John Singleton, the first African American to be nominated for an Academy Award as best director, will address the role of film in society in a lecture titled The World According to John Singleton: Film and Society at Claremont McKenna College's Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum at 6:45 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 11. The lecture is free and open to the public, and seating is available on a first-come basis. The Athenaeum is located at 385 East Eighth Street, at the intersection of Eighth and Amherst Streets in Claremont.
Singleton's films include Baby Boy, Shaft, Higher Learning, Poetic Justice, and 1991's Boyz N the Hood, for which Singleton received Academy Award nominations not only for Best Director, but also for Best Original Screenplay, the youngest to be nominated for the latter honor.
Born in 1968 in South Central Los Angeles, Singleton won three writing awards while studying in the USC film program, and was signed by Creative Artists Agency. At last year's Directors Guild of America tribute to Sidney Poitier, Singleton recalled the advice the actor had given him years earlier: "Never make a film," Poitier told him, "that your father would not admire."