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Save the Dates: Spring 2021 ARHU Colloquium Series on Race, Equity and Justice

The Dean of ARHU has launched a year-long colloquium series to engage audiences in conversations about systemic racism, inequality and justice. The colloquia are free and will take place virtually. 

The series is part of a new college-wide campaign to address racism, inequality and justice in curriculum, scholarship, programming and community engagement.

Each session will include a mini-lecture and then a conversation with Dean Thornton Dill, followed by Q and A from participants. Grab a cup of coffee and join the Dean for a conversation with some of ARHU’s leading experts in social justice and anti-racism.

spring2021 ARHU Colloquium Speakers:


Quincy Mills, Associate Professor of History

Topic: Movement Money: Crises, Relief, and Democratic Practice
February 17, 9-10 am
Dr. Mills will discuss the role of economic autonomy and security in realizing the promises of democracy. His talk considers whether there is or should be security in struggle. He brings together his scholarship on Black barber shops and his current research on grassroots fundraising for civil rights activism from the Scottsboro Boys to the Poor People's Campaign.
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Jessica Gatlin, Assistant Professor of Art

Topic: Interdisciplinary Forms of Resistance
April 29, 9-10 am
Professor Gatlin is a non-disciplinary artist who uses various media to comment on the effects of oppressive social and economic structures. She will share some of her original artworks during her presentation. 
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Mary Corbin Sies, Associate Professor of American Studies; Trevor Munoz, MITH Director; and Lakelands Project team members

Topic: The Lakeland Digital Archive: Toward an Equitable Community/University Collaboration
April 13, 9-10 am

The team will discuss the Lakeland Digital Archive documenting the historic African American community of Lakeland, founded in 1890 in College Park, MD. The Archive is owned and managed by the Lakeland Community Heritage Project, an all-volunteer non-profit heritage society. The team will talk about their efforts to model an equitable and just working relationship that acknowledges and seeks to amend past injuries and inequitable power relations between Lakeland, UMD, and others. Team Members: Ms. Violetta Sharps-Jones, historian and genealogist of African American history in Prince George’s County and LCHP Board Member and Dr. Mary Corbin Sies, Associate Professor in the Dept of American Studies and LCHP Board Member
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GerShun Avilez, Associate Professor in English
Topic: Black radicalism and his book,
 "Black Queer Freedom: Spaces of Injury and Paths of Desire"
May 6, 9-10 am

Dr. Avilez will discuss his book Black Queer Freedom (2020) and talk specifically about how Black queer artists explore the spatial inequality that eludes legislative change, specifically the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the absence of change, he shows how artists provide examples of queer self-making and world-making as radical Civil Rights projects.  
RSVP