There are a few reasons to read this blog post – you choose your adventure.
One reason (women) is to continue to commemorate international women’s day by embracing a film that you’ve likely already seen or heard or even have a New York City six-degrees of separation-type personal relationship with. The film’s name is Out in the Night. It is an award-winning documentary by blair dorosh-walther that tells the story of young friends, African American lesbians who are out, one hot August night in 2006, in what is thought to be gay-friendly New York City. But to say the name and short description of the film is us getting ahead of ourselves.
Reason two (community) is you are a community member – be it a part of the Graduate Center community, thereby curious to the events happening on campus, or a part of the LGBTQ community, a CLAGS member perhaps, and wanting to always be aware of local queer community events, or even more likely, that you are a member of the New York City community, and you are a woman, or you know women, or have met a woman this year. If this reason identifies you, then in the age of #MeToo, you’ll likely find an interest in a court case that has turned violent sexual threats to a group of women on the streets into a media frenzy of the “Gang of killer lesbians.”
We’ve come a long way since 2006, and so some may assume that this documentary film is archival, a reflection of political history, and a far shift from where we are today. If this is what you think, then you will likely need to do more than read this blog post, but you are urged to consider the third reason to read this post:
See the film.
Search for the film.
Rewatch the film over and over again.
This blog post is an advertisement for an event co-sponsored by the MA Program in Women’s and Gender Studies at the Graduate Center, CLAGS -the Center for LGBTQ Studies, and the Graduate Center Library. Why the library co-sponsorship you ask? Well, this post, and the third reason (film) to read this far along, is that this post is a directive for the Graduate Center community and all of New York City to log into and utilize a video-streaming database called Kanopy.
Kanopy may sound familiar to you, because we talked about it exactly one year ago. In that time, we purchased for limited use, with screening rights, access to 185 films for one to three years from the purchase date.
As of the time of this blog post, we have 121 days left to watch Out In the Night before it expires for the GC community
– so, again,
see the film.
Search for the film.
And rewatch the film over and over again.
The list of 185 films purchased by the GC can be viewed on the GC library database list: http://libguides.gc.cuny.edu/az.php?a=k. Click the “more” button at the end of the description and log in with your GC Username and Password.
For the wider New York City community, and for all GC users who’d like to explore outside of the small set of purchased titles, log into the NYPL Kanopy access point: https://www.nypl.org/collections/articles-databases/kanopy . Kanopy video streaming is now available via NYPL for patrons age 13 and older. The Kanopy collection offers a broad selection of more than 30,000 feature films, documentaries, foreign language, and training videos, including: the Criterion Collection, The Great Courses, the Frontline series, and international films. Verify you are a library patron by entering your library card number when creating an account and films can be watched from anywhere, anytime, on smartphones, tablets, PCs and smart TVs.
Luckily for the GC user community, the GC set of purchased titles will allow for educational screenings.
Please join us on Thursday, March 15th, 2018 at 6pm in room 9204 at the Graduate Center where I will provide a short overview of the Kanopy platform and then we can watch the film, together.
In (GC, student, woman, lesbian, queer, New Yorker, film buff, library user) community.
