The Execution of Wanda Jean in the news....

One of the stars of tonight's film, The Execution of Wanda Jean (7:30pm at Page Hall with discussion) is death penalty opponent Jesse Jackson, who has recently taken his fight to the African nation of The Gambia.

There's an article on Jackson's fight that mentions Wanda Jean Allen in an October 2012 issue of The Nation:

http://www.thenation.com/article/170284/jesse-jackson-fights-capital-punishment-gambia#

Photo: Jackson with Gambian president Yahyah Jammeh.

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Vivien Ng and James Acker at the Movies

Vivien Ng (pictured here) will join James Acker at Page Hall on Friday 10/19 at 7:30 PM to lead audience discussion following a screening of The Execution of Wanda Jean, a documentary about the first African American woman to be executed in modern times, and a finalist for the Grand Jury Prize of the Sundance Film Festival.

Vivien Ng is chair of the UAlbany Women's Studies Department and the first president of the National Women's Studies Association (1993-4). More on Vivien:  http://www.albany.edu/womensstudies/fac-ngv.shtml

James Acker is Distinguished Teaching Professor of the School of Criminal Justice and author of the standard textbook, Criminal Procedure: A Contemporary Perspective (1999, now in its 3rd edition, 2012). More on Acker: http://www.albany.edu/scj/james_acker.php

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Capital Punishment Documentary and Discussion Friday

Dear Readers, Writers, Teachers, Students and All Members of the General Public,

 

We invite you to attend the following free film event, which will be followed by an audience discussion led by UAlbany professors Vivien Ng, Chair of the Women’s Studies Department, and James Acker, Distinguished Teaching Professor of the School of Criminal Justice:

THE EXECUTION OF WANDA JEAN
October 19 (Friday)
Film Screening — 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
Directed by Liz Garbus
(United States, 2007, 94 minutes, color)

A spare and unsentimental documentary about the first African American woman to be put to death in modern times, EXECUTION follows the clemency appeal of mentally-impaired death row inmate Wanda Jean Allen. NY Times reviewer Julie Salamon said the film “offers an unusual opportunity to observe the inequities in the death penalty, not just the inherent immorality but also the haphazard administration of it.... In the end, Execution achieves a torturous, race-against-time desperation. Against a well-captured background of extended-family grief, the film inflates with optimism and then helplessly watches the state squeeze the air out. As Allen’s execution date closes in, the documentary gives an especially poignant portrait of her friendship with the never flagging legal investigator David Presson. For all his chin-up attitude, he slowly comes apart, sweating, sighing, laughing uncontrollably at Allen’s good-natured faith that all will end well….” The film was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival.

 

For more information contact 518-442-5620 or writers@albany.edu, or visit us online athttp://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/ . You may also wish to visit our blog at http://nyswiblog.blogspot.com/, or to friend us on Facebook. 

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