Events

In support of local writers taking the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge, the Club is opening its virtual doors every Sunday in November for free & open to the public write-ins from 10am to 11am.
It all kicks off on Sun, Nov 1 with a special 2-hour virtual chat and write-in, where you can meet fellow writers preparing for the month ahead.

The Little Compton Historical Society is pleased to present their Women’s History Project as a free indoor and outdoor exhibit suitable for the whole family. Since July, we have been welcoming small groups of up to 15 people for private, self-guided tours of the exhibits. These 90-minute appointments are offered free of charge through November 14th. There are two scavenger hunts available for children: one designed for pre-reading and elementary age children, and the other for middle-school age children. The special exhibition is part of a year-long effort to research, present, and archive the history of Little Compton’s women in honor of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. This winter, LCHS invited the community to submit essays illuminating the histories of Little Compton women, including themselves, along with photographs. The community response exceeded our expectations, resulting in 300+ women’s stories being posted to our website at littlecompton.org.
This project is supported by a major grant from the Humanities Council.

Have a great idea for a new public humanities project and looking to apply for a major grant? Make sure to register your intent to apply for a major grant by 5:00pm EST on November 2, 2020 using the Intent to Apply form available in the Grantmaking section of the website.
Questions? Contact Julia Renaud at juliarenaud@rihumanities.org.

Do you have a great idea for a public humanities project and looking for support from a mini grant from the Humanities Council?
The Mini Grant Program for requests up to $2,000 invites individual researchers, nonprofit organizations, and schools to apply for funding in support of public humanities projects, documentary film, and individual research.
MINI GRANT DEADLINES

November 2, 2020
February 1, 2021
May 3, 2021
August 2, 2021

Make sure you submit your Mini Grant Application by 5:00pm EST on the established deadline using our online application system found in the Grantmaking section of the website to have your project considered for funding.
Questions? Contact Julia Renaud at juliarenaud@rihumanities.org.

The Little Compton Historical Society is pleased to present their Women’s History Project as a free indoor and outdoor exhibit suitable for the whole family. Since July, we have been welcoming small groups of up to 15 people for private, self-guided tours of the exhibits. These 90-minute appointments are offered free of charge through November 14th. There are two scavenger hunts available for children: one designed for pre-reading and elementary age children, and the other for middle-school age children. The special exhibition is part of a year-long effort to research, present, and archive the history of Little Compton’s women in honor of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. This winter, LCHS invited the community to submit essays illuminating the histories of Little Compton women, including themselves, along with photographs. The community response exceeded our expectations, resulting in 300+ women’s stories being posted to our website at littlecompton.org.
This project is supported by a major grant from the Humanities Council.

The Little Compton Historical Society is pleased to present their Women’s History Project as a free indoor and outdoor exhibit suitable for the whole family. Since July, we have been welcoming small groups of up to 15 people for private, self-guided tours of the exhibits. These 90-minute appointments are offered free of charge through November 14th. There are two scavenger hunts available for children: one designed for pre-reading and elementary age children, and the other for middle-school age children. The special exhibition is part of a year-long effort to research, present, and archive the history of Little Compton’s women in honor of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. This winter, LCHS invited the community to submit essays illuminating the histories of Little Compton women, including themselves, along with photographs. The community response exceeded our expectations, resulting in 300+ women’s stories being posted to our website at littlecompton.org.
This project is supported by a major grant from the Humanities Council.

Join us for a discussion on the November 3rd presidential election. More details will come soon.

Link to event page.

Hosted by Amherst College Center for Humanistic Inquiry.

Frequency Writers: Rhode Island’s Oldest Creative Writing Organization
The Essay as Form focuses on the essay as a productive form with no limits. Each week, students will read or see an essay (yes, there are essay films as well) that will serve us as a model for the essays students will make. Among the possible readings: Fred Moten, Zoe Leonard, Susan Howe, John Edgar Wideman, Moyra Davey, Janet Malcolm, and of course, Theodor Adorno, whose essential essay, ‘The Essay as Form’ will inaugurate the class.
Students will come away with a minimum of 3-5 (essay) pieces, each written in a radically different style, that they may, over time, develop into a longer, more fully realized essay.
All levels are welcome so long as you are ready to do the necessary work (weekly class readings, writing assignments, class participation).
Classes are virtual and held every Wednesday from October 19 to November 23, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
*NB: In honor of the Veteran’s Day holiday, the Wednesday, November 11 class will be held on Monday, November 9.
Tuition: $265 | Scholarships are available.
Instructor: Victor Wildman

The Little Compton Historical Society is pleased to present their Women’s History Project as a free indoor and outdoor exhibit suitable for the whole family. Since July, we have been welcoming small groups of up to 15 people for private, self-guided tours of the exhibits. These 90-minute appointments are offered free of charge through November 14th. There are two scavenger hunts available for children: one designed for pre-reading and elementary age children, and the other for middle-school age children. The special exhibition is part of a year-long effort to research, present, and archive the history of Little Compton’s women in honor of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. This winter, LCHS invited the community to submit essays illuminating the histories of Little Compton women, including themselves, along with photographs. The community response exceeded our expectations, resulting in 300+ women’s stories being posted to our website at littlecompton.org.
This project is supported by a major grant from the Humanities Council.

The French Department welcomes Dorian Bell, associate professor of literature and Jewish studies, University of California, Santa Cruz, to deliver a lecture, The ‘Real’ Racists: Co-optations of Antiracism by the French and American Right, as part of a virtual colloquia series Addressing Racism and Anti-Blackness in French and Francophone Studies.

Please register via Zoom.

This series features eminent scholars examining the role race plays in systems of power and thought in the field of French and Francophone Studies. We hope our series will foster conversations that combat racism and promote inclusion and equity in our classrooms and research.

About the series:
The recent death of George Floyd and the ensuing Black Lives Matter protests in the United States have resonated powerfully in France, which witnessed its own case of police brutality against Adamé Traroé, a young French-Malian man who died in police custody in 2016. These events have triggered difficult conversations in both countries about national identity, the memory of slavery, and notions of race. In France, these debates have led to a revaluation of France’s legacy of colonization, notably through a critical reappraisal of the ideologies that undergird traditional notions of French citizenship.

Given the urgency of such discussions, the members of the French Department, as both individuals and scholars, propose a public examination of the role race plays in systems of power and thought in our own field, in order to deepen classroom discussions and promote inclusion and equity in our courses. To this end, we have organized a fall virtual colloquium series featuring eminent French Studies scholars who will speak on topics ranging from “art and race” and “the illegibility of French anti-Blackness” to “racial dimensions of the notion of freedom” and “anti-racism campaigns in Paris.” We hope our series will foster conversations that illuminate the entrenched role of race and racism both in France and the US. Please join us for these conversations.

For more information, please contact: 

ml104@wellesley.edu

Link to event page

The Little Compton Historical Society is pleased to present their Women’s History Project as a free indoor and outdoor exhibit suitable for the whole family. Since July, we have been welcoming small groups of up to 15 people for private, self-guided tours of the exhibits. These 90-minute appointments are offered free of charge through November 14th. There are two scavenger hunts available for children: one designed for pre-reading and elementary age children, and the other for middle-school age children. The special exhibition is part of a year-long effort to research, present, and archive the history of Little Compton’s women in honor of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. This winter, LCHS invited the community to submit essays illuminating the histories of Little Compton women, including themselves, along with photographs. The community response exceeded our expectations, resulting in 300+ women’s stories being posted to our website at littlecompton.org.
This project is supported by a major grant from the Humanities Council.

The Little Compton Historical Society is pleased to present their Women’s History Project as a free indoor and outdoor exhibit suitable for the whole family. Since July, we have been welcoming small groups of up to 15 people for private, self-guided tours of the exhibits. These 90-minute appointments are offered free of charge through November 14th. There are two scavenger hunts available for children: one designed for pre-reading and elementary age children, and the other for middle-school age children. The special exhibition is part of a year-long effort to research, present, and archive the history of Little Compton’s women in honor of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. This winter, LCHS invited the community to submit essays illuminating the histories of Little Compton women, including themselves, along with photographs. The community response exceeded our expectations, resulting in 300+ women’s stories being posted to our website at littlecompton.org.
This project is supported by a major grant from the Humanities Council.

Annual Neighborhood Comics Fest!

Can you believe that the 2020 Neighborhood Comics Fest (NCF) is almost here? On Saturday afternoon, November 7, we welcome families to join us at the Mount Pleasant branch of Providence Community Library to enjoy a safe, socially distanced, outdoor event! Inspired by the newest Hunger Games book The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, NCF will have a survival-based theme.

Activities will include storytelling with anime dice, fortune telling, chess, t-shirt creation, candy “sushi” creation, a robot obstacle course, and a fun fashion show. NCF is an exciting collaboration of three PCL branches: Mount Pleasant, Olneyville, and Washington Park. Other partners include our friends from The Wilbury Theatre Group.

Again, this safe, socially distanced event will strictly follow Governor Raimondo’s Reopening RI plan. Therefore, registration for NCF will be REQUIRED, and a color-coded ticketing system for time-limited entry will be used to further ensure everyone’s safety. Participants must wear masks during their visit to NCF.

Please contact any of the three libraries (Mount Pleasant, Olneyville, or Washington Park) to reserve tickets for one of three potential time slots:

Timeslot A: 1:30-2:30pm
Timeslot B: 2:45-3:45pm
Timeslot C: 4:00-5:00pm

Library contact info

Mount Pleasant Library 401-272-0106 or email Garrett Locke glocke@provcomlib.org
Olneyville Library 401-421-4084 or email Joseph Morra jmorra@provcomlib.org
Washington Park 401-781-3136 or email Amy Rosa arosa@provcomlib.org

In support of local writers taking the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge, the Club is opening its virtual doors every Sunday in November for free & open to the public write-ins from 10am to 11am.
It all kicks off on Sun, Nov 1 with a special 2-hour virtual chat and write-in, where you can meet fellow writers preparing for the month ahead.

The Little Compton Historical Society is pleased to present their Women’s History Project as a free indoor and outdoor exhibit suitable for the whole family. Since July, we have been welcoming small groups of up to 15 people for private, self-guided tours of the exhibits. These 90-minute appointments are offered free of charge through November 14th. There are two scavenger hunts available for children: one designed for pre-reading and elementary age children, and the other for middle-school age children. The special exhibition is part of a year-long effort to research, present, and archive the history of Little Compton’s women in honor of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. This winter, LCHS invited the community to submit essays illuminating the histories of Little Compton women, including themselves, along with photographs. The community response exceeded our expectations, resulting in 300+ women’s stories being posted to our website at littlecompton.org.
This project is supported by a major grant from the Humanities Council.

The Digital Humanities and Media Studies Initiative Presents Sarah Sharma.

Registration for this event is online via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dhms-sarah-sharma-tickets-121080301441

Sponsored by Digital H umanities and Media Studies

The Little Compton Historical Society is pleased to present their Women’s History Project as a free indoor and outdoor exhibit suitable for the whole family. Since July, we have been welcoming small groups of up to 15 people for private, self-guided tours of the exhibits. These 90-minute appointments are offered free of charge through November 14th. There are two scavenger hunts available for children: one designed for pre-reading and elementary age children, and the other for middle-school age children. The special exhibition is part of a year-long effort to research, present, and archive the history of Little Compton’s women in honor of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. This winter, LCHS invited the community to submit essays illuminating the histories of Little Compton women, including themselves, along with photographs. The community response exceeded our expectations, resulting in 300+ women’s stories being posted to our website at littlecompton.org.
This project is supported by a major grant from the Humanities Council.

What can we learn about how people have secured equitable political representation in the United States by examining case studies from Lowell’s past and present?

Find out by participating in the Tsongas Industrial History Center’s webinar series for educators that explores how underrepresented communities have fought for equitable representation and overcome barriers to civic participation. In each webinar, historians and educators share content on a civics topic and discuss how to adapt it for the classroom. Each session includes companion primary documents and writing prompts.

Prof. Sue Kim (UMass Lowell) and Mr. Oren Sellstrom (Lawyers for Civil Rights) will talk about the major voting rights case, Huot v. City of Lowell, brought on behalf of Asian-American and Latinx voters to dismantle the at-large electoral system in Lowell. Prof. Kim was a plaintiff in the lawsuit and Mr. Sellstrom was the attorney who won the groundbreaking victory in the case.

Registration page

Link to event page

The Little Compton Historical Society is pleased to present their Women’s History Project as a free indoor and outdoor exhibit suitable for the whole family. Since July, we have been welcoming small groups of up to 15 people for private, self-guided tours of the exhibits. These 90-minute appointments are offered free of charge through November 14th. There are two scavenger hunts available for children: one designed for pre-reading and elementary age children, and the other for middle-school age children. The special exhibition is part of a year-long effort to research, present, and archive the history of Little Compton’s women in honor of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. This winter, LCHS invited the community to submit essays illuminating the histories of Little Compton women, including themselves, along with photographs. The community response exceeded our expectations, resulting in 300+ women’s stories being posted to our website at littlecompton.org.
This project is supported by a major grant from the Humanities Council.

On June 25th every year, a multi-generational group of some 30 Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho riders on horseback conclude a weeklong journey across Montana that formally ends with a powerful ceremonial charge to the top of what is known as “Last Stand Hill” in order to remember their ancestors’ historic 1876 victory over the U.S. Army and the defeat of General George Armstrong Custer and the 7th Cavalry. The event is neither a performance nor a reenactment. Instead, it is a sacred Native American Prayer Ride. 

For the past four years, I have been one of the few non-Native participants on this annual Ride to Little Bighorn where I have been honored to serve as part of the camp cook crew, occasional horse wrangler, and even informal documentary photographer. This auto-ethnographic presentation will share my visual record of this Ride that has also inspired my first public humanities project.

Following the presentation, Professor Genevieve Clutario (American Studies) will provide a response to Professor Creef's presentation. An open Q&A session will follow. 

This event is open to members of the Wellesley College community. Pre-registration is required. Please click here to register. 

 
For more information, please contact: 

Lauren Cote at lcote2@wellesley.edu.

Link to event page

Lisa D. Cook, professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State University, will deliver the 2020 Goldman Lecture in Economics: 150 Years of Violence and Economic Implications for Today.

In a recent paper, Cook shows the negative impact of violence on innovative activity and economic activity using patent and other data from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Given recent events, she will present these findings, as well as how the evidence informs our understanding of current racial and political violence and its implications for economic and broader outcomes.

Please register in advance.

For more information, please contact: 

sdatz@wellesley.edu

Generously supported by: 

Marshall I. Goldman Fund

Link to event page

This talk will cover the history of Title IX, the changes to its enforcement under the Obama and Trump administrations, and will discuss how colleges can protect students from discrimination without compromising free speech and due process rights.

Title IX, the law prohibiting sex discrimination in federally funded educational institutions, has led colleges and universities to set up parallel justice systems that adjudicate claims of some of society’s most serious crimes — but often without any of the procedural protections normally afforded to people facing such serious accusations. This past May, the Department of Education implemented new Title IX regulations that provide many important procedural protections, but opponents of these regulations are already attacking them both in court and on campus.

Samantha Harris is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and is of counsel to the firm of Mudrick & Zucker, where she concentrates her practice in the areas of campus discipline, Title IX, and free speech. For more than 15 years, she has advised students, faculty, administrators, and attorneys on issues of free speech and due process on campus. She lectures regularly about students' rights at campuses and conferences around the country, including at the Judicial Conferences of the Third and Fourth Circuits. Ms. Harris has been published in Inside Higher Ed, the New York Daily News, Reason, The Washington Post, Vox, and other publications, and has represented FIRE on ESPN, Fox News, NPR, and more. Ms. Harris received her undergraduate degree in Politics from Princeton University in 1999, and went on to earn her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 2002. She completed a judicial clerkship with the late Judge Jay C. Waldman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Please register in advance.

Link to event page

While Juan Luis Vives and others contributed to debates in Europe about the identity of the original Adamic language, missionaries in sixteenth-century Mexico used the biblical story of Babel to account for, or just to convey, the daunting number of native tongues in the Americas. Interpretation of the Babel episode also influenced the Franciscans’ linguistic theory and practice as they compiled the first grammars and dictionaries of Amerindian languages.

The ruins of local pyramids and other physical traces of the remote past in post-conquest Mexico attracted the attention of European missionaries as well. Preachers used the myths of the Tower of Babel and that of the existence of primordial giants before the confusion of tongues to explain pre-Aztec material remains. Those Biblical myths were not deployed in a void, but among indigenous narratives that already accounted for those remains.

Using both textual sources and archaeological remains, Andrew Laird and Felipe Rojas will discuss the interactions between Old and New World traditions of antiquarianism.

1. And the earth was of one tongue, and of the same speech.
2. And when they removed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Sennaar, and dwelt in it.
3. And each one said to his neighbor: Come let us make brick, and bake them with fire. And they had brick instead of stones, and slime instead of mortar:
4. And they said: Come, let us make a city and a tower, the top whereof may reach to heaven; and let us make our name famous before we be scattered abroad into all lands. 5. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of Adam were building.
5. And he said: Behold, it is one people, and all have one tongue: and they have begun to do this, neither will they leave off from their designs, till they accomplish them in deed.
6. Come ye, therefore, let us go down, and there confound their tongue, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
7. And so the Lord scattered them from that place into all lands, and they ceased to build the city.
8. And therefore the name thereof was called Babel, because there the language of the whole earth was confounded: and from thence the Lord scattered them abroad upon the face of all countries.

Genesis 11: 1-8

This virtual event, presented by the Center for the Study of the Early Modern World, is free and open to the public.

Link to event page

Frequency Writers: Rhode Island’s Oldest Creative Writing Organization
The Essay as Form focuses on the essay as a productive form with no limits. Each week, students will read or see an essay (yes, there are essay films as well) that will serve us as a model for the essays students will make. Among the possible readings: Fred Moten, Zoe Leonard, Susan Howe, John Edgar Wideman, Moyra Davey, Janet Malcolm, and of course, Theodor Adorno, whose essential essay, ‘The Essay as Form’ will inaugurate the class.
Students will come away with a minimum of 3-5 (essay) pieces, each written in a radically different style, that they may, over time, develop into a longer, more fully realized essay.
All levels are welcome so long as you are ready to do the necessary work (weekly class readings, writing assignments, class participation).
Classes are virtual and held every Wednesday from October 19 to November 23, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
*NB: In honor of the Veteran’s Day holiday, the Wednesday, November 11 class will be held on Monday, November 9.
Tuition: $265 | Scholarships are available.
Instructor: Victor Wildman

Vermont Humanities program scholar Suzanne Brown will expertly lead attendees in a discussion of three short selections that will explore our Fall Conference theme of democracy through the lens of the Chinese-American experience during the time of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

There will be two opportunities to participate: Wednesday, November 11 from 7:00 to 8:00 pm and Sunday November 15 from 4:00 to 5:00 pm. Sessions are limited to 15 people each. Participants will receive theme-related reading materials via email after completing the registration form:

Register to attend these free sessions

Link to event page

The Little Compton Historical Society is pleased to present their Women’s History Project as a free indoor and outdoor exhibit suitable for the whole family. Since July, we have been welcoming small groups of up to 15 people for private, self-guided tours of the exhibits. These 90-minute appointments are offered free of charge through November 14th. There are two scavenger hunts available for children: one designed for pre-reading and elementary age children, and the other for middle-school age children. The special exhibition is part of a year-long effort to research, present, and archive the history of Little Compton’s women in honor of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. This winter, LCHS invited the community to submit essays illuminating the histories of Little Compton women, including themselves, along with photographs. The community response exceeded our expectations, resulting in 300+ women’s stories being posted to our website at littlecompton.org.
This project is supported by a major grant from the Humanities Council.

The French Department welcomes Tyler Stovall, dean, Fordham University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, to deliver a lecture, White France? Freedom and Race in the Modern Republic, as part of a virtual colloquia series Addressing Racism and Anti-Blackness in French and Francophone Studies.

Please register via Zoom.

This series features eminent scholars examining the role race plays in systems of power and thought in the field of French and Francophone Studies. We hope our series will foster conversations that combat racism and promote inclusion and equity in our classrooms and research.

About the series:
The recent death of George Floyd and the ensuing Black Lives Matter protests in the United States have resonated powerfully in France, which witnessed its own case of police brutality against Adamé Traroé, a young French-Malian man who died in police custody in 2016. These events have triggered difficult conversations in both countries about national identity, the memory of slavery, and notions of race. In France, these debates have led to a revaluation of France’s legacy of colonization, notably through a critical reappraisal of the ideologies that undergird traditional notions of French citizenship.

Given the urgency of such discussions, the members of the French Department, as both individuals and scholars, propose a public examination of the role race plays in systems of power and thought in our own field, in order to deepen classroom discussions and promote inclusion and equity in our courses. To this end, we have organized a fall virtual colloquium series featuring eminent French Studies scholars who will speak on topics ranging from “art and race” and “the illegibility of French anti-Blackness” to “racial dimensions of the notion of freedom” and “anti-racism campaigns in Paris.” We hope our series will foster conversations that illuminate the entrenched role of race and racism both in France and the US. Please join us for these conversations.

For more information, please contact: 

ml104@wellesley.edu

Link to event page

Historian Alan Berolzheimer will lead three discussion sessions using recorded videos from our Democracy 20/20 Fall Conference. Educators are invited to attend all of these facilitated sessions, free of charge, to discuss the conference themes and connections, using supplemental advance readings to explore and share potential classroom applications. Please review the recorded session being considered, read the advance materials, and come prepared for a lively discussion!

Amherst College psychology professor Catherine Sanderson examines the factors that lead most of us to stay silent in the face of bad behavior, and how this tendency to stay silent allows such acts to continue. Sanderson also provides practical strategies that we can all use to speak up and take action. Sanderson also provides practical strategies that we can all use to speak up and take action. 

Register here

Link to event page 

Nikki Greene, Assistant Professor of Art at Wellesley College, in conversation with photographer Myra Greene, who uses ambrotypes to challenge visual legacies of ethnographic classification in detailed explorations of her own skin color and facial features.

Registration is required.

Davis Museum: Handmade Photography Today Virtual Artist Talk Series
In conjunction with the exhibition, Making, Not Taking: Portrait Photography in the 19th Century, the Davis Museum presents a series of virtual artist talks to explore contemporary iterations of nineteenth-century photographic processes. This fall, join us for conversations with Takashi Arai, Edie Bresler, Myra Greene, and Will Wilson. The series is generously sponsored by the Bern Schwartz Family Foundation.

Link to event page

“I Was Asked to Stand” educates and empowers us to understand the cause and possible solutions to the disparity in the lack of representation, documentation, and acknowledgment of the great works of women and diverse designers. Pascale’s presentation focuses on the history of the problems, how we can proactively change architecture and design, and future aspirations to continue the fight for equality.
Presented by Pascale Sablan, AIA NOMA, LEED AP, founder and executive director of Beyond the Built Environment.
Click here for more information about the Providence Symposium events. The link below is to register for this session.

Whose Places Matter (And why?)
The modern historic preservation movement came of age in the era of redlining, urban renewal, and fierce debate about the future of our cities. This crucible of “progress” resulted in more deeply entrenched racial, economic, and philosophical divides and a preservation practice that protected the interests of the privileged and powerful.
Today, we live with structural injustices baked into our society — into the buildings that remain and the very way our cities work. Choices made generations ago are laid bare in our segregated neighborhoods, biased housing policy, generational class inequalities, geographic health disparities, and civic processes that reflect the interests of the few. And in addition to its complicity on these issues, the preservation field has a long way to go in lifting up buildings and landscapes that reflect the full American story.
So where do we go from here? What kind of future do we want for Providence? How do communities participate more fully in the conversations about the shape of our city and the places we celebrate? And what is the role of preservationists in helping to restore healthier, more equitable communities where everyone’s history matters?
This year’s Providence Symposium will explore the systems that have shaped our built environment and the communities that inhabit it. As we heed the calls for urgent institutional change, a field based on the power of preservation must consider how to tear down and build anew. PPS invites community conversation and visioning about which places matter and why.

Fashion journalist and former Vogue editor-at-large André Leon Talley in conversation with Alexis Boylan.

Registration required, via Eventbrite: h ttps://www.eventbrite.com/e/andre-leon-talley-tickets-122242419367

Spons ored by the University of Connecticut Humanities Center and the Africana St udies Institute.

Part of the Exploring Graphic Novels series. The genre of graphic novels has flourished in recent years. The four highly acclaimed works in this series—three memoirs and one work of historical fiction (Berlin)—highlight the literary value and artistic merit in this growing medium.

Please note: This event will be hosted on Zoom. For more information about the event, how to access books, or to get the link to the online event contact the Bradford Library at bradfordpubliclibrary@gmail.com or (802) 222-4536. 

Link to event page 

The thirteen harrowing days of the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear disaster. Writer Michael Tougias recounts this tense chapter of history and explores how President Kennedy reached a decision on a course of action. Tougias will share insights from his interviews with the U-2 pilots who flew unarmed over Cuba to secure the photographic proof that the Soviets were installing nuclear missiles on the island. The presentation will also highlight some of the lesser known events and recently unclassified documents related to this crisis.

This event will be offered online via Zoom. Email janevossler@gmail.com for more information. 

Link to event page 

ECAS en Casa les invita este JUEVES 12 de noviembre a las 7:00 PM (Hora del Este) a un entretenido diálogo con Shey Rivera, artista interdisciplinaria y gestora cultural.
*
Cada uno de nuestros invitados son personalidades influyentes en miras a transformar el teatro de minorías e inmigrantes a través de la representación en la escena.
Shey Rivera Ríos es artista interdisciplinaria y gestora cultural. Rivera tiene 10 años de experiencia en el sector de las artes. Su trayectoria incluye 8 años de liderazgo en el centro cultural e incubadora artística AS220 en Providence, RI, y su rol como Directora de Desarrollo Regional Inclusivo para el Laboratorio de Innovación Comunitaria (MIT CoLab) del Departamento de Estudios Urbanos y Planeación de MIT. Hoy día Rivera es artista y consultora independiente con especialización en la gestión de las artes en la intersección de la cultura, la planificación urbana y la equidad racial y de género. Rivera cuenta con un doble bachillerato en Psicología y Sociología de la Universidad de Puerto Rico (UPR-Rio Piedras), y estudios de posgrado en Cultura y Medios Contemporáneos de la Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, Puerto Rico. Es parte de la Junta Directiva de la Alianza de Comunidades de Artistas y parte del Consejo Asesor de Puerto Rican Institute for Arts and Advocacy. Rivera ha exhibido su trabajo en: Loisaida Arts Center, NYC; AS220, Providence, RI; Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latina (MACLA), San José, CA; Escuela de Artes Visuales de Nueva York; Centro para las Artes en Boston; La Galería en Universidad Sagrado Corazón, San Juan, Puerto Rico; y otros. Algunos de sus proyectos artísticos incluyen la serie de performance LUNA LOBA, el proyecto transmedia FANTASY ISLAND, y su más reciente producción Flores de Fuego y una Máquina del Tiempo, producida por The Wilbury Group y WaterFire Providence.
ECAS en Casa invites you next THURSDAY, November 12 at 7:00 PM (Eastern Time) to an entertaining dialogue with Shey Rivera, interdisciplinary artist, and cultural manager.
*
Each of our guests are influential personalities with a view to transforming minority and immigrant theater through on-stage performance.
Shey Rivera Ríos is an interdisciplinary artist and cultural manager. Rivera has 10 years of experience in the arts sector. Their career includes 8 years of leadership at the AS220 arts incubator and cultural center in Providence, RI, and their role as Director of Inclusive Regional Development for the Community Innovation Laboratory (MIT CoLab) of the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning. Today Rivera is an artist and independent consultant specializing in managing the arts at the intersection of culture, urban planning, and racial and gender equity. Rivera has a double bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Sociology from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR-Rio Piedras), and postgraduate studies in Culture and Contemporary Media from the Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, Puerto Rico. They are part of the Board of Directors of the Alliance of Artists Communities and part of the Advisory Council of the Puerto Rican Institute for Arts and Advocacy. Rivera has exhibited thier work at: Loisaida Arts Center, NYC; AS220, Providence, RI; Movement of Latin Art and Culture (MACLA), San José, CA; New York School of Visual Arts; Center for the Arts in Boston; The Gallery at Universidad Sagrado Corazón, San Juan, Puerto Rico; and others. Some of their artistic projects include the performance series LUNA LOBA, the transmedia project FANTASY ISLAND, and his most recent production Flowers of Fire and a Time Machine, produced by The Wilbury Group and WaterFire Providence.
*
7:00 PM Hora Rhode Island
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8:00 PM Hora República Dominicana
ECAS en Casa se transmite a través de Teatro ECAS en el link del canal en Facebook. Aqui.
ECAS en Casa is on Facebook live Thursday at 7 pm link HERE.

The Little Compton Historical Society is pleased to present their Women’s History Project as a free indoor and outdoor exhibit suitable for the whole family. Since July, we have been welcoming small groups of up to 15 people for private, self-guided tours of the exhibits. These 90-minute appointments are offered free of charge through November 14th. There are two scavenger hunts available for children: one designed for pre-reading and elementary age children, and the other for middle-school age children. The special exhibition is part of a year-long effort to research, present, and archive the history of Little Compton’s women in honor of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. This winter, LCHS invited the community to submit essays illuminating the histories of Little Compton women, including themselves, along with photographs. The community response exceeded our expectations, resulting in 300+ women’s stories being posted to our website at littlecompton.org.
This project is supported by a major grant from the Humanities Council.

Who “authorizes” cultural heritage and decides what places are worth protecting and celebrating? How are these decisions made and whose histories do they preserve? This panel discussion will explore the formal preservation systems currently in place and how they work for and against communities. Our guests will offer insight on how preservation works at the municipal, state, and federal levels and how the processes are responding to demands for change.
Panelists
Sherry Frear, Chief of the National Register of Historic Places & National Historic Landmarks Program, National Park Service

Claudia Guerra, Cultural Historian, City of San Antonio Office of Historic Preservation

J. Paul Loether, Executive Director, Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission and Rhode Island State Historic Preservation Officer

Stephanie Ryberg-Webster, Associate Professor of Urban Studies and Historic Preservation Certificate Coordinator, Cleveland State University

Moderated by: Elaine Stiles, Assistant Professor of Historic Preservation, Roger Williams University

Click here for more information about the Providence Symposium events. The link below is to register for this session.

Whose Places Matter (And Why?)
The modern historic preservation movement came of age in the era of redlining, urban renewal, and fierce debate about the future of our cities. This crucible of “progress” resulted in more deeply entrenched racial, economic, and philosophical divides and a preservation practice that protected the interests of the privileged and powerful.
Today, we live with structural injustices baked into our society — into the buildings that remain and the very way our cities work. Choices made generations ago are laid bare in our segregated neighborhoods, biased housing policy, generational class inequalities, geographic health disparities, and civic processes that reflect the interests of the few. And in addition to its complicity on these issues, the preservation field has a long way to go in lifting up buildings and landscapes that reflect the full American story.
So where do we go from here? What kind of future do we want for Providence? How do communities participate more fully in the conversations about the shape of our city and the places we celebrate? And what is the role of preservationists in helping to restore healthier, more equitable communities where everyone’s history matters?
This year’s Providence Symposium will explore the systems that have shaped our built environment and the communities that inhabit it. As we heed the calls for urgent institutional change, a field based on the power of preservation must consider how to tear down and build anew. PPS invites community conversation and visioning about which places matter and why.

How did we go from journalism as a trusted form of information to an era of “fake news” and “alternative facts”? Presidential historian Harold Holzer examines the tension between chief executives and their chief critics, from George Washington to the present.

About Harold Holzer

Harold Holzer, winner of The 2015 Gilder-Lehrman Lincoln Prize, is one of the country’s leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the Civil War era. Holzer served for six years (2010–2016) as Chairman of The Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation. President Bush awarded Holzer the National Humanities Medal in 2008. In 2013, Holzer wrote an essay on Lincoln for the official program at the re-inauguration of President Obama. He is now co-chairman of The Lincoln Forum.

Please note: this free event will be held on the Digital Programs portion of our website, our Facebook page, and our YouTube channel. The talk is part of our Fall Conference 2020. 

Link to event page 

The Little Compton Historical Society is pleased to present their Women’s History Project as a free indoor and outdoor exhibit suitable for the whole family. Since July, we have been welcoming small groups of up to 15 people for private, self-guided tours of the exhibits. These 90-minute appointments are offered free of charge through November 14th. There are two scavenger hunts available for children: one designed for pre-reading and elementary age children, and the other for middle-school age children. The special exhibition is part of a year-long effort to research, present, and archive the history of Little Compton’s women in honor of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. This winter, LCHS invited the community to submit essays illuminating the histories of Little Compton women, including themselves, along with photographs. The community response exceeded our expectations, resulting in 300+ women’s stories being posted to our website at littlecompton.org.
This project is supported by a major grant from the Humanities Council.

Born a slave in New Paltz, New York, Isabella Baumfree walked away from slavery and in her travels evolved into Sojourner Truth: maid, laundress, evangelist, abolitionist, and suffragist. This program, presented by Kathryn Woods, tells Sojourner Truth’s story in her own words, speeches, and songs.

Please note: this event will be hosted online by the American Association of University Women, Bennington Branch. To attend and receive the event login, register in advance by visiting bit.ly/AAUW-VT or by sending an email to aauwbennvt@gmail.com. 

Link to event page. 

In support of local writers taking the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge, the Club is opening its virtual doors every Sunday in November for free & open to the public write-ins from 10am to 11am.
It all kicks off on Sun, Nov 1 with a special 2-hour virtual chat and write-in, where you can meet fellow writers preparing for the month ahead.

Sunday, Nov. 15: 4:00-5:30 pm

Please join us for an online, interactive workshop for educators interested in the Holocaust.

Sponsored by The Olga Lengyel Institute (TOLI) and Mass Humanities, this event helps educators think about how to use the documentary film Exile and Community: The Life of Carola Domar, and the accompanying curriculum guide, in the classroom. The 60-minute film follows the moving story of a young Jewish girl who grew up in Nazi Germany, escaped to the United States in her teens, and settled in a unique, idealistic community in Concord, MA. Told by Carola Domar and her daughter, Alice, Domar’s search for community is all the more remarkable for the spirit of forgiveness with which she ultimately came to terms with her past and reconnected with her former homeland.

Film and curriculum guide:

Both the film and curriculum guide are available for free to educators in schools, museums, and libraries. The film is designed to be used with students in grades 8-12 in History and English classes but is also well-suited for college students and adults. The curriculum guide offers tiered prompts and activities for students of different ages.  To access the film and curriculum guide, click here.

Speakers:

Derek Penslar, Professor of History at Harvard University, will provide historical context for the film, focusing on the place of the Holocaust in Jewish and European history.

TOLI Seminar Facilitator Cara Crandall will lead an interactive exercise, with participants in breakout rooms, that engages the film and curriculum guide with the urgent questions so many Americans have today about how to commemorate dark moments in history, focusing on commemorative monuments and memorials.

To register: This event is for educators interested in teaching about the holocaust.  If you are an educator in a school, museum, library, or religious organization, you are eligible to attend this free workshop.  Please click here to register. Please watch the one-hour film, linked here, before the event.  Before the event, you will also receive an email from Jennifer Hall-Witt with more information on how to prepare for the workshop.  We will send the link to the event a few days before Nov. 15.

Questions? Please email Jennifer Hall-Witt at jhall-witt@masshumanities.org.

Link to event page

Vermont Humanities program scholar Suzanne Brown will expertly lead attendees in a discussion of three short selections that will explore our Fall Conference theme of democracy through the lens of the Chinese-American experience during the time of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

There will be two opportunities to participate: Wednesday, November 11 from 7:00 to 8:00 pm and Sunday November 15 from 4:00 to 5:00 pm. Sessions are limited to 15 people each. Participants will receive theme-related reading materials via email after completing the registration form:

Register here

Link to event page

Alexis Boylan and Yohei Igarashi offer advice on applying to UCHI's dissertation research fellowship.

Registration for this event is online via Eve ntbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dissertation-grant-writing-workshop-t ickets-121081178063

Part of the Border Crossing series. A book of short stories, a memoir and two novels bring us to present day consideration of migration, immigration and refuge. Their love and a sense of their past as they walk through fantastical doors to new lands.

This event will be hosted on Zoom. For event details contact Pam Dart at dartpjdart@comcast.net. 

Link to event page 

Part of the Pandemics, the Surreal and the Real series. Through a collection of short fictional stories from New York Times Magazine’s July 12 edition and two novels readers will explore the impact of pandemics.

Led by Suzanne Brown.

Please note: This reading and discussion series will be held in a hybrid format of in-person and online. Contact Kate Schaal at Quechee Library to sign up early for in-library distanced space or to receive the Zoom link. In-person event will follow all current Vermont Health Department and CDC guidelines. 

Link to event page 

Who shows up to public meetings? Whose interests are they advocating for? And how do decisions made by the few shape the social and political fabric of our communities? This talk discusses how neighborhood participation in the housing permitting process exacerbates and reproduces existing inequalities, limits the housing supply, and contributes to the current affordable housing crisis.
Presented by Katherine Levine Einstein, Associate Professor at Boston University.
Click here for more information about the Providence Symposium events. The link below is to register for this session.

Whose Places Matter (And Why?)
The modern historic preservation movement came of age in the era of redlining, urban renewal, and fierce debate about the future of our cities. This crucible of “progress” resulted in more deeply entrenched racial, economic, and philosophical divides and a preservation practice that protected the interests of the privileged and powerful.
Today, we live with structural injustices baked into our society — into the buildings that remain and the very way our cities work. Choices made generations ago are laid bare in our segregated neighborhoods, biased housing policy, generational class inequalities, geographic health disparities, and civic processes that reflect the interests of the few. And in addition to its complicity on these issues, the preservation field has a long way to go in lifting up buildings and landscapes that reflect the full American story.
So where do we go from here? What kind of future do we want for Providence? How do communities participate more fully in the conversations about the shape of our city and the places we celebrate? And what is the role of preservationists in helping to restore healthier, more equitable communities where everyone’s history matters?
This year’s Providence Symposium will explore the systems that have shaped our built environment and the communities that inhabit it. As we heed the calls for urgent institutional change, a field based on the power of preservation must consider how to tear down and build anew. PPS invites community conversation and visioning about which places matter and why.

Part of the Border Crossing series. A book of short stories, a memoir and two novels bring us to present day consideration of migration, immigration and refuge. Their love and a sense of their past as they walk through fantastical doors to new lands.

This event will be hosted on Zoom. For event details contact Pam Dart at dartpjdart@comcast.net. 

Link to event page. 

The French Department welcomes Crystal Fleming ’04, professor of sociology, Stony Brook University, to deliver a lecture, On the Illegibility of French Antiblackness: Notes from an African American Critic, as part of a virtual colloquia series Addressing Racism and Anti-Blackness in French and Francophone Studies.

This talk employs a critical race framework to explore historical and present-day dynamics of antiblackness in France. Reflecting on her own experiences as an African American researcher studying French racism and commemorations of slavery in the Paris region, the author considers the discursive practices of denial and minimization that continue to obfuscate French antiblackness. The author argues that despite rising attention to the legacies of slavery and a massive resurgence of mobilizations focusing on the experiences and suffering of Black people, the denial of systemic racism and French antiblackness remains hegemonic. Obscuring, erasing, justifying and trivializing antiblack racism are common features of French life—with devastating consequences for people of African descent.

Please register via Zoom.

About the series:
This series features eminent scholars examining the role race plays in systems of power and thought in the field of French and Francophone Studies. We hope our series will foster conversations that combat racism and promote inclusion and equity in our classrooms and research.

The recent death of George Floyd and the ensuing Black Lives Matter protests in the United States have resonated powerfully in France, which witnessed its own case of police brutality against Adamé Traroé, a young French-Malian man who died in police custody in 2016. These events have triggered difficult conversations in both countries about national identity, the memory of slavery, and notions of race. In France, these debates have led to a revaluation of France’s legacy of colonization, notably through a critical reappraisal of the ideologies that undergird traditional notions of French citizenship.

Given the urgency of such discussions, the members of the French Department, as both individuals and scholars, propose a public examination of the role race plays in systems of power and thought in our own field, in order to deepen classroom discussions and promote inclusion and equity in our courses. To this end, we have organized a fall virtual colloquium series featuring eminent French Studies scholars who will speak on topics ranging from “art and race” and “the illegibility of French anti-Blackness” to “racial dimensions of the notion of freedom” and “anti-racism campaigns in Paris.” We hope our series will foster conversations that illuminate the entrenched role of race and racism both in France and the U.S. Please join us for these conversations.

For more information, please contact: 

ml104@wellesley.edu

Link to event page

Many regard the preservation field as being in the midst of a relevancy crisis — its systems outdated, its practices exclusionary, and its practitioners out of touch. In order for preservation to become more accessible and relevant to more communities and to survive into the future, deep change is necessary. But can we reform preservation or do we attempt to dismantle it and build anew? Can preservation ever be an instrument for addressing or advancing equity? What is the social responsibility of preservation, and what does accountability look like? This panel will entertain the possibilities.
Panelists

Desiree Aranda, Co-Chair, Latinos in Heritage Conservation

Catherine Fleming Bruce, Activist and award-winning author of The Sustainers: Being, Building and Doing Good through Activism in the Sacred Spaces of Civil Rights, Human Rights and Social Movements

Sarah Marsom, Heritage resources consultant and organizer of #DismantlePreservation

Jeremy Wells, Associate Professor, Historic Preservation program in the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at the University of Maryland, College Park

Moderated by: Bonnie McDonald, President and CEO of Landmarks Illinois and Chair of the National Preservation Parners Network of the National Trust for Historic Preservation

Click here for more information about the Providence Symposium events. The link below is to register for this session.

Whose Places Matter (And Why?)
The modern historic preservation movement came of age in the era of redlining, urban renewal, and fierce debate about the future of our cities. This crucible of “progress” resulted in more deeply entrenched racial, economic, and philosophical divides and a preservation practice that protected the interests of the privileged and powerful.
Today, we live with structural injustices baked into our society — into the buildings that remain and the very way our cities work. Choices made generations ago are laid bare in our segregated neighborhoods, biased housing policy, generational class inequalities, geographic health disparities, and civic processes that reflect the interests of the few. And in addition to its complicity on these issues, the preservation field has a long way to go in lifting up buildings and landscapes that reflect the full American story.
So where do we go from here? What kind of future do we want for Providence? How do communities participate more fully in the conversations about the shape of our city and the places we celebrate? And what is the role of preservationists in helping to restore healthier, more equitable communities where everyone’s history matters?
This year’s Providence Symposium will explore the systems that have shaped our built environment and the communities that inhabit it. As we heed the calls for urgent institutional change, a field based on the power of preservation must consider how to tear down and build anew. PPS invites community conversation and visioning about which places matter and why.

Join the conversation this month through Zoom to discuss How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi. Conversations Book Club features authors and characters from marginalized groups. We meet on the third Tuesday of every month at 6:30PM.
Get Free Tickets
ABOUT THE BOOK

Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism–and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. At its core, racism is a powerful system that creates false hierarchies of human value; its warped logic extends beyond race, from the way we regard people of different ethnicities or skin colors to the way we treat people of different sexes, gender identities, and body types. Racism intersects with class and culture and geography and even changes the way we see and value ourselves. In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas–from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilities–that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their poisonous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves.

Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science with his own personal story of awakening to antiracism. This is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society.

IBRAM X. KENDI is one of America’s foremost historians and leading antiracist voices. He is a National Book Award-winning and #1 New York Times bestselling author. Kendi is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and the Founding Director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. Kendi is a contributor writer at The Atlantic and a CBS News Racial Justice Contributor. He is also the 2020-2021 Frances B. Cashin Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for the Advanced Study at Harvard University. In 2020, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

What we’re reading:

2020
October – The Bridge Home by Padma Venkatraman
November – How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
December – Red At the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

2021
January – Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
February – Reconstruction by Henry Louis Gates
March – Transcendent Kingdom by Yaya Gyasi
April – So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
May – Queenie by Candace Carty-Williams
June – Read Across RI Pick
July – Vanishing Half by Britt Bennett
August – Begin Again by Eddie N. Glade
September – 2021-2022 Selections

What can we learn about how people have secured equitable political representation in the United States by examining case studies from Lowell’s past and present?

Find out by participating in the Tsongas Industrial History Center’s webinar series for educators that explores how underrepresented communities have fought for equitable representation and overcome barriers to civic participation. In each webinar, historians and educators share content on a civics topic and discuss how to adapt it for the classroom. Each session includes companion primary documents and writing prompts.

In 1971, the 26th Amendment lowered the voting age in local, state, and federal elections from 21 to 18. Recently, movements across the country, including in Massachusetts, have advocated for additional lowering of the voting age using the arguments that 16- and 17-year-olds hold jobs, pay taxes, and have drivers’ licenses. Mr. Geoff Foster (UTEC) will share his work with UTEC students and their “VOTE 17” initiative to enfranchise Lowell’s 17-year-olds in school and city council elections. Mr. Mike Neagle (teacher & 2019 Massachusetts Social Studies Teacher of the Year) will discuss how he engages his 8th-graders in civics activities outside the classroom through Generation Citizen and Discovering Justice.

Link to event page.

Link to registration page. 

Drawing on original research using underutilized sources, Dr. Turner moves beyond familiar narratives in his new history of Plymouth Colony published for the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s Landing. His work focuses on the ways English settlers and Native peoples engaged in a contest for the meaning of American liberty.

The Digital Humanities and Media Studies Initiative presents Book Traces with Kristin Jensen (UVA) and Michael Rodriguez (UConn Libraries)

Books ar e not just containers of information: they are also physical artifacts, and they bear traces of the hands they have passed through over time. Many of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century books in college collections ha d a life outside the library before they were donated: they may have been e xchanged between friends and lovers, carried along to war, filled with idle doodling, or used as a place to record tender memories of lost loved ones. The Book Traces project is an effort to discover these uniquely modified v olumes in library collections and advocate for their importance as artifact s of the history of readers’ relationships with their books, and with eac h other. Kristin Jensen, project manager for Book Traces based at the Unive rsity of Virginia, will speak about “finding cool stuff in old books” a t a time when American college libraries are turning towards mass digitizat ion, shared print consortia, and efforts to manage down the size of print c ollections. Michael Rodriguez will speak to the UConn Library's participati on in Book Traces, share intriguing examples of marginalia discovered in ou r collections, and situate Book Traces in a larger context of library colle ctions and strategies.

Based at the University of Virginia Library, Kris tin Jensen is the project manager for Book Traces and is currently, along w ith Prof. Andrew Stauffer, co-directing a planning grant from the Mellon Fo undation. Before joining the UVA Library staff, Kristin worked as a project manager at Performant Software Solutions in Charlottesville, Virginia, whe re she specialized in steering digital humanities projects through the soft ware development process. She has also worked at the University of Virginia ’s Morris Law Library, NINES, and the former Electronic Text Center. Kris tin holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia with a concent ration in eighteenth-century British literature.

Michael Rodriguez is Co llections Strategist at the UConn Library, where he coordinates collection development and strategic initiatives, including the Library's participatio n in Book Traces. Michael publishes and presents widely in library venues a nd serves as past president of the Association of College and Research Libr aries, New England Chapter. He holds an M.S. in library and information stu dies from Florida State University.

Registration for this event is onlin e, via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dhms-book-traces-tickets-12 1082034625

Sponsored by the Digital Humanities and Media Studies Initiat ive, and by UConn libraries.

Join Laura Grattan, Jane Bishop ’51 Associate Professor of Political Science, for a conversation with Hahrie Han about building grassroots power in the aftermath of the 2020 election. This event is part of #WellesleyVotes.

Hahrie Han is the Inaugural Director of the SNF Agora Institute and Faculty Director of the P3 Research Lab at Johns Hopkins University. She is an expert on political participation, social movements, collective action, and organizing, and was formerly a professor in the Political Science Department at Wellesley.

Please register in adavance.

Link to event page

Talk by UCHI Dissertation Fellow Ashley Gangi

Registration for the event is online via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/fellows-talk-ashley -gangi-tickets-121082690587

When the famed civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer exclaimed that she was "sick and tired of being sick and tired" in a 1964 speech in Harlem, she brings attention to not only the extreme fatigue and rage at living under the violence of white supremacy and anti-Black racism. Hamer also sheds light on the physical and psychic toll of literal pain, bodily vulnerabilities, and poor health outcomes among Black people that have historically been overlooked. This presentation articulates how this embodied marginalization mirrors the process and impact of oppression faced by HIV-positive, working-class women in post-colonial Jamaica.

Postdoctoral fellow and incoming Assistant Professor in American Studies and Black Studies, Jallicia Jolly grapples with the contemporary grassroots politics of Black Caribbean women’s organizing around health and illness as they expand the conception of rights and the human. She will contextualize the connections that Afro-diasporic scholars and actors – such as Hamer as well as Frantz Fanon, James Baldwin, the Black Panthers, Peggy Antrobus, and Loretta Ross – have long made between their political and structural conditions, the experiences of black poor people, and diseases, and poor health outcomes. After describing the personal histories and situated contexts of HIV-positive Jamaican women in Kingston, Jolly will offer an analysis of how women’s racialized, class-based struggles over health care access and basic resources in their urban and rural communities demonstrate how they respond to local understandings of structural power relations and the attendant social meanings of politics, identity, and what it means to be human while living with illness and inequality.

This talk will take place over Zoom. Open to the public. Pre-registration is required.

Link to event page

Hosted by Amherst College Center for Humanistic Inquiry.

Launched in December 2019, @hoodmidcenturymodern catapulted to fame as Instagram’s leading Black voice in architecture. HOOD CENTURY fills an industry gap as a preservation society for the streets, centering communities traditionally excluded from the conversation. This is preservation for us, by us.
With HOOD CENTURY, Jerald Cooper utilizes pop culture and classic hip-hop imagery from an architectural and design point-of-view with the intention of introducing a new audience to architecture discourse, and in doing so, generating a new way of connecting his followers to their built environment.
This talk will explore iconic places that should have been preserved, why they weren’t, and what that does to a community.
Presented by Jerald ‘J Coop’ Cooper, Founder and Creative Director of @HoodMidCenturyModern
Click here for more information about the Providence Symposium events. The link below is to register for this session.

Whose Places Matter (And Why?)
The modern historic preservation movement came of age in the era of redlining, urban renewal, and fierce debate about the future of our cities. This crucible of “progress” resulted in more deeply entrenched racial, economic, and philosophical divides and a preservation practice that protected the interests of the privileged and powerful.
Today, we live with structural injustices baked into our society — into the buildings that remain and the very way our cities work. Choices made generations ago are laid bare in our segregated neighborhoods, biased housing policy, generational class inequalities, geographic health disparities, and civic processes that reflect the interests of the few. And in addition to its complicity on these issues, the preservation field has a long way to go in lifting up buildings and landscapes that reflect the full American story.
So where do we go from here? What kind of future do we want for Providence? How do communities participate more fully in the conversations about the shape of our city and the places we celebrate? And what is the role of preservationists in helping to restore healthier, more equitable communities where everyone’s history matters?
This year’s Providence Symposium will explore the systems that have shaped our built environment and the communities that inhabit it. As we heed the calls for urgent institutional change, a field based on the power of preservation must consider how to tear down and build anew. PPS invites community conversation and visioning about which places matter and why.

Frequency Writers: Rhode Island’s Oldest Creative Writing Organization
The Essay as Form focuses on the essay as a productive form with no limits. Each week, students will read or see an essay (yes, there are essay films as well) that will serve us as a model for the essays students will make. Among the possible readings: Fred Moten, Zoe Leonard, Susan Howe, John Edgar Wideman, Moyra Davey, Janet Malcolm, and of course, Theodor Adorno, whose essential essay, ‘The Essay as Form’ will inaugurate the class.
Students will come away with a minimum of 3-5 (essay) pieces, each written in a radically different style, that they may, over time, develop into a longer, more fully realized essay.
All levels are welcome so long as you are ready to do the necessary work (weekly class readings, writing assignments, class participation).
Classes are virtual and held every Wednesday from October 19 to November 23, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
*NB: In honor of the Veteran’s Day holiday, the Wednesday, November 11 class will be held on Monday, November 9.
Tuition: $265 | Scholarships are available.
Instructor: Victor Wildman

Featuring artists Jojo Abot (projected performance and music), Omega Art (live painting and shop), and others.
Speakers Ytasha Womack (Afro-futurist creator and speaker), Angela McCalla (Newport City leader, and Tracy Jonsson, Project Director.
This event has a 30 person capacity in a just short of 5,000 square foot indoor space (see attached floor plan included in our Covid-19 Reopening required application, as well as the application itself outlining our precautions). There will be plenty of space to spread out. Bringing a picnic set-up is encouraged (the church pews formerly on-site have been removed).
More info to come soon. Visit our website for up-to-date information.

On Thursday, November 19, we’ll present Bite-Sized Preservation: Climate Justice and Preservation, a look at where environmentalism and historic preservation intersect. Providence attracted national attention with the City’s release of a CLIMATE JUSTICE PLAN in fall 2019. Our Director of Preservation, Rachel Robinson, will speak with LEAH BAMBERGER, the City of Providence’s Director of Sustainability, to learn how the plan is unfolding in its first year and how preservationists can be allies in this work. MONICA HUERTAS, a resident of South Providence and member of the RACIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE COMMITTEE that informed the creation of the plan, will also share her thoughts.

Featuring Leah Bamberger, Director of Sustainability, City of Providence and Monica Huertas, member of the Racial Equity and Justice Committee

All registrants will receive a Zoom invitation with a meeting code and password before the event. Please CONTACT US with any questions or for assistance with the Zoom app.

Join us via Zoom on November 19 for a special symposium edition of Bite-Sized Preservation. Same format, just as much preservation as fits in a lunch hour.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROVIDENCE SYMPOSIUM EVENTS. The link below is to register for this session.

Whose Places Matter (And Why?)

The modern historic preservation movement came of age in the era of redlining, urban renewal, and fierce debate about the future of our cities. This crucible of “progress” resulted in more deeply entrenched racial, economic, and philosophical divides and a preservation practice that protected the interests of the privileged and powerful.

Today, we live with structural injustices baked into our society — into the buildings that remain and the very way our cities work. Choices made generations ago are laid bare in our segregated neighborhoods, biased housing policy, generational class inequalities, geographic health disparities, and civic processes that reflect the interests of the few. And in addition to its complicity on these issues, the preservation field has a long way to go in lifting up buildings and landscapes that reflect the full American story.

So where do we go from here? What kind of future do we want for Providence? How do communities participate more fully in the conversations about the shape of our city and the places we celebrate? And what is the role of preservationists in helping to restore healthier, more equitable communities where everyone’s history matters?

This year’s Providence Symposium will explore the systems that have shaped our built environment and the communities that inhabit it. As we heed the calls for urgent institutional change, a field based on the power of preservation must consider how to tear down and build anew. PPS invites community conversation and visioning about which places matter and why.

Register here.

Link to event page.

More than 6,000 pedestrians are getting killed every year on American streets, representing an enormous 50 percent increase from the first part of the decade. Angie Schmitt, the author of the new book Right of Way: Race, Class and the Silent Crisis of Pedestrian Deaths in America will talk about the social trends that are putting people at risk. And why fundamentally, it is a problem of systematic, structural inequality.

Presented by Angie Schmitt, author of Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROVIDENCE SYMPOSIUM EVENTS. The link below is to register for this session.

Whose Places Matter (And Why?)

The modern historic preservation movement came of age in the era of redlining, urban renewal, and fierce debate about the future of our cities. This crucible of “progress” resulted in more deeply entrenched racial, economic, and philosophical divides and a preservation practice that protected the interests of the privileged and powerful.

Today, we live with structural injustices baked into our society — into the buildings that remain and the very way our cities work. Choices made generations ago are laid bare in our segregated neighborhoods, biased housing policy, generational class inequalities, geographic health disparities, and civic processes that reflect the interests of the few. And in addition to its complicity on these issues, the preservation field has a long way to go in lifting up buildings and landscapes that reflect the full American story.

So where do we go from here? What kind of future do we want for Providence? How do communities participate more fully in the conversations about the shape of our city and the places we celebrate? And what is the role of preservationists in helping to restore healthier, more equitable communities where everyone’s history matters?

This year’s Providence Symposium will explore the systems that have shaped our built environment and the communities that inhabit it. As we heed the calls for urgent institutional change, a field based on the power of preservation must consider how to tear down and build anew. PPS invites community conversation and visioning about which places matter and why.

Register here.

Link to event page.

Threats to our Democracy in Historical Context

Thurs., Nov. 19: 7:00-8:00 pm EST

What can we learn about the current state of our democracy by examining it within the long arc of American history? Please join us for the first event in our “Let’s talk about our democracy” series for an informative and engaging exploration of this question.

Peter Levine, an expert on civic engagement, will moderate a conversation and audience Q & A with Suzanne Mettler and Robert Lieberman, authors of the new book Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy. By studying previous periods in history when our democracy has been in peril, they discovered four recurring threats: political polarization, racism and nativism, economic inequality, and excessive executive power. Today, for the first time in American history, all four threats are present at the same time, a convergence that marks a grave moment in our democratic experiment. Yet history also points the way to imagine a path toward repairing our civic fabric and renewing democracy. We hope you will join us for this important conversation!

Moderator:

Peter Levine, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship & Public Affairs in Tufts University’s Jonathan Tisch College of Civic Life.

Panelists:

Suzanne Mettler, the John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions at Cornell University.

Robert C. Lieberman, Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University.

If you are interested in purchasing a copy of Mettler and Lieberman’s Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy, you can click here for options.

To register: Please click here.  A few days before the event, we will email a link to access the event to everyone who has registered.

Questions?  Please email Jennifer Hall-Witt, Program Officer at Mass Humanities: jhall-witt@masshumanities.org

Link to event page. 

In this #WellesleyVotes conversation, Jocelyn Benson ’99, Michigan’s Secretary of State, and Hakeem Jefferson, assistant professor of political science, Stanford University, will discuss the voter trends and behaviors behind the 2020 presidential election and what they tell us about the state and future of American democracy. Jennifer Chudy, Knafel Assistant Professor of Social Sciences and assistant professor of political science, Wellesley College, will moderate, and the panelists will be introduced by President Paula A. Johnson.

Please register in advance.

Link to event page

Brent Runyon, Executive Director of the Providence Preservation Society, will reflect on all we’ve heard and discussed over the course of the 2020 Providence Symposium and offer his thoughts on how PPS can affect positive change. PPS has participated in community life for over 60 years, and it’s never been more important to ask ourselves, whose places matter, and are we doing enough?

WE ENCOURAGE YOU TO SUBMIT YOUR QUESTIONS — about preservation, about its role in Providence, and whatever else is on your mind — in advance of this program. Brent will synthesize and answer as many as he can.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROVIDENCE SYMPOSIUM EVENTS. The link below is to register for this session.

Whose Places Matter (And Why?)

The modern historic preservation movement came of age in the era of redlining, urban renewal, and fierce debate about the future of our cities. This crucible of “progress” resulted in more deeply entrenched racial, economic, and philosophical divides and a preservation practice that protected the interests of the privileged and powerful.

Today, we live with structural injustices baked into our society — into the buildings that remain and the very way our cities work. Choices made generations ago are laid bare in our segregated neighborhoods, biased housing policy, generational class inequalities, geographic health disparities, and civic processes that reflect the interests of the few. And in addition to its complicity on these issues, the preservation field has a long way to go in lifting up buildings and landscapes that reflect the full American story.

So where do we go from here? What kind of future do we want for Providence? How do communities participate more fully in the conversations about the shape of our city and the places we celebrate? And what is the role of preservationists in helping to restore healthier, more equitable communities where everyone’s history matters?

This year’s Providence Symposium will explore the systems that have shaped our built environment and the communities that inhabit it. As we heed the calls for urgent institutional change, a field based on the power of preservation must consider how to tear down and build anew. PPS invites community conversation and visioning about which places matter and why.

Register here.

Link to event page.

In support of local writers taking the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge, the Club is opening its virtual doors every Sunday in November for free & open to the public write-ins from 10am to 11am.
It all kicks off on Sun, Nov 1 with a special 2-hour virtual chat and write-in, where you can meet fellow writers preparing for the month ahead.

Register here.

Link to event page.

FREQUENCY WRITERS: Rhode Island’s Oldest Creative Writing Organization

The Essay as Form focuses on the essay as a productive form with no limits. Each week, students will read or see an essay (yes, there are essay films as well) that will serve us as a model for the essays students will make. Among the possible readings: Fred Moten, Zoe Leonard, Susan Howe, John Edgar Wideman, Moyra Davey, Janet Malcolm, and of course, Theodor Adorno, whose essential essay, ‘The Essay as Form’ will inaugurate the class.

Students will come away with a minimum of 3-5 (essay) pieces, each written in a radically different style, that they may, over time, develop into a longer, more fully realized essay.

All levels are welcome so long as you are ready to do the necessary work (weekly class readings, writing assignments, class participation).

Classes are virtual and held every Wednesday from October 19 to November 23, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

*NB: In honor of the Veteran’s Day holiday, the Wednesday, November 11 class will be held on Monday, November 9.

Tuition: $265 | SCHOLARSHIPS are available.

Instructor: Victor Wildman

Link to webpage.

Link to event page.