The Black Community and the Affective Compact
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Published:March 2015
Although most of the episodes of the first season of Soul! are no longer available, an early episode including Novella Nelson, the Last Poets, and Marion Williams illustrates how the show worked to construct an “affective compact” with viewers. The affective compact encompassed the show’s mode of address, its myriad subtle ways of connecting with viewers, and its formal strategies of including the audience within its representations. As a local production of New York public television, Soul! gave voice to progressive critiques subject to censorship on commercial television. Its first season also saw the banding together of the Soul! audience, which successfully rallied for a second season after the Ford Foundation decided to withdraw its grant funding.
Bibliography
Ellis B. Haizlip Papers (gift of Doris Sanders), Anacostia Community Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.
Ford Foundation Archives, Rockefeller Archive Center, New York, NY.
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts Archives, New York, NY.
National Public Broadcasting Archives, University of Maryland, College Park, MD.
WNET Archives, New York, NY.
WNET Collection; Motion Picture, Broadcast and Recorded Sound Division; Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
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