2023-24
About Freedom Dreams
The Society of Fellows’ 2023-24 theme, Freedom Dreams, focuses on the transformative role of arts and humanities in imagining life-affirming futures.
Faculty Fellows
- David Adams
- Anna Babek
- Jonas N.T. Becker
- Ryan Friedman
- Pranav Jani
- Pil Ho Kim
- Miranda Martinez
- Amy Sheeran
- Jennifer Suchland
- Jared Thorne
FACILITATORS
Wendy S. Hesford
Treva Lindsey
Graduate Team Fellows
- Isaiah Back-Gaal
- Kayley DeLong
- Alissa Elegant
- Káyọ̀dé Odùmbọ́ní
- Ariana Steele
- Jessica Tjiu
- Liayda Ustel
- Mahkameh Mallah Zadeh
MENTORS
Anna Babel
Tom Dugdale
Undergraduate Apprentices
- Emily Boyer
- Jaiden Davis
- Jack Federinko
- Esther Quaye
- Amadea Villanueva
- Clovis Westlund
MENTOR
Ryan Friedman
Programming
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Freedom Dreams and US Democracy, with Robin D.G. Kelley
MODERATOR: Hasan Kwame Jeffries (Associate Professor, History)
KEYNOTE: Noon to 1:30 p.m. | RECEPTION: 1:30-2 p.m.
Robin D.G. Kelley is the Distinguished Professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History and professor of African American studies at UCLA. His extensive academic career explores the history of social movements in the U.S., the African Diaspora and Africa; Black intellectuals; music; visual culture; contemporary urban studies; historiography and historical theory; poverty studies and ethnography; and organized labor, among other topics.
Kelley is a prolific scholar and the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and Freedom Scholars Award. He has authored nine books, including his groundbreaking history, Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (2002/2022). This keynote address celebrates the 20th anniversary of Freedom Dreams and considers where we are twenty years later.
Hosted by the Global Arts + Humanities Society of Fellows and Ohio Prison Education Exchange Project (OPEEP)
LECTURE
Decarcerating Disability, with Liat Ben-Moshe
November 2, 2023, from 1-2:30 p.m.
Denney Hall 311
Liat Ben-Moshe is an associate professor of criminology, law and justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago. This lecture builds on her book, Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition (2020). Following her presentation, Ben-Moshe will facilitate discussion around key terms, concepts and practices. This event is cosponsored by the Global Arts + Humanities and the Disability Studies Program.
SOCIETY OF FELLOWS WORKING GROUP
The Question of Reform, with Amna Akbar
February 22, 2024, from noon to 1:30 p.m.
Denney Hall 311
In this workshop, Amna Akbar will discuss her article “Non-Reformist Reforms and Struggles over Life, Death, and Democracy”. Akbar is the Charles W. Ebersold and Florence Whitcomb Ebersold Professor at the Moritz College of Law. For this workshop, participants will be invited to think about how their work engages these issues and frameworks that aim to democratize relations of power.
WORKSHOP
Grounded Relationality, with Jodi Byrd
March 5, 2024, from noon to 1:30 p.m.
Denney Hall 311
Jodi Byrd is an associate professor in the Department of Literatures in English at Cornell University. This workshop will engage attendees in a dialogue about ground and relationality as modes of inquiry within Indigenous studies.
MODERATOR: Natasha Myhal, Assistant Professor (Indigenous Environmental Studies), Provost's Fellow, and enrolled citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians
LECTURE
Accumulated Catastrophes, with Jodi Byrd
March 5, 2024, from 3:30-5 p.m.
Thompson Library Multipurpose Room, 165
Jodi A. Byrd is an enrolled citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and associate professor of Literatures in English at Cornell University. They are author of The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism, as well as a number of recent articles. This talk engages in a conversation about how we understand catastrophe in the present from the multiple catastrophes that began with European arrival to the Americas with conquest and transatlantic slavery as intertwined projects. MODERATOR: Associate Professor Jennifer Suchland (Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies). This event is cosponsored by the Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme, American Indian Studies, and the Department of English.
OPEEP DIGITAL DIALOGUE
Dispatches from LAM Collective at the Ohio Reformatory for Women
March 20, 2024, from 1-2:30 p.m.
Creative Arts Room (Ohio Union)
Liberation at the Margins Collective (LAM Collective) is a learning community at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville. During this Digital Dialogue, five incarcerated members of LAM Collective will present their insights from of the group (via videoconferencing) and answer audience members’ questions about LAM’s intellectual project and future plans. This event is cosponsored by the Ohio Prison Education Exchange Project (OPEEP), Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme (GAHDT), and Project PEER.
SOCIETY OF FELLOWS SPRING KEYNOTE
The Pursuit of Educational Freedom, with Bettina L. Love
April 9, 2024, from 4:30-6 p.m.
US Bank Conference Theatre (Ohio Union)
Bettina L. Love holds the William F. Russell Professorship at Teachers College, Columbia University, and is the author of the New York Times bestseller Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal. In 2022, the Kennedy Center recognized Love as one of the Next 50 Leaders dedicated to making the world more inspired, inclusive and compassionate. Love is also the celebrated author of the bestseller We Want To Do More Than Survive, solidifying her position as a leading voice in the field of education.
WEBINAR
The Sale of Freedom: Human Trafficking at the Movies, with Annie Hill
April 11, 2024, from 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Zoom
The action film, Sound of Freedom, purports to tell the true story of Tim Ballard, founder of the anti-trafficking organization Operation Underground Railroad. In this webinar, Assistant Professor Annie Hill (University of Texas-Austin) analyzes the film's construction of freedom through its narrative of reuniting a father and daughter. Co-sponsored by the Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme and the Department of English's Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy Program