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 — addressing social inequities and envisioning more equitable futures.

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, working at the intersection of disability/madness, incarceration/decarceration and abolition. Building on her book, Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition (2020), Ben-Moshe will show how abolition is not an unattainable goal but rather a reality, and how it plays out in different arenas of incarceration — antipsychiatry, the field of intellectual disabilities and the fight against the prison-industrial complex. Following her presentation, Ben-Moshe will facilitate discussion around key terms, concepts and practices linked to abolition and freedom dreams, including exploration of some of the limitations of disability rights and inclusion discourses. 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” as part of a larger discussion of the role of reform in today's emancipatory movements. Akbar is the Charles W. Ebersold and Florence Whitcomb Ebersold Professor at the Moritz College of Law.  The article, published in The Yale Law Journal, theorizes non-reformist reforms and identifies key currents in today's struggles: abolition and decarceration; decolonization and decommodification; and democratization. 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 whose research foci include Indigenous studies, Indigenous feminist and queer studies, and video game studies. This workshop will engage attendees in a dialogue about ground and relationality as modes for Indigenous queer and feminist theorizing and consider questions such as: 

• How does Indigenous studies theorize the Indigenous body — especially the gendered and non-Indigenous body, and 
• How have Indigenous feminisms, in particular, theorized Indigenous flesh in relation to land, water and non-human others? 

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, where they also hold affiliations with American Studies, American Indian and Indigenous Studies, LGBT Studies, and Performance and Media Arts. They are author of The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism, as well as a number of recent articles in Indigenous feminisms, video game studies, Indigenous queer studies, and settler colonial studies. 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. Discussing theories of racial capitalism in conversation with Black fungibility through Tiffany Lethabo King and Sylvia Wynter, the talk will historicize catastrophe through Southeastern American Indian (specifically Chickasaw) histories with Hernando De Soto. 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 engaged in the study and practice of Black feminisms and freedom dreaming 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. As a co-founder of the Abolitionist Teaching Network, Love contributes to its mission of nurturing and empowering teachers and parents who are committed to fighting injustice within their educational institutions and communities. In her public speaking, Love covers a wide range of topics, including abolitionist teaching, anti-racism, Hip Hop education, Black girlhood, queer youth, educational reparations and the use of art-based education to foster youth civic engagement. 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 and social justice.

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. In this context, freedom for trafficking victims means being taken and relocated by powerful actors, like American philanthropists and celebrity humanitarians. That framing of freedom, hugely popular with US audiences, depends on oppressive relations between people and nations in order to plot not only blockbuster movies but actual anti-trafficking interventions with real human costs. Co-sponsored by the Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme and the Department of English's Writing, Rhetoric and Literacy Program