Why Medieval Thinkers Are Relevant to 2024
A conversation with Andrew Arlig and Lauren Mancia, moderated by Nicola Masciandaro
Thursday February 29, 2024
6:00 PM to 7:15 PM
Online
Zoom pre-registration required: https://brooklyn-cuny-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUvcemvqTMtG9zpQZck6SK5UEZDelnXX7Zk
What were the perennial questions posed by medieval thinkers, and how are they still important to our world in 2024? Join us as we celebrate the publication of Philosophy Professor Andrew Arlig's Medieval Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge, 2023) and History Professor Lauren Mancia’s Meditation and Prayer in the Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Monastery: Struggling Towards God (ARC Humanities Press, 2023). English Professor Nicola Masciandaro will join them to discuss medieval ideas about the world and the human place within it and explain why studying 1,000-year-old ideas is still relevant to our world today.
Abortion Beyond the Law
a conversation with Naomi Braine, Sybil Nkeiruka Nmezi, and Caitlin Gerdts
Wednesday March 6, 2024
1:00 to 2:00 PM
227 Ingersoll Hall Extension, Brooklyn College Women’s Center
and Online
Zoom pre-registration required: https://brooklyn-cuny-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0pcOitqTwsHtLtW0pStlfPAXJrzAMJ9VhQQ
Join us to celebrate the recent publication of Abortion Beyond the Law by Naomi Braine, Professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College, and learn about the transnational feminist movement for self-managed medication abortion. The book came out of 6 years of research, including interviews with 70 activists across 4 continents, to explore the strategies feminists have developed to enable people facing unwanted pregnancies to safely have an abortion regardless of the law. Professor Braine will discuss her research and the book, and panelists will bring the conversation forward to discuss the work they are involved in today.
The Future of New York City: Who Decides?
a conversation on community organizing
Monday March 18, 2024
6:00 pm
Online
Zoom pre-registration required: https://brooklyn-cuny-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUrd-Corj4oEtJejmJmSbNUeGM-GmB1uviD
Please join us for a celebration of Anthropology Professor Naomi Schiller’s recent co-authored book, Disruptive Engagement: An Organizer's Guide to Building Community Power for Justice in Land Use and Housing in New York City. The event will explore the question: what role can people play in shaping the future of their neighborhood and the broader city? Speakers will explore how community organizers attempt to navigate New York City’s complex official decision-making processes to fight for housing and to build healthy and sustainable communities. We’ll address how community organizers have responded to Mayor Eric Adams’ vision for a “City of Yes” and what possibilities Community Land Trusts offer for people to steward land on behalf of local communities. Panelists will build on the lessons advanced in their collectively produced handbook.
Affective Masculinities: From Colonial Fathers to Bachelor Banisters in India and England (19th and 20th Centuries)
Thursday, April 18
4:15–5:55 p.m.
Woody Tanger Auditorium, Brooklyn College Library
Celebrate History Professor Swapna M. Banerjee’s latest book, Fathers in the Motherland: Imagining Fatherhood in Colonial India (Oxford University Press, 2022). Banerjee will be joined by NYU History Professor Ren Pepitone. The book contends that during a period of social and political change in late 19th and early 20th-century colonial India, fathers extended their roles beyond breadwinning to take an active part in rearing their children. Exploring specific moments when educated men—as biological fathers, literary activists, and educators—assumed guardianship and became crucial agents of change, Banerjee interrogates the connections between fatherhood and masculinity. The last chapter of the book draws on the lives of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru to provide a broader salience to its argument. Reclaiming two missing links in Indian history, the book argues that biological and imaginary “fathers” assumed the moral guardianship of an incipient nation and rested their hopes and dreams on the future generation.
Advocacy and Archaeology: Present Thoughts
Wednesday May 8, 2024
6:00 PM
Online
Zoom pre-registration required: https://brooklyn-cuny-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0lceyvrjouHdOlw14nCe5G_2PTwZ5GSg5x
Archaeologists have a history of being agents of change, particularly in advocating for the protection and preservation of historical resources. The passage of many historic preservation laws and the development of the field of Cultural Resources Management in the mid-20th century enabled urban archaeological groups, individual archaeologists, and those working with historic sites to be diligent advocates for heritage as the fast-paced nature of urbanization threatened historical resources and a sense of place. Today as more social issues, such as climate change, inequality, neoliberal development, and contestation of historical memory, intersect with archaeology and historical sites, archaeologists and others continue to advocate not only for historic resources but also for the larger social justice questions (or challenges?) that threaten the communities in which these resources reside. Join us for a celebration of Anthropology Prof. Kelly Britt’s recently published co-edited volume Advocacy and Archaeology: Urban Intersections. The book is based around the theme of activism in urban settings, drawing on the endeavors of those working in these settings and their advocacy efforts on a variety of social justice and historic preservation projects. This event will bring the conversations highlighted in this volume into the present moment as archaeologists face ongoing and increasing challenges.