Come to a Screening of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Dir. Harry Pollard, 1928, Universal Pictures) with talk by Dr. Rob Obey
November 10, Daley Library, 3pm, Room 1-470
Lecture and Discussion in conjunction with HON 124: Readings in the Atlantic Slave Trade and HON 201: Who Was Uncle Tom? as well as the Visualizing Uncle Tom's Cabin exhibit in the UIC Library and UIC Moving Image Arts.
About Dr. Rob Prince Obey:
Dr. Obey currently teaches Social Sciences courses at Bowling Green State University in Huron, Ohio where he has also taught both lower and upper levels courses in Ethnic Studies, Cinema Studies, American Culture, and Popular Culture. Dr.Obey received his doctorate in American Culture Studies from Bowling Green in 2009 where he specialized in audience reception theory and African American Cinema. His dissertation critiqued the 1983 Brian DePalma cult film Scarface and its relationship to urban male street identity construction. He is currently revising that work for publication as a book.
In 2013 he was awarded an Andrew Mellon Foundation Summer Fellowship in African American History from the University of Chicago’s Black Metropolis Research Consortium, during which time he conducted research on the etymology of the intra-racial epitaph “Uncle Tom” and its beginnings with Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Since 2007 he has curated and hosted African American themed film series on several college campuses, including Illinois State, the University of Toledo, and at Bowling Green, where his annual ten week spring film series “Social Justice and the Moving Image” has become a staple.
Dr. Obey’s research interests also include the history of Black Loyalists during the American Revolution and the design of socio-cultural informed courses that meld popular culture with social justice issues. To that end he is currently creating a course based on his critique of the representations of race, ethnicity, gender, and authority presented in the television series The Walking Dead.
Questions? Contact Dr. Cirillo at nancyc@uic.edu.
