Courage + Resilience
Fall 2023 & Spring 2024
Challenges Overcome Campaign, in Fall and Spring semester, 2023-2024
Ending Ceremony on Thursday, April 25, 2024, at 4:30 PM in Alumni Room (Hybrid)
Campaign Leader: Sabrina Grammatic
Zoom Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZApc-2rrDkiHtAljHCEKKWfQiexH1-HSl6s
Overcoming personal struggles should be celebrated, but it can be difficult to share these struggles with others. Now you have the opportunity to do so! Share your story about overcoming a challenge in your life through a form (https://forms.gle/AupgnUqHFUKj2ffX6) submission and come to our in-person event April 25th at 4:30 pm in the alumni room to see other's stories and also share your own! You can be anonymous, or you can opt to speak about your experience. No matter what, know that you are courageous for sharing your triumphs!
Sponsors: Arts & Ideas
Fall 2023
Susan Metrican: Mazmanian Gallery Exhibition
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
Reception in Mazmanian Gallery at 3:30 PM
Lecture in Alumni Room at 4:30 PM (Hybrid Format)
Zoom Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAuc--trDkjE9Q4gDu8kMWdeQHf7T6YglRo
Thai-American artist Susan Metrican will present an exhibition in Mazmanian Gallery and speak about her work. Metrican explores motifs that have been translated across multiple formats; folktales, textiles, architecture, and small useful objects which allow the symbols and characters to connect and continue “traveling” through time and space. She considers the movement of interpreted ideas onto various forms across national borders and throughout history and their shape-shifting reanimation as they introduce new modes of being. Fluid approaches to form, flatness, and image address this multiplicity, as the artist’s lived experience mingles with her subjects’ own trajectories.
Sponsors: Arts & Ideas, the Division of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement
Film Screening: Across the River to Freedom Series
Wednesday, Sept 27, 2023 at 12:30 PM in Alumni Room
Historian and producer Irene Moore Davis offers a film screening of Across the River to Freedom: Mary and Henry Bibb and Across the River to Freedom: Lucie and Thornton Blackburn, the heroic stories of fugitive slaves and other Black abolitionists. The documentaries will be followed by a Q&A with Ms. Davis, recipient of the Harriet Tubman Award for Commitment to a Purpose from the Ontario Black History Society and named to the 100 Accomplished Black Canadian Women.
Mary Miles Bibb, Abolitionist, Teacher, and Framingham's first African American Graduate: The Canadian Years
Thursday, Sept 28, 2023 at 9:00 AM in Alumni Room
Zoom Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIpde2srjwoGdDt4HF_OkXberrEnO9Q3if4
Irene Moore Davis, Canadian educator, historian, and documentary film producer, brings to life the story of Mary Miles Bibb (FSU’s first African American graduate) and her role in Canada’s underground railroad and the publication of The Voices of the Fugitive, one of Canada’s first Black newspapers. Moore Davis, a teacher at St. Clair College and research associate for the University of Windsor and Ontario Heritage Trust, will screen the documentary she produced, Across the River to Freedom, and lecture on the critical impact of Mary Miles Bibb, recognized as a Person of National History Significance on Canada, and other Black Canadian abolitionists.
Sponsors: Arts & Ideas, the Division of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement, and the Political Science Department
Partnership with The Amherstburg Freedom Museum of Ontario, Canada and The Essex County Black Historical Research Society in Ontario, Canada
Obour Tanner’s Archive; Or, How to Remember Your (Famous) Friend
Thursday, Oct 12, 2023, at 4:30 PM in Alumni Room
Zoom Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEkf-yurjgqE9ZV-3CqO22knbI7iq2KXgVT
“Obour Tanner’s Archive” is a compelling engagement with the provenance of Wheatley’s letters to Obour Tanner. It reads closely Katherine Edes Beecher’s explanation of how she acquires a collection of Wheatley’s letters to Obour Tanner. This isn’t quite a story about Wheatley, but it is a story about Obour Tanner and her friendship with the poet. They were friends for at least ten years when Wheatley dies in 1784. Tanner keeps living until 1835, and she keeps her letters from Wheatley. She keeps these letters because they are friends. She collects or creates her own kind of archive and in it, she remembers her friend. It wrestles with the following questions: What does it mean to remember a friend? What is mourning’s relationship to the archive? Is it still an archive if you are one person collecting stuff that reminds you of your deceased friend? “Obour Tanner’s Archive” invites a reconsideration about how black women, in the eighteenth century, remember each other.
Sponsors: Arts & Ideas, the Division of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement, the History Department, and the English Department
Alan Feldman Week of Poetry: Oliver de la Paz Reading
Tuesday, Oct 17, 2023, at 4:30 PM in the Heineman Ecumenical Center
Zoom Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZItduyoqjgpH9Gb-H-ISM5WYuvoVwB4rNJz
Oliver de la Paz is the Poet Laureate of Worcester, MA. He is the author and editor of seven books, including The Boy in the Labyrinth, a finalist for the Massachusetts Book Award in Poetry, and his newest work, The Diaspora Sonnets, published by Liveright Press (2023). With Stacey Lynn Brown he co-edited A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry. Oliver serves as the co-chair of the Kundiman advisory board, which promotes the work of Asian-American writers. He teaches at the College of the Holy Cross and in the Low-Residency MFA Program at PLU.
Sponsors: Arts & Ideas and the English Department
Insect Biodiversity on Film! Tiny Wonders Maintain Sustainability!
Thursday, Oct 19, 2023, at 4:30 PM in the Forum, McCarthy Center
Dr. Adrian Smith, head of the Evolutionary Biology and Behavior Research Lab at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, has a joint appointment as a Research Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University. He studies the behavioral ecology of social insects and insect natural history. As a science communicator, he makes videos of his insect laboratory for his YouTube channel, Ant Lab, and demonstrates how collaboration between the Arts and Humanities and STEM is vital to education. In making science accessible to the public, we can understand how considering insects as pests and using pesticides jeopardizes environmental sustainability.
Sponsors: Arts & Ideas, the Division of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement, and the Communication, Media, and Performance Department
The Arthur Nolletti, Jr. Film Series: She Said
Monday, November 6, 2023, at 7 PM in DPAC
Maria Schrader here adapts the 2019 memoir by New York Times’ journalists Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor. Together, they launched a groundbreaking investigation into the sexual wrongdoings of Harvey Weinstein, a kingpin in the American film industry. They interviewed numerous victims, but couldn’t publish until one went public. Actor Ashley Judd courageously led the way, allowing the reporters to publish and garner other names. Weinstein is currently serving a three-decade sentence for his crimes. Twohey and Kantor’s courageous reporting helped ignite the #MeToo movement.
This event, being held in partnership with Framingham Public Library, features special Guest Megan Twohey via Zoom in a post-screening Q&A led by Liz Banks.
Sponsors: Arts & Ideas and the Division of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement
Spring 2024
Solidarity Keeps Us Alive: Collective Struggles and Incarcerated Women in Turkey and the US
Tuesday, February 20, 2024, at 4:30 PM in Ecumenical Center
This event brings together voices from two political struggles against women’s imprisonment in Turkey and the US. Emek Ergun (Associate Professor, Women's and Gender Studies & Global Studies, UNC Charlotte) and Sashi James (Families for Justice and Healing, Roxbury MA) will join in a conversation about prison conditions, politics of prisons, and solidarity practices that flourish within and outside prisons. By telling the inspiring stories of courage and resilience of Kurdish women political prisoners in Turkey and incarcerated women of color in Massachusetts, the conversation will contribute to the efforts to forge solidarity among freedom struggles across borders. The event will also include the promotion of a new book on imprisoned Kurdish Women politicians in Turkey, The Purple Color of the Kurdish Politics (Pluto Press, 2022).
Sponsors: Arts & Ideas and the Sociology & Criminology Department
The Arthur Nolletti, Jr. Film Series: Till
Wednesday, February 21, 2024, at 4:30 PM, at DPAC
Chinonye Chukwu’s Till tells the powerful story of Mamie Till-Bradley, the Chicago educator-turned-activist after the heinous lynching of her 14-year-old son, Emmett. His murderers have unfortunately never been brought to justice. Nevertheless, six decades after the crime, on March 29, 2022, President Biden signed the Emmett Till-Anti-Lynching Act into effect. Till not only acknowledges Till-Bradley’s courage and resilience, but also forcefully addresses questions of equity, inclusion, power, social justice in the lives of Black Americans.
Dr. Jeffrey Coleman, Vice President & Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, will lead a post-screening discussion with Dr. Jon Huibregtse and members of the Black Student Union and Brother2Brother. This event is being held in partnership with Framingham Public Library.
Sponsors: Arts & Ideas and the Division of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement
Lisa Iglesias: Chivalry Timbers
Reception in the Mazmanian Gallery Tuesday, February 27 at 2:30 PM
Lecture in the Forum, McCarthy Center, Tuesday, February 27, 2024 at 3:30 PM
Zoom Registration link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcvf-GpqD8uHtcJ4Utn_6mr7WAySIsBzCgC
Artist Lisa Iglesias (she/they) will present an exhibition in Mazmanian Gallery and speak about her artwork. Her projects incorporate expansive histories and potentials of drawing and painting, take into consideration the translation of patterns, images and gestures across materials. Iglesias’ multidisciplinary work explores issues of social participation, collectivity, caretaking, family connection, and transnational identity, all of which speak to the Arts & Ideas theme of resilience.
Sponsors: Arts & Ideas
Big Ink for Big Hearts
Tuesday and Wednesday, March 5 and 6, 2024
The Forum for the two days of workshop
“Big Ink for Big Hearts” is a two-day participatory art event on campus in which the travelling artist group Big Ink brings their custom-designed giant mobile printing press "Big Tuna" to FSU to print 16 large-scale woodblocks (up to 4 feet by 8 feet!) that are created in advance by students, faculty, staff and/or community members addressing the Arts & Ideas theme of "Courage and Resilience.” The groups develop images for their woodcuts that may highlight key figures from historical or contemporary courageous movements or initiatives, or that may explore more personal stories of courage and resilience.
Sponsors: Arts & Ideas, The Art & Music Department, and CELTSS
Community Partnerships with the Mill Contemporary Art Studios, the Black Student Union, and Classes taughy by Marc Cote, Paul Yalowitz, Zeynep Gonen, and Lissa Bollettino
The Linda Vaden-Goad Authors and Artists Series: Katherine Scheidler & Marcus Greene
Tuesday, March 26, 2024, at 4:30 PM in Heineman Ecumenical Center
Zoom Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEvdeCpqDIrHtIOiszZO0VKD7NSFNqWa8he
Katherine Scheidler's new publication Renegade Teacher: Inside School Walls with Standards and the Test will be described to provide insights about the national test, which has been considered poor, intrusive, and unfair. With her experience as a school district assistant superintendent, Scheidler studies the tests annually and sees them changing over the years to become better - and more needed today with learning lost during the pandemic school shutdown. Marcus Greene's creative work explores his interest in the formal construction of imaginary spaces - sometimes suggesting nature or physical science, sometimes mythical or archetypal environments, and sometimes suggesting passages to other dimensions.
Creating Between Two Worlds: Contemporary Artistic Diasporas
Wednesday, April 10, 2024, at 4:30 PM in Alumni Room
Zoom Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAkduuprToqHNQMw2j16RkuHx48M_0P084c
Contemporary diasporic experiences remain defined by myriad transnational crossings. How do artists address transnational identity in their work? What is the relationship between identity formation and visual culture? Moderated by FSU Professor Alexander Hartwiger, artists Jasmine Chen, Saberah Malik, and Stephen Marc will discuss the relationship between artistic practices and diasporic experience in the United States. Values in their work –a courageous synthesis of memory and the unsettling nature of diasporic existence-- find roots in bi-cultural experience. Their accounting for personal origins and ancestry display a sense of resiliency to and acknowledgment of a complex relationship with mainstream society.
Sponsors: Arts & Ideas, the Division of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement, and Paul B. Rosenberg Fund for Museum Education