When Herman Beavers took Introduction to Creative Writing 24 years ago at Oberlin College, there was one black poet in the curriculum.
Last night, there were eight published black writers on stage as part of a literature panel.
"It is incredibly important that we be here," Lorene Cary said.
Cary is an author and a lecturer in Creative Writing at Penn. She was also a speaker at the program that the Center for Africana Studies held yesterday evening in the Zellerbach Theater at the Annenberg Center.
The panel discussion, entitled "Back to the Future of Civilization," centered on the importance of ethnic literature.
Other topics included the varieties of black literature, particularly lesser known ones, the evolution of black literature and the place of black literature in school curricula and in individual lives.
Speakers included professors Herman Beavers and Farah Griffin (who teaches at Columbia University), writers Lorene Cary and Gloria Naylor, "the first African-American science fiction writer" Samuel Delany, playwright and critic Maryse Cond‚ and University of California at Berkeley lecturer Ishmael Reed.
Tukufu Zuberi, the director for the Center for Africana Studies, introduced the panel.
Each speaker talked about a topic of his or her choice for 15 minutes, followed by a discussion amongst the panelists, then a question and answer section involving the audience.
Though the event lasted for nearly three hours, the last two sections were cut short due to lack of time.
Most of the speakers touched on the importance of making ethnic literature more accessible.
"We say this [panel] is open to the public, but most of the public won't find out about it," Cary said. She also brought up the idea of "gateway fiction," fiction which hooks students, a play on the way marijuana is alleged to be a "gateway drug" by leading users to more drugs.
Griffin pointed out the growth in black commercial novels in the past decades and commended it.
"Some people who might never have read a book are reading now," she said.
Cond‚ and Delany spoke about the importance of breaking out of traditional ideas of black literature.
Cond‚ asked the audience to "please listen to me, start reading and paying attention to French Caribbean literature." Then, Delany, a science fiction writer, gave a brief history of the writings of black sci-fi writers.
The audience of about 100 included a wide range of races and ages. While some students attended because they were required to do so by Zuberi's class Race and Ethnicity, other audience members were graduate students or simply members of the community.
Jenell Breitenbach, an employee at the library, found "the diversity of the speakers really just so overwhelming."
Sonia Rosen, a first-year student in the Graduate School of Education, said, "Especially at Penn, there's a real dearth of people of color. It's hard being a student of color in" the GSE. She found the panel "a real honor" to attend because of the "big names who I adore a lot."
This event is the first of six this academic year that the Center for Africana Studies is holding as part of the 30th anniversary celebration of African-American Studies at Penn.
