Books

When Poetry And Exploitation Collided

by | Jan 23, 2017 8:44 am | Comments (1)

Beinecke Library

A black novelist was so sick of the portrayal by his fellow writers of the Negro as fundamentally different from other homo sapiens that he wrote a satire, Black No More, starring a doctor who invents a procedure to lighten skin pigment.

A white champion of the new black lit himself penned a novel called Nigger Heaven, featuring sexual promiscuity; it sold well, and he was accused of exploitation.

And one of Langston Hughess earliest blues-inspired poems was called Fine Clothes to de Jew”; it broke new ground but its subject infuriated the black middle class — and, yes, there already was one in the Harlem of the 1920s and 1930s.

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Today On WNHH Radio

by | Jan 6, 2017 11:16 am | Comments (0)

Courtesy Lee van der Voo

Friday’s programs on WNHH Radio take a dip in the Bering Sea to look at sustainable seafood, applaud parental advocacy, bring back the world’s best pundits, and take Talladega College to court for joining Donald J. Trump’s inauguration lineup.

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All The World’s A Stage, And A Book?

by | Dec 7, 2016 8:53 am | Comments (1)

Allan Appel Photo

Detail of two of the seven figures in Tora Bora.

There’s a two-faced CIA agent who wears both faces at the same time.

There’s a desperate villager, a U.S. soldier, and a Soviet general.

And those pretty decorative patterns on the various surfaces? On closer inspection, they just might turn out to be a lovely visual marriage of opium poppies and Kalashnikovs.

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“Miss Librarian” Passes Half-Century Mark

by | Oct 26, 2016 11:56 am | Comments (0)

Allan Appel Photo

Boss Brogan (left) hails Carolla at her 50th annviersary party.

Marianne Carolla remembers when there were eight neighborhood library branches, not only the five current (including the main). In particular she remembers the storefront branch on Chapel at Norton, where the paperbacks hung on spindles as in an old book store window.

Once a man, a library patron, came in and said to her, I want something that’s hot to trot.”

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Today On WNHH Radio

by | Oct 21, 2016 8:05 am | Comments (0)

Courtesy Jim Collins Foundation.

Ferraiolo.

The most recent programs on WNHH radio dive headfirst into trans youth activism and the New Haven Pride Center, question the notion of collective memory and historical narrators, expose listeners to some old films made new, and revel in both local news and the impending fall harvest.

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Why #ChangeTheName

by | Oct 19, 2016 8:02 am | Comments (2)

Lucy Gellman Photo

Should Yale University change the name of Calhoun College?

Adding his voice to a debate that has been raging for over a year, Yale professor and film historian Charlie Musser, director of the five-DVD box set Pioneers of African American Cinema and author of the new Politicking and Emergent Media: US Presidential Elections of the 1890s, says yes. He came on WNHH radio’s The Tom Ficklin Show” to discuss why.

Below is a selection of the interview.

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The Latest On WNHH Radio

by | Jun 14, 2016 7:53 am | Comments (0)

Paul Bass Photos

Bandhary-Alexander and Lugo at WNHH.

The latest programs from WNHH radio check in with community members about the massacre in Orlando, revisit immigration reform and the Brock Turner case, meet new authors with new summer reads, and time-travel to a simple time that actually wasn’t so simple. 

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Confirmed: Roz Loves Betsy

by | Jun 9, 2016 2:19 pm | Comments (0)

Paul Bass Photo

Betsy and Roz Lerner at WNHH.

Radio interviewer: Roz, do you remember saying you love Betsy?
Roz: I may not have said it. But I certainly felt it. I adore my three girls.
Radio interviewer: So you love Betsy?
Roz: Absolutely.
Radio interviewer: Betsy, do you want to start telling your mom that now?
Betsy: No. It’s like a game of chicken.

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Yes I Said Yes You Will Go To The Institute Library

by | May 19, 2016 7:22 am | Comments (1)

Brian Slattery Photo

There’s a rack of linked sausages, drawn on the back of an envelope. In a collage, someone with the head of a fish is cozying up to a suspicious-looking woman in front of a church. At the orange entrance to a distillery, a long, unattended ladder is propped up next to the entrance to the safety shop.

What does it all mean?

It’s part of artist Tasha Lewiss project Illustrating Ulysses, on view at the Institute Library until May 29. This multimedia show offers hundreds of delights, both for Joyceans preparing for Bloomsday and those who have never cracked open James Joyce’s famously difficult masterpiece — but might like to.

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Happy Hour Gets Lit

by | May 12, 2016 7:11 am | Comments (0)

Poet, performer and curator Ifeanyi Awachie had a vision: Build a safe and supportive space in New Haven where writers from different backgrounds could convene, listen to each other, and learn about each other’s work, while kicking back after the workweek. She did her research: Nothing like it existed in the Elm City. So she would will it into existence, she reasoned.

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Today On WNHH

by | Apr 20, 2016 7:30 am | Comments (0)

Lucy Gellman Photo

Yarboro and Rawls-Ivy.

Bethea.

The gloves are coming off in the WNHH studio. Today’s broadcasts explore the ins and outs of the upcoming Connecticut Democratic presidential primary with Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton supporters, ask tough questions about racially motivated violence in New Haven, do battle with some intensely masculine fiction, and more. 

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