In the midst of the recent student sit-in at Colgate, SOAN had the pleasure of hosting the award winning filmmakers Ira McKinnley and Bhawin Suchak to preview their soon to be released documentary, “The Throwaways.”  It is a timely film given the recent issues in Ferguson, MO, covering the experiences of New York state native Ira McKinley, a chronically homeless African American male.  It offers a first hand look at the forces of urban poverty and police brutality that plague minority communities in Albany, NY.

News outlet Democracy Now! recently aired an extended interview with the filmmakers, featuring many clips from the film.  In addition, the filmmakers have made other material available online.  Ira McKinley’s YouTube page and Bhawin Suchak’s Vimeo’s page host footage shot for the film as well as other pieces of interest, including their coverage of the recent Occupy movement.

You may also be interested in the Youth FX page, a summer film school for Albany, NY youths run by Bhawin.  Their Vimeo page includes a collection of short films made by students of the program.

–submitted by Professor Joe Gibbons

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SOAN’s local expert on West Africa, Professor Mary Moran, has coedited a series of analyses and responses to the Ebola crisis in the online version of the journal, Cultural Anthropology.  In the introduction to this series, Professor Moran and her coeditor, Daniel Hoffman, seek to put Ebola in context, both culturally and historically, and argue for the importance of a deeper understanding of the recent histories of countries such as Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone in order to more effectively address the disease: “In the current epidemic, as in the violence that preceded it and in the long uncertain period to come, intervention and understanding are not separate. One is not possible without the other.”  Everyone has seen news reports about the recent Ebola epidemic, but these essays provide the background that you will not find in other media—take a look to learn more.

Professor Moran also gave a talk recently at Duke University on the potential political fallout for Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf; you can read the text of her talk here.

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