DeLaney Center to Open its 2024-25 Screen to Square Film Series with ‘The Color Purple’ This year’s first film will be screened on Oct. 15 in Stackhouse Theater.

By Brian Laubscher
October 9, 2024

The Delaney Center at Washington and Lee University begins its 2024-2025 Screen to Square film series at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 15 in Stackhouse Theater in Elrod Commons with a screening of the movie “The Color Purple.” The event is free and open to the general public. Additionally, complimentary pizza, dessert and drinks will be served.

This year’s Screen to Square series will feature four films surrounding the theme “Work, Pay and Southern Racial Reality.”

“Unique nuances of Southern race relations surface when we study activities that straddle the gap between labor and leisure,” said Michael Hill, director of the DeLaney Center. “For this year’s Screen to Square series, we will show four films that tarry in this territory. Highlighting behaviors like singing, sewing, cooking and playing sports, our programs will ponder how these endeavors vivify the overlap of hobby and vocation thus illuminating the relationship between race, Southern identity, freedom, creativity and social progress. We welcome everyone interested in any of these issues to join the fun.”

The 2023 version of “The Color Purple” is the second film adaptation of the 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winner novel of the same name written by Alice Walker. The musical period drama navigates sexual abuse, racism, sexism and poverty through the personal journey of its main character, Celie, an uneducated and poverty-stricken African-American teenager raised in rural Georgia in the early 1900s. Celia overcomes her hardships, ultimately finding extraordinary strength and hope to discover her own identity.

Every Screen to Square screening includes an interactive discussion between select panelists and the audience relative to each film’s subject matter. Following the showing of “The Color Purple,” at approximately 7:20 p.m., members of the Lexington/Rockbridge arts community and select W&L professors will lead the audience in a discussion about crafts and community building.

The DeLaney Center is an interdisciplinary academic forum that promotes teaching and research on race and Southern identity. Visit the DeLaney Center website at https://my.wlu.edu/delaney-center for updates on further Screen to Square film screening, DeLaney Dialogues, and other programming.