Bard College Hosts Harvard Professor Glenda Carpio as Inaugural Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck Toni Morrison Lecturer on April 20

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—The Inaugural Rethinking Place Toni Morrison Lecture will take place on Thursday, April 20 at 6 pm in the Bitó Auditorium of the Reem-Kayden Center, Bard College. Delivered by Glenda Carpio, Chair of the English Department and Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University, the lecture “Migrant Aesthetics,” adapted from Carpio’s forthcoming book of the same title, shows how through artistic innovation, contemporary authors allow us to apprehend the historical legacies and political injustice that produce forced migration. A reception prior to the talk will be hosted by Samosa Shack Kingston at 5 pm.

Sponsored by Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck, a Mellon Foundation Humanities for All Times project, this lecture series celebrates the work of both Electa “Wuhwehweeheemeew” Quinney, a citizen of the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican nation and the first woman to teach in a public school in the territory which would become Wisconsin; and the American novelist, essayist, and editor, Toni Morrison, who was a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at Bard College from 1979–1981. The series invites luminaries from fields like Native American and Indigenous studies, American studies, ethnic studies, and Black studies to give one lecture each fall and spring semester over the grant duration which models the kind of multi-disciplinary and intersectional scholarship that Rethinking Place seeks to promote.

The Quinney-Morrison Lecture Series provides opportunities for academics and other regional partners to learn what work needs to be done in the creation of land acknowledgement projects. It provides space to reflect on individuals' relationships with spaces, lands, and borders, to dissuade action without reflection, and to share responsibilities for encouraging this type of thought and engagement beyond tribal communities to all.

Bard College students, faculty, and staff along with non-Bard affiliated community members are welcomed. Please join us prior to the talk at 5 pm for a reception hosted by Samosa Shack Kingston. A recording of the lecture will be available upon request.

Glenda R. Carpio is the Chair of the English Department and Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. She is the author of Laughing Fit to Kill: Black Humor in the Fictions of Slavery (2008). She coedited African American Literary Studies: New Texts, New Approaches, New Challenges (2011) with Professor Werner Sollors and is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Richard Wright (2019).

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.


About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year, residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in more than 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 13 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 163-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.

This event was last updated on 04-17-2023

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