The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, D ecember 3, 2008
Volume CXLIII, No. 122
Since 1866, Daily Since 1891
January term in doubt as not enough sign up
History of slavery is dehumanized, prof says By Emma Berry Staff Writer
The slave trade is usually left out of the American immigration story, former Professor of Africana Studies James Campbell said in a lecture yesterday at the John Nicholas Brown Center. Speaking to a small group of teachers and community members about the history of the transatlantic slave trade, Campbell emphasized the need to “unsettle the ways in which Americans have been taught to tell the story of their history.” Targeting educators, Campbell’s lecture was the first of the “Coming to America” series sponsored by the Rhode Island Geography Education Alliance. Future lectures in the series will explore the immigration experiences of Asians, Latinos and Cape Verdeans. If you ask most Americans to describe early migrants to the Americas, most would say they “look like Pilgrims or conquistadors,” Campbell said. “They don’t look like Africans.” However, he said, in the first 300 years after Columbus’s voyage to the Americas, three-quarters of transatlantic migrants were African slaves. By the time the United States and Great Britain outlawed the transatlantic slave trade, over
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12.5 million Africans had been packed onto slave ships bound for the mines and plantations of the New World. The vast majority of these slaves went to Brazil and other sugar-producing regions, where few slaves survived the brutal work environment and heat for long. Campbell said North America, which was colonized later than the rest of the Americas, depended on white indentured servants until the end of the 17th century. Even in the 18th centur y, when slavery largely replaced indentured servitude as the base of the American plantation economy, North America imported relatively few slaves, Campbell said. In the temperate climate, the slave population increased. By the Civil War, the number of enslaved Africans in the United States had increased to almost four million, he added. While the presentation of slavery in American history textbooks has improved significantly since the civil rights movement, Campbell said, misconceptions still abound. Americans tend to think of slavery as “abhorrent and anomalous,” he said. “And it certainly was abhorrent. But it isn’t historically anomalous.” The concept of labor as a continued on page 4
by Ben Schreckinger Staff Writer
Morning Jacket’s “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream, Part 2,” which was completed this June and directed by Mixtape Club, an animating and directing trio consisting of alums Jesse Casey ’04, Michelle Higa ’04 and Chris Smith ’05. In addition to music videos for
January@Brown, the pilot program of a winter academic term that has run the last two years, will not run this academic year unless more students sign up by the end of this week, said John Caron, assistant dean for summer and continuing studies. The fate of the 10-day not-forcredit program, which 30 students participated in last year, will be determined by 5 p.m. on Friday. This year’s program would need 40 students to pay tuition in order for the program to cover its projected costs, but so far only 15 students have signed up. The program is entering the last of three years for which the University approved a trial run. In past years, students took one class that met daily, and went on group outings organized by the program. January@Brown’s organizers had originally hoped the program would gain momentum and eventually become a for-credit winter term similar to the kind offered by many small, liberal arts colleges — although some had suggested the program would work even without academic credit. The January program grew from 18 students in January 2007 to 30 students in 2008, and was subsidized by the University. However, as planned, the program will not receive subsidies for its third trial year. If the program does not enroll enough students to be independently viable, it will be cancelled for 2009 and will not return in the future, Caron said. There needs to be “enough student interest to sustain the program,” he said. “It’s got real costs associated to it.” Although less than half the requisite number of participants have signed up, Caron said he was hoping that many students simply had not finalized winter break plans until Thanksgiving break. Last year, enrollment surged during the week after break, he said. The Office of Summer and Continuing Studies has tried to grow the program this year by increasing its visibility. The office is “really trying to get the word out” with an advertising campaign that includes Brown Morning Mail, table slips and an ad on Facebook, Caron said. The January term is also offering more flexible pricing options this year. Students paying the $475 program fee now have the option to forego paying either $100 to live in a dorm or $325 for meals and instead provide for themselves. Among the students who are often good fits for the program are midyear transfers, said Katie Jennings ’10.5, who attended January@Brown last year. “The best part about January@ Brown for me was helping me orient
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Meara Sharma / Herald
John Cameron Mitchell, director and star of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” spoke last night at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Queer film director talks about ‘Hedwig’ and life By Suzannah Weiss Contributing Writer
Film star and director John Cameron Mitchell spoke to College Hill students about love, sex, religion and the burdens of dressing in drag at the screening of his film “Hedwig and the Angr y Inch,” at the Rhode Island School
of Design last night. Mitchell came to Providence as part of a project to bring queer filmmakers to Brown’s campus. The event was sponsored by the Queer Alliance, the department of modern culture and media and RISD’s Straight and Gay Alcontinued on page 6
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President Simmons heads to Africa It was not over the river and through the woods but across the Atlantic and into Ghana for President Ruth Simmons this Thanksgiving. Simmons made the trip for a three-day meeting on higher education in Africa. The African Leadership Forum, which brought together academics from the United States and Africa, discussed, in part, how to “develop and retain the next generation of African academics,” according to an e-mail from Marisa Quinn, vice president for public affairs and University relations. Simmons attended in her role as a university president and as a member of the Global University Leaders Forum, in which she participated at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland in January, Quinn wrote. Simmons also visited the University of Ghana and was honored by a dinner hosted by a Brown alum living in that country. The forum was attended by other university leaders, including Njabulo Ndebele, president of the Association of African Universities, and by representatives of the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa, a group of American foundations that organized the meeting, Quinn wrote. — George Miller
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Connie Zheng / Herald
Jesse Casey ‘04, Michelle Higa ‘04 and Chris Smith ‘05 direct music videos for bands like My Morning Jacket.
From List to London, alums mix it up By Connie Zheng Staf f Writer
A small primate with glassy, tennis-ball eyes and fur hanging off its frame like a shag carpet steps out from behind a tree, carrying a lantern with a glowing dragonfly inside. As it advances through the thick jungle, it suddenly trips and
GIVE PEACE A CHANCE? Despite Obama’s promise to expand it, the Peace Corps is still competitive for graduates
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CAMPUS NEWS
the firefly escapes from its cage. Horrified, the creature scrambles to its feet, accompanied by layers
FEATURE of guitar melody, a soft male voice and a driving drum rhythm. This dramatic sequence opens the music video for rock band My
hello, my name is... Those who work in Bio-Med facilities will now be forced to wear identification
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OPINIONS
equality in divorce Jeremy Feigenbaum ‘11 thinks Rhode Island should legalize gay divorce
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
12 SPORTS
SWIMMING ALONG Women’s and men’s swimming and diving start their seasons off well with victories
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