KINGSTON, R.I. – Sept. 9, 2024 – In a time of concern over attacks to democracy, the University of Rhode Island Center for the Humanities is taking a different tack. Instead of focusing chiefly on the risks to democracy, its annual lecture series will explore ways to renew hope in it.
The center’s yearlong series, “Sustaining Democracy,” which opens Sept. 26, complements the University’s 61st annual Honors Colloquium, which will dissect “Democracy in Peril” this fall by presenting thoughtful and informed dialogue on the meaning and importance of – and risks to – democracy.
“The Honors Colloquium will bring speakers, many of them political scientists, to campus to discuss the very real threats to democracy that are among the most serious challenges of the day,” said Evelyn Sterne, director of the Center for the Humanities. “Meanwhile, we’ve invited speakers from a variety of disciplines to present a more hopeful perspective on how the arts and humanities can help us to interpret and communicate about threats to democracy and provide various paths to democratic engagement.”
The speakers in the series will include a poet and memoirist, artist, librarian, historians, and public humanities professionals, all offering unique takes on how the arts and humanities can sustain democracy in numerous ways. The lectures are free and open to the public. Registration is requested.
The fall will feature four speakers, opening Thursday, Sept. 26, with Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera, professor in the humanities department of the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez, at 3 p.m. in the Hardge Forum of the Multicultural Student Services Center. (His talk will be in-person only.) He will speak on “Land Grant Universities and Cultural Dispossession,” which will explore the U.S. colonial model of higher education and methods to democratize the creation of knowledge in teaching, research, and civic affairs.
Herlihy-Mera, who has been a faculty member at universities in the U.S., Caribbean, South America and Europe, is the founding director of the Instituto Nuevos Horizontes, which is funded by the Mellon Foundation. He was an Obama Fellow at the Obama Institute for Transitional American Studies in 2022, and a Fulbright Distinguished Chair of American Studies in Budapest in 2019. He is the author of “Decolonizing American Spanish,” “After American Studies: Rethinking the Legacies of Transnational Exceptionalism,” and “Hemingway’s Expatriate Nationalism.”
On Thursday, Oct. 3, the series will host a conversation with poet and memoirist Javier Zamora, at 4 p.m. in the Hope Room of the Higgins Welcome Center. The discussion will be in person and livestreamed.
Zamora is an advocate for immigrants keeping ownership of their own stories, and his award-winning 2023 memoir, “Solito,” explores his own harrowing journey to the U.S. as an unaccompanied 9-year-old. As part of his talk, he will discuss his journey from El Salvador to the U.S. and show how poetry and literature can call attention to the need for sane and just immigration policies, Sterne said.
The College of Arts and Sciences has purchased 100 copies of “Solito” to give to people interested in participating in a campus Big Read. Register to pick up a free copy.
Historian Alex Keyssar, the Matthew W. Stirling Jr. Professor of History and Social Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, will discuss “Democratic Crises and Structural Change” on Wednesday, Oct. 23, in the Hardge Forum at the Multicultural Center at 3 p.m. The lecture will also be livestreamed.
Keyssar, whose talk will look at the reforms needed to reinvigorate democracy in the U.S., specializes in the exploration of historical problems that have contemporary policy implications. His books include “The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States,” which was named the best book in U.S. history by the American Historical Association and the Historical Society and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and his most-recent work, “Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College?”
The series’ fall lectures close Thursday, Dec. 5, as Elizabeth Francis and Julia Renaud of Rhode Island Humanities, discuss their innovative project, the Rhode Island Civic Health Index, which explores connections between the humanities and civic life in Rhode Island. They will be joined by journalist and historian Colin Woodard of Salve Regina University’s Nationhood Lab. The discussion, which will also be livestreamed, is at 4 p.m. in the Hope Room of the Welcome Center.
The “2022 Rhode Island Civic Health Index,” the state’s first civic health index, drew up data-driven indicators and information about diverse connections to civic life to examine the state’s civic well-being. It provides a baseline to help communities, leaders and policymakers understand the challenges and opportunities Rhode Islanders share.
When the series returns for the spring semester, it will include speakers Eric Gottesman, an artist who leads For Freedoms, an initiative that uses art as a catalyst for democratic engagement; historian Shannon King, who studies race and policing; Emily Drabinski, former head of the American Library Association; and Jefferson Cowie, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author of “Freedom’s Dominion.”
Along with the Center for the Humanities, “Sustaining Democracy” is co-sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English, Department of Gender and Women’s Studies, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Division of Research and Economic Development, URI’s Honors Program, Multicultural Student Services Center, and Office of the President.