Events

Who was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.? History tells us that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a leader who passionately fought for humanity rights for Black Americans and the poor. More than a visionary and advocate for equality, he was an essential figure of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. As time passes, we tend to forget the sacrifices of Dr. King.

During the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium on Social Change, historian Dr. Anthony Monteiro takes us on a journey of re-discovery as we celebrate his life, his revolutionary style of protest and his legacy. We will reintroduce you to one of the most prolific figures in American history. What did he stand for? how did the civil rights movement of the '60s prepare us for the social changes needed today? Join us!

For Zoom link, please register at: https://bit.ly/MLK101Reintroduction

Dr. Kathleen D. Morrison shares her work at the intersection of archaeology and climate research. The South Indian Landscape Trajectories project aims to understand growth and decline of cities in southern India over the last 2,000 years. Using new mapping techniques and scientific analysis of ancient environments, as well as traditional archaeological research, you will learn how city life affected farming, food, and regional environments in ways that still resonate today.

An artistic milestone and homecoming for painter and performance artist David Antonio Cruz, encompassing paintings, drawings, sculpture, and performance that center underrepresented communities; Mr. Cruz mixes art historical, literary, fashion, and pop culture references to reinterpret classical modes of figuration; Institute of Contemporary Art. 

You are cordially invited to this most timely and informative virtual presentation from Professor Cara McClellan, the founding director of the Director of the Advocacy for Racial and Civil Justice and Clinic and Practice Associate Professor of Law at Penn’s Carey School of Law.  Dr. McClellan will share how affirmative action benefits institutions and how the diversity it brings helps colleges and universities fulfill their educational missions.

Join Zoom Meeting [will be open ten minutes prior to the event]
https://upenn.zoom.us/j/99854593352

Jonathan D. Katz is perhaps the founding figure in queer art history, responsible for the very first queer scholarship on a number of artists beginning in the early 1990s. His scholarship spans a period from the late 19th-century to the present, with an emphasis on the US, but with serious attention to Europe, Latin America, and Asia as well. He has written extensively about gender, sexuality, and desire, producing some of the key theoretical work in queer studies in the visual arts.

Activist Cristina Coc and Dr. Richard M. Leventhal will share how the Maya people of southern Belize are moving forward with the creation of a Maya Homeland with communally owned and controlled land and resources. They will also discuss the development of community museums in the region that focus on identity and representation.

Constance E. Clayton Lecture Series Presents:

Rashawn Ray is an AIR vice president and the executive director of the AIR Equity Initiative, which is a $100M+ investment in behavioral and social science research and technical assistance to address segregation by race and place. As Professor at the University of Maryland and Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution, Ray’s research addresses the mechanisms that manufacture and maintain racial and social inequity.

The Advocacy for Racial and Civil (ARC) Justice Clinic at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, Law for Black Lives, and Penn Black Law Students Association will be co-hosting an event on Wednesday October 25, 2023, from 3:30-5:00 pm EST entitled “Free to Learn as Us.” The panel will focus on advocacy to ensure dignity and respect for students of all backgrounds in schools. Panelists will consider strategies for combating a hostile environment, including efforts to challenge book banning, harassment based on race and sex, and overly punitive, criminalized school discipline based on race and immigration status. This event will be open to any formal L4BL members, law students, community members, lawyers, and advocates. There will be an informal reception to follow.

Elisheva Carlebach, Columbia University

Maidservants did it, midwives too, rabbis and merchants, cooks and laundresses—everyone, it seems, was keeping written records in the age of expanding literacy, access to texts, and proliferation of bureaucracy. This lecture will situate the record-keeping culture of the Jews of early modern Europe, with particular emphasis on communal records, within its larger European civic scribal context. A response in part to Randolph Head’s call to explore archives more broadly, we examine a body of writing that scholars seldom viewed alongside its European parallels. Politically, early modern Jews walked a fine line between their roles as minority subjects and the need to impose internal discipline. Together we will explore how material aspects of Jewish records illuminate the complexities of the lives they represent.

This lecture is sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania. Attendees are invited to a reception following the lecture.

Emma Smith on the intersection of contemporary and historical attitudes to gender and sexuality, using my current work editing Twelfth Night as the case study. I will draw on the First Folio stage directions and other textual apparatus, critical approaches to the play, and a set of questions about the obligations of editing in our contemporary moment. Is it relevant to think about editing historical texts in the contexts of social justice, or progressive politics, or does that undermine some sense of the editorial contract?