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Author and Educator Bill Harris Sunday, June 27th<\/h2>\nAuthor and Educator Bill Harris Sunday, June 27th<\/h2>\nJoin us on Sunday afternoon, June 27th at 2 PM <\/strong>at the Book Beat, 26010 Greenfield in Oak Park, for a special presentation with poet, playwright and educator Bill Harris. <\/strong>Please call 248-968-1190 <\/strong>for more information <\/strong>or check http:\/\/thebookbeat.com <\/strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n Bill will present his book Birth of a Notion<\/a>,<\/em> which confronts contemporary stereotypes and prejudices by looking back to their roots in early American history. In a hybrid work of prose and poetry that takes its cues from nineteenth-century minstrelsy, Harris speaks back to preconceived notions about \u201cblackness\u201d through many different characters and voices. His narrative is at turns sarcastic, serious, wry, and lyrical, as he investigates the source of pervasive racist images and their incorporation into American culture.<\/p>\n Harris takes readers on a tour of nineteenth-century American history, from the 1830s and the rise of the abolitionist movement, to Reconstruction and the Industrial Revolution in the 1860s, and to the beginning of the twentieth century. He considers cultural productions that gave rise to America\u2019s idea of the \u201cnew Negro,\u201d including the development of minstrelsy as popular entertainment, the publication of Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin, <\/em>the museum curios of P. T. Barnum, and the exhibitions of \u201cexotic\u201d people at the 1893 Chicago World\u2019s Fair. Along the way, Harris interjects a range of symbols, word-play, and famous personalities into his narrative, referring to everyone from Karl Marx, Uncle Sam, Charles Dickens, Buffalo Bill, and Walt Whitman. He ends with the development of jazz and the blues as cultural products that would become important vehicles for self-representation in the new century. Harris\u2019s fast-paced narrative interspersed with graphic elements shows the importance of point-of-view in creating history, which always contains some elements of fiction as a result. Anyone interested in poetry, American history, and African American studies will appreciate Birth of a Notion.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n“An incisive, witty, and elegant account of the complex dimensions and often deeply disturbing realities informing the contentious American discourse(s) on racial mythology, cultural identity, and political history.” – Kofi Notambu<\/h2>\n
“In the pernicious game of truth vs. myth, Bill Harris’s hard-hitting Birth of a Notion<\/em> knocks the ball all the way out of the park.” — Al Young, poet laureate emeritus of California<\/h2>\n