English
Past Events
This talk explores how the ancient Greeks served as a rallying point for Caribbean diasporic communities in New York City in the 1970s. Professor Andújar will discuss how Greek tragedies featuring obstinate figures resisting powerful authorities (such as Prometheus and Antigone) and oppressed groups (like the enslaved women of Troy) provided important models for minoritized communities in the United States.
This event is free and open to the public.
Vassar celebrates Soweto with a screening of Sifiso Khanyile’s critically acclaimed documentary Uprize!, followed by a faculty roundtable featuring Professors Mia Mask, Ismail Rashid, and Samson Opondo, along with local activist and South African native Dr. Ereshnee Naidu. The discussion will be moderated by Professor Mariam Rashid.
Campus community only, please.
Join playwright Mahesh Dattani, guest playwright and author, and the student cast of Dance Like a Man, for a compelling new play reading of his new work, Dance Like a Goddess and conversation exploring the dynamic intersection of performance and politics in modern India.
This event is free and open to the public.
Award-winning author Adam Ross ’89 will be reading from his current novel, Playworld.
This event is free and open to the public.
In this C. Mildred Thompson lecture, Professor Jennifer Brody ’87 discusses her forthcoming book, Moving Stones: About the Art of Edmonia Lewis. It explores the extraordinary life and work of Edmonia Lewis, the Black and Ojibwe sculptor who rose to international fame in the nineteenth century.
This event is free and open to the public.
Poet Gold leads an evening of spoken word, music, and conversation, followed by a book signing.
Dinaw Mengestu is the author of four novels: Someone Like Us; All Our Names; How To Read the Air; and The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, all New York Times Notable Books.
Free and open to the public.
This talk examines how Black artists transform AI from a tool of command and control into a medium for intergenerational dialogue and alternative worlding.
This event is free and open to the public.
Renowned British war correspondent and journalism professor Julius Strauss presents his 47-minute documentary film Return to Kosovo and responds to questions about his work. This event is open to the public.
Join us for the Pride and Prejudice Film Festival in celebration of the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. The first screening is on Friday, November 7, 2025 from 7–9 p.m. See the full schedule. This event is free and open to the public.
Acclaimed writer Lydia Millet will deliver the 2025 William Gifford Lecture on November 5, 2025. The event is free and open to the public.
Explores how storytelling rooted in personal experience, Zambian proverbs, and mother tongues can heal colonial harms and preserve culture, featuring Mubanga Kalimamukwento, an award-winning Zambian author, magazine founder, and University of Minnesota Feminist Studies PhD student.
Free and open to the public.
This year marks the 650th anniversary of Giovanni Boccaccio’s passing. We explore his legacy in a interdisciplinary panel of Vassar faculty, followed by a keynote speech by Grace Delmolino (University of California, Davis) titled: “Boccaccio and Consent.” No reservation required
Campus community only, please
Tita Chico ’91, University of Maryland Professor of English, will discuss the literary history of 18th-century technology.
Monica Youn is an acclaimed poet and professor, a former constitutional lawyer, and a prominent literary leader.
No reservation required. Open to the public.
Professor Patricia Zakreski, Associate Professor of Victorian Literature and Culture at the University of Exeter, specializes in women’s work, art, and authorship in the nineteenth century. She has published widely on these topics, including several co-edited volumes, and is currently completing a monograph on authorship and the decorative arts.
This event is open to the public.
The film imagines an actress preparing to play Césaire, and encountering and re-examining her own ideas about creativity, love, Black identity, and politics as a result.
Historian of sexuality Jen Manion (Amherst College) gives an oral history of 18th- and 19th-century “female husbands,” the elusive, rebellious and enchanting characters who transed gender, lived as men, and married women.
Campus community only, please.
Lecture by Swarthmore College Professor Rachel Buurma followed by a reception with student posters and refreshments.
This event is open to the public.
The acclaimed author’s reading will be followed by a Q&A and book signing. Free and open to the public, no reservation required.