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Low Lecture with Kevin Dawson

Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery

The annual Low Lecture features Kevin Dawson, associate professor of history at the University of California, Merced, who will speak on Liquid Motion: Canoeing and Surfing in Atlantic Africa and the Diaspora, 1444–1888. “Liquid Motion” examines how African women and men perceived, understood, and interacted with oceans and rivers through swimming, underwater diving, surfing, canoe-making, and canoeing. Africans inspire us to rethink assumptions about maritime history, by considering maritime traditions that Westerns lacked. Enslaved Africans carried these maritime traditions to the Americas, where they used them to benefit their exploited lives and enslavers exploited them to generate wealth. This event is part of the Spring 2024 Social Sciences Forum.

Humanities Forum: Evelyn Barker Lecture with Sean D. Kelly

Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery

In 1947, Martin Heidegger wrote what is now known as his “Letter on Humanism,” which is rich and revealing. At the center of the Letter stands a singular, pointed claim: that all previous “humanisms,” have failed to recognize the “proper dignity of human being.” Drawn from a book in progress, this talk by Sean D. Kelly of Harvard University will explore questions of our proper dignity, and the threat to it posed by the technological age. This event is part of the Spring 2024 Humanities Forum.

Restorative Justice and the Rights of the Incarcerated

Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery

The Department of English hosts two events relating to law and restorative justice on March 27, inspired by the career path of 2018 UMBC English Alumna Breia Lassiter. She will return to UMBC to share her experiences with the university community. This event, a panel discussion, Restorative Justice and the Rights of the Incarcerated, will feature Lassiter with Walter Lomax (Executive Director, Maryland Restorative Justice Initiative), and Natasha Dartigue (Office of the Public Defender, Baltimore).

From the Classroom to the Courtroom

Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery

The Department of English hosts two events relating to law and restorative justice on March 27, inspired by the career path of 2018 UMBC English Alumna Breia Lassiter. She will return to UMBC to share her experiences with the university community. In this event, From the Classroom to the Courtroom, Breia Lassiter will discuss her personal history from her days as an English major at UMBC, through law school and work as a student clinician at Michigan State University, to taking the bar exam, passing it, and finally now working as an Associate Attorney at a law firm.

Humanities Forum: Joan S. Korenman Lecture with Emek Ergun

Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery

In this talk, Emek Ergun will explore the political role of translation in facilitating transnational feminist transformations and connectivities. She will discuss the transatlantic journey of Hanne Blank’s Virgin: The Untouched History — a popular feminist book demystifying the man-made histories of virginity in western geographies — via her Turkish translation and its reception. This lecture is part of the Spring 2024 Humanities Forum.

Anastasia Samoylova: FloodZone

Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery

FloodZone, featuring photography by Anastasia Samoylova, explores what it looks like to live in the southern United States at a time when rising sea levels and hurricanes threaten the most prized locations with storm surges and coastal erosion. Samoylova’s lyrical photographs are deceptive, drawing us in with a seemingly documentary promise of a palm-treed paradise. Their alluring color palette — filled with lush greens, azure blues, and pastel pinks — gives way to minute details that reveal decaying infrastructure, encroaching flora, and displaced fauna.

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