Room 100, Lovejoy Building, Colby College

This screening of the classic 1996 film comes in advance of the Gerrish Lecture with Sister Helen Prejean, who wrote the book on which the movie is based. Sister Helen will speak Feb. 12 at 7:00 p.m. in Lorimer Chapel. Sponsored by the Gerrish Fund and the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life.

When we think about the factors that led to the creation of the novel as a literary form in English, we might not think of the rise and institutionalization of experimental science. Yet the chartering of the Royal Society for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge in 1662 had a profound impact on what novels and […]

Although our existence on a habitable planet can largely be taken for granted, how Earth arrived at this state of “habitability” is far from obvious. How the planets even formed is still not well understood. Once a terrestrial planet is created, its evolution is controlled by how it slowly cools, which drives its internal motion […]

Does our universe have a finite origin or has it existed unchanged for all eternity? Either answer has profound implications about the nature of our reality. Dale Kocevski, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, will discuss how astronomers came to the conclusion that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang about […]

Gospel music is the subject of this lively film, which explores the history of the faith-rooted musical style. While the documentary features a number of gospel musicians, it spends the most time looking into the considerable contributions of Thomas A. Dorsey, a pioneering songwriter and pianist, and his popular associate, singer “Mother” Willie Mae Ford […]

Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice documents the dramatic life and turbulent times of the pioneering African-American journalist, activist, suffragist and anti-lynching crusader of the post-Reconstruction period. Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison reads selections from Wells’ memoirs and other writings in this winner of more than 20 film festival awards. The Black Press: Soldiers […]

Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 legally desegregated the South, discrimination was still rampant in certain areas, making it very difficult for blacks to register to vote. In 1965 an Alabama city became the battleground in the fight for suffrage. Despite violent opposition, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (David Oyelowo) and his followers pressed […]

The much-hyped Malcolm X happens to be a spiritually enriching testament to the human capacity for change — and surely Spike Lee’s most universally appealing film. An engrossing mosaic of history, myth, and sheer conjecture, this ambitious epic manages to sustain itself for three hours and 21 minutes and overcomes an early frivolity of tone and […]

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 […]

The Oak Student Committee welcomes Lauren Duca as the keynote speaker for their spring programming series on issues of access, “Breaking Down Barriers.” Duca, contributing editor at Teen Vogue, will speak about the importance of making the news accessible to every audience, including groups like teenage women. Duca will share her insights on the state of journalism […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]