The Marygrove Conservancy proudly announces the Marygrove African American Authors Collection (MAAAC), a digitized archive of video recordings, photographs, printed materials, and teaching resources generated by the Contemporary American Authors Lecture Series (CAALS). The MAAAC was developed with the support of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and through a partnership between the Conservancy and the Detroit Historical Society (DHS), which digitized the materials and houses the collection’s video repository.
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The MAAAC features many of the major authors of the late 20th and early 21st centuries including MacArthur Fellows, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize recipients, and US Poets Laureate. Teaching resources and lesson plans focused on the authors’ works and developed according to Arts-Infused Education (AIE) principles accompany the collection.
Use the archive pages on the right to connect to the MAAAC. Use the permission form to use the MAAAC materials.
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The MAAAC’s intended users are K-12 teachers, college professors, scholars of African American literature and of the featured authors, and interested members of the public.
The CAALS was instituted at Marygrove College in 1989 and has featured college and high school courses, community workshops, and writing contests all focused on the works of the visiting authors. The centerpiece is the Bauder Lecture, a free public reading or lecture by the author for an audience of several hundred followed by a book signing. When the College closed in 2019, the CAALS gained new life as a Legacy Program of the Marygrove Conservancy.
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Over the years, partnerships with Detroit Public Schools, InsideOut, the Detroit Public Library, and most recently the Tuxedo Project and the Free Black Women’s Library have encouraged the involvement of school and community groups as well as local book clubs. The Conservancy now partners with Detroit Public Television and PBS Books to livestream the Bauder Lecture for a nationwide audience numbering in the thousands.
The Conservancy invites all who are interested in contemporary literature to visit the MAAAC and use its resources.
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Contact: Frank D. Rashid, frankdrashid@outlook.com