GPS and McCallie School hosted a 1920’s Symposium on Sunday afternoon with faculty from both schools and a few professors from UTC. The coordinate Gatsby event drew students and teachers from both schools who wanted to learn more about the Roaring 20’s.
Interesting options included “Fast Cars and Shell Shock: Living in the Shadow of Mechanized Warfare,” “Flapper Girls and Trial Marriage: Gender in the Jazz Age,” “Thoroughly Modern: Art in the Roaring 1920s” and “Gatsby on the Silver Screen.”
“Renaissance, Repression, Removal, and Resistance: Race in the Roaring 20s,” taught by Dr. Andrea Becksvoort, covered the decade that produced new opportunities for the celebration of African-American cultural expression (the Harlem Renaissance to the Jazz Age) but also witnessed the expansion of efforts to repress and disempower minority populations.
“Hey all you Hoppers! Dance the Charleston,” taught by dancers Callie Hamilton from GPS and Caroline Walker ’04 from McCallie, had students up on their feet swinging their legs and arms and capturing the spirit of youth and urban sophistication from the era of speakeasies and jazz.
The 20’s produced vibrant expression and shifting cultural and economic attitudes. As coordinator/GPS English teacher Katie Berotti said, “There were chairs and oxygen aplenty” for the many enthusiastic students.