination.” In China Forever: The Shaw Brothers and Diasporic Cinema edited by Poshek Fu. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2008.

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