Westchester Community College Literature Professor Richard Courage will give a multimedia presentation, The Great Gatsby and the Harlem Renaissance, at Arts on the Lake, 640 Route 52, Lake Carmel, on Sunday, November 4, at 3 pm.

One of the events organized around Putnam Reads The Great Gatsby, Arts on theLake is partnering with the Kent Public Library in this free lecture.

Professor Courage is co-author of the recently released and well-received book The Muse in Bronzeville: African American Creative Expression in Chicago, 1932-1950 (Rutgers University Press). Author of scholarly articles on African American narrative and visual arts, Courage has also contributed educational reporting and opinion pieces to The New York Times and The Journal News.

“While smart young things did the Charleston and listened to Louis Armstrong, the barrage of ‘scientific’ racism exemplified by Tom Buchanan’s diatribe in defense of ‘Nordic’ supremacy early in The Great Gatsby,” we see black sociologist Charles S. Johnson countering this with meticulously researched articles,” says Professor Courage. His multimedia presentation will take a look at the heroes of the Harlem Renaissance and the ways the worlds of West and East Egg were rife with racial (as well as class) insecurity.

Co-authored with late Professor Robert Bone of ColumbiaUniversity, The Muse in Bronzeville deals with the creative awakening that occurred onChicago’s South Side from the early 1930s to the Cold War. Professor Courage will be available following the presentation to inscribe copies of his book.

Putnam Reads is a countywide project of Putnam libraries and art organizations to encourage the reading of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

Seat reservations for the lecture may be made at rsvp@artsonthelake.org or (845)-228-2685.

More information is at www.artsonthelake.org.