Bard College Hosts Inaugural Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck Conference, October 20–22

“The DRE: Disturbance, Re-Animation, and Emergent Archives” Conference Features Keynote Speakers Elizabeth N. Ellis and Marisa J. Fuentes

Bard College will host its inaugural Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck conference from October 20 through 22. This conference, “The DRE: Disturbance, Re-Animation, and Emergent Archives,” considers the topic of archives from a range of humanistic perspectives, with keynotes showcasing methods in Native American and Indigenous Studies and African and African-American Studies, as well as offering the viewpoints of contemporary artists on these topics. The DRE is the first of three annual conferences supported by Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck, part of the Mellon Foundation’s Humanities for All Times initiative.

On Thursday, October 20 at 5 pm, multimedia Tsitsistas/Suhtai Nation (a.k.a. Northern Cheyenne) artist Bently Spang will open the conference with a screening and presentation in Weis Cinema, Bertelsmann Campus Center followed by an opening reception at the Center for Experimental Humanities in New Annandale House. On Friday, October 21, keynotes by award-winning scholars bracket a day of smaller sessions exploring and modeling ethical practices in the archive, open to students, faculty, and staff. Dr. Marisa J. Fuentes, Presidential Term Chair in African American History and Associate Professor of History and Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, will deliver a keynote lecture, “Buried ‘Without Care’: Social Death, Discarded Lives, and the Transatlantic Slave Trade” on Friday at 9:30 am in the László Z. Bitó ’60 Auditorium of the Gabrielle H. Reem and Herbert J. Kayden Center for Science and Computation (RKC). Dr. Elizabeth N. Ellis, Assistant Professor of History at Princeton University and citizen of the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, will deliver the second keynote lecture, “Recovering Indigenous Histories of Survival: Enduring Louisiana Nations” on Friday at 4 pm in Bitó Auditorium, RKC. Friday’s events, which include concurrent workshops, screenings, and presentations, also take place in RKC. On the morning of Saturday, October 22,recipients of Rethinking Place student research funding will present on their work.

On Saturday, October 22 at 2 pm, Oglála Lakȟóta scholar and multimedia artist Kite aka Suzanne Kite MFA ’18 will close the conference with a talk, “Makȟóčheowápi Akézaptaŋ (Fifteen Maps),” at the Fisher Center’s LUMA Theater. This event is free and open to the public. Reserve your seat here.

For the full conference schedule, click here. All events are open to Bard College students, faculty, and staff. To register click here. Keynote addresses and Bently Spang’s opening artist presentation are open to the public dependent on space. Non-Bard community members who are interested in attending, please email: [email protected].

Bard’s “Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck” project affirms Bard’s tangible commitments to the principles and ideals of the College’s 2020 land acknowledgment and is supported by the Mellon Foundation’s 2022 Humanities for All Times. The Mellon grant offers three years of support for developing a land acknowledgment–based curriculum, public-facing Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) programming, and efforts to support the work of emerging NAIS scholars and tribally enrolled artists at Bard. Rethinking Place emphasizes broad community-based knowledge, collaboration, and collectives of inquiry and also attends to the importance of considering the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians, upon whose homelands Bard sits.

For more information, please visit rethinkingplace.bard.edu.

Post Date: 10-11-2022