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.

In this talk, Victor Ray, F. Wendell Miller Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Iowa, draws on two central critical race theory concepts—racial progress narratives and interest convergence—to explain the current backlash to racial inclusion.

Eliza Orlins discusses how policing disproportionately targets marginalized communities, fuels mass incarceration, and fails to deliver true public safety.

A talk by Richard Ocejo, Professor of Sociology at John Jay College CUNY and author of Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City. Open to the public.

A talk by Rhiana Gunn-Wright, a Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and chief policy architect of the Green New Deal—a policy framework that puts justice at the center of climate action.

David Banks of SUNY Albany presents from his recent book, The City Authentic: How the Attention Economy Builds Urban America.

Award-winning author Jennine Capó Crucet will read from her novel Make Your Home Among Strangers. Q&A and book signing to follow.

A Matthew Vassar Lecture, panel discussion, and workshops by syndicated Black cartoonist and children’s book illustrator Jerry Craft, who will discuss his graphic novel New Kid—and how the text has been weaponized and banned from some libraries and classrooms across the country.

A lecture by Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Associate Professor of English Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.

A Matthew Vassar Lecture by syndicated Black cartoonist and children’s book illustrator Jerry Craft, who will discuss his graphic novel New Kid—and how the text has recently been weaponized as a political pawn, banned from some libraries and classrooms across the country.