Megan Fossa

Early photographic experimentation was frequently less concerned with optics — with providing a picture of the world — than with physics. Techniques such as spectroscopy were developed and deployed explicitly to investigate that which was beyond the range of human perception: the nature and behavior of light. Laura Saltz, associate professor of American studies, asks why […]

How do Colby professors use their disciplines to respond when violence convulses our world? When police shoot and are shot at, when bombs explode and refugees drown, what can the arts and humanities, in particular, teach us? Join us as professors Lisa Arellano (Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies), Gary Green (Art), and Anindyo Roy (English) […]

History tells us that Charles Darwin was neither the first nor the only one to think of evolution. This talk by Janet Browne, Aramont Professor of the History of Science at Harvard, takes the opportunity to think carefully about Darwin and the revolution in thought that carries his name. Browne, who teaches the history of […]

Most people today view climate science as a field wholly occupied with the practical problem of global warming. But, as with most scientific endeavors, the field has moved forward by scientists driven by their own curiosity to meet a series of fascinating intellectual challenges, whether or not they had any practical consequences. In this talk, […]

How do Colby professors use their disciplines to respond when violence convulses our world? When police shoot and are shot at, when bombs explode and refugees drown, what can the arts and humanities, in particular, teach us? Join us as professors Carleen Mandolfo (Religious Studies), Aaron Hanlon (English), and visiting artists Brother(hood) Dance! explore how […]

Judy Stone, professor of biology and Dr. Charles C. and Pamela W. Leighton Research Fellow, discusses the Darwinian Revolution. Darwin’s theories on descent with modification and on evolution by natural selection revolutionized biology. Both of these theories rest upon an underlying insight called population thinking, which recognizes that variation among individuals within a species is […]

For many of us, seeing is believing; we’re strongly influenced by an empirical understanding of what constitutes proof (“show me the proof,” as opposed to “explain to me the proof,” “tell me the proof,” etc.). Developments in how we understand data and data science, however, complicate our reliance on empiricism by introducing new standards of […]

BZ ’18-’45: One Monument, One City, Two Dictatorships is a public exhibition within the Monument to Victory in Bolzano, Italy, that illustrates the history of the monument erected by the Italian Fascist regime in 1928. This lecture by Jeffrey Schnapp, professor of romance literature and comparative literature at Harvard, recounts the tale of the monument and its reframing […]

Although the events it describes occurred more than 200 years ago, the term “Haitian Revolution” has only come into widespread use in the past few decades. By putting the events that led to the western world’s first abolition of slavery on the same level as the American and French revolutions, this new language profoundly changes […]

For LaToya Ruby Frazier, winner of a 2015 MacArthur “genius grant,” art is a weapon — a catalyst for social justice. Her photographs and videos document today’s America: post-industrial cities riven by poverty, racism, health-care inequality, and environmental toxicity. Bridging the personal with the social, her gorgeous and haunting shots amplify the voices of the […]

What if science studies theorist Bruno Latour is right that thinking of ourselves as “revolutionary” is one of the central constitutive myths of modernity? What if, as he asserts, “we have never been modern?” This talk with Keith Peterson, associate professor of philosophy, explores the basis of Latour’s anti-revolutionary claim and considers some responses to […]

Throughout history, individuals have organized with others to bring about radical social change. What is it like to be on the front lines fighting for social transformation? Why do people risk life and limb to do so? Social science has addressed these questions in many different ways. This talk by Marcos Perez, postdoctoral fellow in […]

Part of the 2016-17 Humanities theme Revolutions, in The Birth of a Nation, Nat Turner is an enslaved Baptist preacher who lives on a Virginia plantation owned by Samuel Turner. With rumors of insurrection in the air, a cleric convinces Samuel that Nate should sermonize to other slaves, thereby quelling any notions of an uprising. As Nate […]

In 1839 the slave ship Amistad set sail from Cuba to America. During the long trip, Cinque (Djimon Hounsou) leads the slaves in an unprecedented uprising. They’re held prisoner in Connecticut and their release becomes the subject of heated debate. Freed slave Theodore Joadson (Morgan Freeman) wants Cinque and the others exonerated and recruits property […]

In the years before the Civil War, Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free black man from upstate New York, is kidnapped and sold into slavery in the South. Subjected to the cruelty of one malevolent owner (Michael Fassbender), he also finds unexpected kindness from another as he struggles continually to survive and maintain some of […]

Following the Battle of Antietam, Col. Robert Gould Shaw (Matthew Broderick) is offered command of the United States’ first all-African-American regiment, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. With junior officer Cabot Forbes (Cary Elwes), Shaw puts together a strong and proud unit, including the escaped slave Trip (Denzel Washington) and the wise gravedigger John Rawlins (Morgan […]

As a journalist, trans advocate Janet Mock brings issues of gender, race, class, and equity to the forefront of public discourse. Her memoir, Redefining Realness, debuted on the New York Times bestseller list in 2014, and she recently produced the HBO documentary The Trans List. She is also the founder of #GirlsLikeUs, a social media project […]

RenMen, Renaissance Men, is composed of Boston and New York’s most active chamber musicians, educators, and music aficionados.Where did a cappella come from? How do ensembles today approach this versatile form of music making? This show will explore unaccompanied vocal polyphony both historically and in contemporary performance. Founded in 2014 by Anthony Burkes Garza, Eric […]

Blue Scholars is an American hip-hop duo based in Seattle created in 2002 while members DJ Sabzi (Saba Mohajerjasbi) and MC Geologic (George Quibuyen) were students at University of Washington. Through their music and live shows, they bridge their experiences as children of immigrants to the urgent politic of now. The duo’s sharp, insightful lyricism […]

At the dawn of the 20th century, a family in the Gullah community—former West African slaves who adopted many of their ancestors’ Yoruba traditions—of coastal South Carolina suffers a generational split. Young Haagar (Kaycee Moore) wants to move to the mainland away from tradition-bound matriarch Nana (Cora Lee Day). Former prostitute Yellow Mary (Barbara-O) gets […]

Passage at St. Augustine establishes America’s oldest city as home to the most violent Civil Rights campaign of the entire movement. Viewers are transported back to this unlikely Florida tourist town to hear firsthand from civil rights foot soldiers, Klansmen, journalists, clergy, politicians, and the like who fought on the front lines of the 18-month battle […]

Freedom on My Mind is a 1994 documentary that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, winning that year’s Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary. The film was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It’s the first film to chronicle, in depth, the story of Freedom Summer. The film tells the complex […]

The rise of the modern girl, a global phenomenon of the 1920s and 1930s, profoundly influenced notions of race, class, and gender in late-colonial Indonesia. This popular female archetype represented a new world in which Asian young women could – for the first time – participate in western education and unchaperoned socializing with men. Many […]

In 1964 three civil rights activists go missing in Mississippi. The bodies of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner are found months later, and the three Klansman accused of murdering them are put on trial. All three are found not guilty, including Edgar Ray Killen who openly flaunts his involvement in the killings for […]

Josie Sigler and Crystal Williams will read from their books, followed by a reception and a book signing. Sigler’s collection of stories, The Galaxie and Other Rides (Livingston Press, 2012), was awarded the Ruby Pickens Tartt First Fiction Award, her book of poetry, living must bury (Fence Books), won the 2010 Motherwell Prize, and the […]