“Claude McKay: Wandering the World” | Film Screening
March 13 at 11:30 am – 2:30 pm
Join Alliance Française Atlanta and Georgia State University for a screening of the documentary “Claude McKay: Wandering the World”, directed by Matthieu Verdeil.
At the crossroads of Black literary consciousness and political struggle, Claude McKay helped lay the groundwork for major literary movements, including Negritude. A politically committed poet with a bohemian spirit, he moved through New York’s literary circles, Parisian salons, Soviet intellectual life, and Black diasporic communities in places like Marseille, forging connections with figures such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Leon Trotsky. Shaped by these global encounters, McKay developed a radical philosophy that anticipated its time. This film traces his remarkable life across four continents, exploring early twentieth-century currents of Black pride, Marxism, and the Harlem Renaissance through an immersive portrait of the 1920s and 1930s, visually inspired by the Harlem Renaissance and animated by jazz.
This screening will be in French with English subtitles.
Followed by a panel moderated by Curt Jackson, PhD, from the GSU History Department, including:
- Matthieu Verdeil, Filmmaker
- Edvige Jean-Francois, Executive Director of GSU Center for Studies on Africa and Its Diaspora
- Rashana Lydner, Assistant Professor at GSU Africana Studies Department
- Dr. Harcourt Fuller, Associate Professor at GSU History Department
