We are delighted to announce that John Green will be the PLAY! Keynote speaker.
John Green is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, The Fault in Our Stars, and Turtles All the Way Down. He is also the coauthor, with David Levithan, of
Will Grayson, Will Grayson. He was the 2006 recipient of the Michael L. Printz
Award, a 2009 Edgar Award winner, and has twice been a fnalist for the Los
Angeles Times Book Prize. Green’s books have been published in more than
55 languages and over 24 million copies are in print.
In June 2014, the movie adaptation of The Fault in Our Stars was released,
directed by Josh Boone, produced by Fox 2000 and Temple Hill, and starring
Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, and Nat Wolf. The screenplay was written
by Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber, who went on to adapt Paper Towns
for flm. Fox 2000 and Temple Hill released Paper Towns in the summer of
2015, starring Nat Wolf, Cara Delevingne, Justice Smith, Austin Abrams,
Halston Sage, and Jaz Sinclair. In the second half of 2015, John signed a
frst look production deal with Fox 2000. The limited series adaptation of
Looking for Alaska was released on Hulu on October 18th, 2019 starring
Kristine Froseth, Charlie Plummer, and Denny Love. A Netfix adaptation of
Let It Snow was released on November 8th, 2019 starring Isabela Merced,
Shameik Moore, Kiernan Shipka, Odeya Rush, Liv Hewson, Joan Cusack,
Mitchell Hope and more.
In 2007, John and his brother Hank ceased textual communication and
began to talk primarily through videoblogs posted to YouTube. The videos
spawned a community of people called “nerdfghters” who fght for
intellectualism and to decrease the overall worldwide level of suck.
(Decreasing suck takes many forms: Nerdfghters have raised millions of
dollars to fght poverty in the developing world; they also planted thousands
of trees around the world in May of 2010 to celebrate Hank’s 30th birthday.)
Although they have long since resumed textual communication, John and
Hank continue to upload two videos a week to their YouTube channel,
vlogbrothers. Their videos have been viewed more than 800 million times.
John and Hank launched educational YouTube channel Crash Course in late
2011 with funding from YouTube’s original channel initiative. John, Hank, and
a range of other hosts teach humanities and science courses to viewers,
with multiple new series launching each year. World History, Literature,
Economics, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Government are just some of
the courses available to date. Crash Course has over 10.7 million
subscribers and 1.2 billion views. John and Hank are involved with a myriad
of other video projects, including The Art Assignment, Ours Poetica,
SciShow, hankgames, Eons and Healthcare Triage.
John’s book reviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review
and Booklist , a wonderful book review journal where he worked as a
publishing assistant and production editor while writing Looking for Alaska.
John grew up in Orlando, Florida before attending Indian Springs School and
then Kenyon College. He currently lives in Indianapolis with his family.
In anticipation of John Green’s visit to Colby College on April 15, we’re hosting a special screening of the beloved film The Fault in Our Stars. Whether you’re a long-time fan of the book and movie or new to the story, join us for a moving night of laughter, tears, and inspiration. Get ready for John Green’s upcoming visit, and don’t forget to bring your questions and excitement for his talk!
Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley), a 16-year-old cancer patient, meets and falls in love with Gus Waters (Ansel Elgort), a similarly afflicted teen from her cancer support group. Hazel feels that Gus really understands her. They both share the same acerbic wit and a love of books, especially Grace’s touchstone, “An Imperial Affliction” by Peter Van Houten. When Gus scores an invitation to meet the reclusive author, he and Hazel embark on the adventure of their brief lives.
To get your free tickets for this event, please visit Maine Film Center.
Come to the library and paint a book end based on your favorite John Green book to decorate your shelves at home!
This event is supported by the Colby Center for the Arts and Humanities. For more information, please call (207) 680-2612, or email [email protected]
Restorative Justice, based in Indigenous circle-keeping practices for addressing conflict and harm, is being increasingly adopted across the U.S. by community groups as a way to address the need for healing, repair, accountability and justice without using punitive carcerality in the wake of harm.
The Convening will explore approaches in Maine being developed by survivors of serious harm and those who have caused serious harm to promote responses based in community-based Restorative Justice rather than simply carceral punishment.
Culminating presentation by Danielle Sered (author of Until We Reckon) at 5 pm.
Featuring Marlee Liss (Survivors 4 Justice Reform), Brandon Brown, Sarah Mattox, Kage Johnson, Leslie Ross, Maeghan Maloney, Tina Nadeau, Jason Trundy, Karen Wyman, Fowsia Musse, and Rilwan Osman
No charge, open to the public. More information and registration at https://sites.google.com/colby.edu/convening-restorative-justice
Inspired by John Green’s acclaimed book The Anthropocene Reviewed; Waterville Creates invites the community to engage with the extraordinary hidden within the ordinary. From March through April, we’ll celebrate everyday objects through creative expression in anticipation of John Green’s upcoming visit to Waterville in April.
Visitors are invited to review six carefully chosen everyday objects through essays, poetic odes, or haikus. Whether you share a heartfelt narrative, a lyrical tribute, or a succinct haiku, your reflections will join a collective tapestry of perspectives that celebrate the beauty, absurdity. and complexity of our shared human experience.
This interactive exhibit will be open for two months, providing ample time to ponder, create, and contribute. Submissions will be showcased in the arts center and online to highlight the community’s unique voices.
Come explore the profound in the mundane and share your reflections with us. All ages are welcome to contribute!
Join us for a gathering of John Green fans discussing his adult nonfiction book “The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet”, and his upcoming book, “Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection”.
Discussion will take place 5-6pm with refreshments and conversation to follow. This event is supported by the Colby Center for the Arts and Humanities. For more information, please call (207) 680-2612, or email [email protected]
Join us in celebration of our Youth Art Month (YAM) exhibition on March 7 from 4–7pm. This year marks our 11th annual YAM exhibition and we’re thrilled to be able to expand this program by partnering with Colby’s Greene Block + Studios. This year’s theme is Dream in Art.
For more information on events, please visit Waterville Creates.
In 1930s Moscow, a prominent writer‘s works are suddenly censored by the Soviet state and the premiere of his theatrical play about Pontius Pilate is canceled for ideological reasons. He is expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers, and quickly turns into an outcast with no means to survive.
Inspired by Margarita, his mistress, he begins working on a new novel in which all the characters are satirically reinterpreted from his life. The novel’s central character is Woland, a mystical dark force who visits Soviet Moscow as a tourist, and avenges all those who caused the writer’s downfall.
As the writer sinks himself deeper and deeper into his novel, adding himself and Margarita as characters, he gradually stops noticing as the border between reality and his imagination fades away.
In 1930s Moscow, a prominent writer‘s works are suddenly censored by the Soviet state and the premiere of his theatrical play about Pontius Pilate is canceled for ideological reasons. He is expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers, and quickly turns into an outcast with no means to survive.
Inspired by Margarita, his mistress, he begins working on a new novel in which all the characters are satirically reinterpreted from his life. The novel’s central character is Woland, a mystical dark force who visits Soviet Moscow as a tourist, and avenges all those who caused the writer’s downfall.
As the writer sinks himself deeper and deeper into his novel, adding himself and Margarita as characters, he gradually stops noticing as the border between reality and his imagination fades away.
Come celebrate Jen Yoder’s new publication, World War II Memory and Contested Commemorations in Europe and Russia.
This visually striking Nigerian film drawn from West African folklore has a Shakespearean heft. Iyi villagers worship the mermaid deity Mami Wata under the guidance of Mama Efe, her daughter Zinwe, and her protegee Prisca, but a series of tragedies sows doubt that Mami Wata still protects the village. Exploiting this lapse in faith, warlord Jasper arrives, seizing control of the village, plying seductive words, and hawking modern ways to turn the people from Mami Wata. It soon falls to Prisca and Zinwe to find a way to save their people and restore Mami Wata’s glory to Iyi. This film has received 15 awards and 27 nominations, winning a Sundance Film Festival award and receiving a nomination for the Film Independent Spirit Award Best International Film.
Part of Cinema Explorations, a wintertime community-curated film series. This event is Free and open to the public.
Sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities.
Climate collapse. Artificial Intelligence Panic. Unrelenting inequality. Political polarization and democratic backsliding. A collapsing education system. We’re told these are the biggest threats to our future. but what if they all have the same root cause? Scholar and journalist Tyler Austin Harper considers whether billionaires aren’t just reacting to global and domestic crises-they’re creating them. Both the Republican and Democratic parties are in the grips of billionaires who exert an outsized influence on American politics, leaving the working and middle classes feeling increasingly alienated, powerless, and voiceless. Harper unpacks how extreme wealth shapes our politics and our culture. RSVP here.
Sponsored by Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs, with support from The Cotter Discourse and Deliberation Series, The Center for the Arts and Humanities, Environmental Studies Department.
There are two love stories at the heart of this film. One is universal: a woman grieves the loss of the love of her life. The other is more specific to Hong Kong: its cityscape has long featured wild neon designs with eye-catching splashes of light and color advertising any and all manner of businesses. That is, until Beijing decrees that Hong Kong’s uniqueness should be curbed, quashing the artists and craftsmen responsible for the city’s garish neon beauty. But more than commerce is at stake. These two love stories overlap when Heung, devastated by her skilled neon craftsman husband Bill’s passing, decides she must carry on his last wish to renovate one of his favorite luminous signs despite family opposition and her own lack of training. “The neon hues are so saturated, so rich, you almost want to swim in them.”—Wendy Ide, The Guardian.
Part of Cinema Explorations, a wintertime community-curated film series. This event is Free and open to the public.
Sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities.
Join us for a gathering of John Green fans discussing his Young Adult books such as The Fault In Our Stars, Looking for Alaska, and Turtles All The Way Down.
Discussion will take place 5-6pm with refreshments and conversation to follow. This event is supported by the Colby Center for the Arts and Humanities. For more information, please call (207) 680-2612, or email [email protected].
Step beyond the theater and into the heart of the Broadway Boîte, an immersive haven where Broadway’s greatest hits come to life. This is no ordinary show; it’s a journey through music, drama, and decadence. As the lights dim, feel the power of iconic songs and magical performances sweep you away. Indulge in food and drinks crafted to elevate every moment as the drama unfolds, captivating your senses and leaving you spellbound. A night where music and emotion collide in perfect harmony—come, be part of something truly unforgettable.
Reserve your Free Tickets!
Upon arrival at the Gordon Center, please check in at the Colby Arts Table and you will be admitted into the performance. If the performance is sold out, please come to the Gordon Center and put your name on the waitlist – most wait-listers are able to attend!
Presented by the Departments of Music and Performance, Theater, and Dance at Colby College with sponsorship by the Center for the Arts and Humanities.
Martin Scorsese first encountered the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger as a child sitting in front of the family TV. When The Archers logo came up on screen, Scorsese says, “You knew you were in for fantasy, wonder, magic—real film magic.” He tells the story of his lifelong love-affair with The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, The Tales of Hoffmann, and others. Scorsese says, “As you grow older, they grow deeper. I’m not sure how it happens, but it does. For me, that body of work is a wondrous presence, a constant source of energy, and a reminder of what life and art are all about.” Drawing on a rich array of archive material, Scorsese explores in full the collaboration between the Englishman Powell and the Hungarian Pressburger—two romantics and idealists, who thrived in the face of adversity during World War II, but were eventually brought low by the film industry of the 1950s. Scorsese celebrates their ability to create “subversive commercial movies.” Intercutting scenes from his own films, Scorsese shows how deeply their films have influenced his own work. “A celebration of committing oneself to art, and the creative bonds that fuel the spark.”—The Hollywood Reporter.
Part of Cinema Explorations, a wintertime community-curated film series. This event is Free and open to the public.
Sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities.
A few armed forces and their families live in one of the last French military bases abroad on sunny, red-tinged Madagascar, their home a waning relic of France’s colonial empire. Their imaginations piqued by the intrepid comic book heroine Fantômette, 10-year-olds Thomas and Suzanne unobtrusively observe with surreptitious curiosity the world around them. Beneath the seemingly carefree and indulgent expatriate life, their eyes gradually open to other realities. Inspired by director Robin Campillo’s own childhood experiences on military deployments abroad, “It’s a compelling, visually exquisite piece of work.”—Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian. “Its autobiographical elements are keenly felt, as Campillo grapples intelligently not just with the blind spots of his personal past, but those of his national heritage.”—Guy Lodge, Variety.
Part of Cinema Explorations, a wintertime community-curated film series. This event is Free and open to the public.
Sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities.
What to Expect:
Materials and instructions provided
Guidance from our expert instructors
A festive, cozy atmosphere
A chance to meet new people and get into the holiday spirit!
Don’t miss out on this fun, hands-on way to celebrate the season. We can’t wait to see your holiday creativity come to life!
Happy Holidays!
A look at the prosecution of, and hatred towards, seal hunters for practicing traditional rituals. Plus, an examination of the high-profile celebrities that support anti-hunting campaigns.
Sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities.
What if we could not only solve the climate crisis but thrive while doing it? Join Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson as she paints a picture of a transformed, revitalized world. Blending science, policy, culture, and justice, she shows how bold ideas can become reality. Inspiring solutions, bold actions, and the roles we all can play in building a thriving future. Don’t miss this chance to explore how we can get it right—and shape a better world together.
Please note: This event is primarily student-focused. Only students will be allowed to ask questions during the Q&A session.
If you are unable to attend in person, please register for our livestream here.
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In the News is a recurring event series dedicated to sparking dialogue among visiting speakers and Colby students from diverse disciplines. Together, we tackle pressing topics in politics, policy, and the press. Our speakers bring firsthand insights and practical wisdom about issues that resonate with our student body. We hope attendees will leave with a deeper understanding, a fresh perspective, or even a transformed viewpoint.
Come celebrate Gary Green’s new publication, Almost Home.
Wounded landscapes, crumbling buildings, old dusty wigs still displayed in deserted storefront windows. These plats and parcels represent the history of a built environment and its ongoing discourse with nature. There is a strong sense of passage and decline.
Yet along with the photographs of blighted and neglected landscapes is a glimmer of hope and the possibility of transformation. In one picture, a sliver of light scrapes across a backyard lawn casting tangled shadows that land on the clapboard siding of a neighborhood house. In another, the surfaces of the sun-soaked brick and concrete are rendered so precisely as to elevate their significance by pure photographic description. Of course, there are twists and turns all along the way and a multitude of signs that present our world as more complex than any single feeling or photograph.
Almost Home, the third book that Gary Green has created with L’Artiere, continues the photographer’s exploration of the medium’s possibilities through the poetic landscape of the photobook. The book is printed in tritone on uncoated paper in an edition of 500.
Sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities.
Ben Baker, Assistant Professor Department of Philosophy, Colby College, is a philosopher who works mainly on questions about human minds, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence. He received a PhD in Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Computational Neuroscience. Prior to that, he received my JD from Yale Law School.
He works on questions about how to understand and study cognitive abilities, especially those of human beings, and on the ongoing efforts to emulate these abilities in artificially intelligent systems. How do our capacities for abstract thought relate to the way we perceive and move through the world? What gives rise to important differences in the ways different people think, and what are the social and ethical implications of those differences? What can we learn from machine models that match or exceed human performance in complex domains, and what are the limits of those models? He approaches these questions from multiple disciplinary perspectives and often views them through their presentation in complex and expressive movement, especially dance. Professor Baker is also interested in legal and ethical questions concerning AI.
This series is organized by the Center for the Arts and Humanities with support from American Studies, Computer Science, Art, Cinema Studies, Economics, English, Environmental Studies, Government, Latin American Studies, Philosophy, the Spanish department, and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Join us after the screening for a Q+A with director Emily Packer!
Holding Back the Tide is an impressionistic hybrid documentary that really considers the oyster as it traces the mollusk’s unlikely history and dynamic life cycles in New York, once the world’s oyster capital. Now, though, their dwindling presence leaves them as little more than specters in the city they were once a foundation of. As environmentalists restore them to the harbor, the oyster is examined through a queer perspective, reflecting humanity’s evolving views and understanding of gender and self-actualization.
Supported by the Colby College Department of Art and co-sponsored by Colby Center for the Arts and Humanities, Cinema Studies, Public Humanistic Inquiry Labs (PHIL), and the Science, Technology, and Society Program.
Assistant Professor of African-American Studies Sonya Donaldson, who started teaching at Colby last fall, centers her research on negotiations of identity, genres, and interstitial and contested spaces, examining them through the lenses of African-American studies, Black diaspora studies, and the digital humanities. She previously taught at New Jersey City University and Hampshire College, and she is the recipient of a 2019 Virginia Humanities Fellowship and a 2016 Woodrow Wilson Postdoctoral Fellowship. Donaldson earned her doctorate in English language and literature from the University of Virginia.
The seminar series is sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities, with co-sponsorship from the Departments of American Studies, Art, Cinema Studies, Economics, English, Environmental Studies, Global Studies, Government, Philosophy, Spanish, Science, Technology, and Society, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the Latin American Studies program.
Colby College
The Fall Shabbaton is an annual event that brings together the Maine Jewish community and friends from farther afield for a weekend of Torah study, soulful music, Shabbat meals, and invigorating connection. What started out as a Friday-night dinner and concert has evolved into a full Shabbat of learning and singing, with intergenerational programs for college students, children and teens, synagogue members from across the state.
Past guests have included Nefesh Mountain, Deborah Sacks Mintz, Neshama Carlebach and the Glory to God gospel singers, and Joey Weisenberg, as well as Talmud scholar Ruth Calderon. The Shabbaton has grown into a partner program to the Maine Conference for Jewish Life, sustaining our community with Jewish learning and music as we enter the winter months.
To learn more about this event or to register, please click here.
A woman utilises ancient beekeeping traditions to cultivate honey in the mountains of North Macedonia. When a neighbouring family tries to do the same, it becomes a source of tension as they disregard her wisdom and advice.
Sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities.
Hindi is a Palestinian-American poet. Her debut collection of poems, Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow (Haymarket Books 2022), was an honorable mention for the Arab American Book Award. She is currently editing a Palestinian poetry anthology with George Abraham (Haymarket Books, 2025). Follow her on Instagram @NoorKHindi.
The seminar series is sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities, with co-sponsorship from the Departments of American Studies, Art, Cinema Studies, Economics, English, Environmental Studies, Global Studies, Government, Philosophy, Spanish, Science, Technology, and Society, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the Latin American Studies program.
Dr. Kishonna L Gray is a Professor of Racial Justice and Technology in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. She is the Director of the Intersectional Tech Lab, a Mellon funded initiative.Professor Gray is also a Faculty Associate at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. She has served in this role since she was a Fellow in 2016.
Professor Gray previously served as a Martin Luther King Jr. Scholar and Visiting Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Comparative Media Studies and the Women & Gender Studies Program and a Faculty Visitor at the Social Media Collective at Microsoft Research (Cambridge). She is also an affiliate with the Center for Race and Digital Studies (NYU) and UPenn’s Center on Digital Culture and Society.
She is the author of Intersectional Tech: Black Users in Digital Gaming (LSU Press, 2020), Race, Gender, & Deviance in Xbox Live (Routledge, 2014), and is the co-editor of two volumes on culture and gaming: Feminism in Play (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2018) and Woke Gaming (University of Washington Press, 2018).
The seminar series is sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities, with co-sponsorship from the Departments of American Studies, Art, Cinema Studies, Economics, English, Environmental Studies, Global Studies, Government, Philosophy, Spanish, Science, Technology, and Society, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the Latin American Studies program.
Microeconomist Timothy Hubbard specializes in the structural analysis
of auctions, a technical and complex field with significant policy
implications. He has made substantial methodological and theoretical
contributions and has taken on important, difficult problems in the
field. He is nationally recognized for the sophistication of his
empirical work and his use of state-of-the-art econometric and numerical
methods.
The seminar series is sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities, with co-sponsorship from the Departments of American Studies, Art, Cinema Studies, Economics, English, Environmental Studies, Global Studies, Government, Philosophy, Spanish, Science, Technology, and Society, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the Latin American Studies program.
For 10 idyllic years, young Mija has been caretaker and constant companion to Okja – a massive animal and an even bigger friend – at her home in the mountains of South Korea. But that changes when family-owned, multinational conglomerate Mirando Corporation takes Okja for themselves and transports her to New York, where an image-obsessed and self-promoting CEO has big plans for Mija’s dearest friend. With no particular plan but single-minded in intent, Mija sets out on a rescue mission.
Sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities.
The Last Physician of Images is the founder and host of the online forum and discussion series “Criticism and Value,” a forum for sharing experimental essays about art, criticism, and hosting live public conversations between living and non-living national and international artists. LPI is a transdisciplinary artist and critic. LPI’s interests include drawing, printmaking, nature, new media, conflict, aesthetics, and value.
This event is programmed in collaboration with the Davis Institute for Artificial Intelligence and the Lunder Institute for American Art. The seminar series is sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities, with co-sponsorship from the Departments of American Studies, Art, Cinema Studies, Economics, English, Environmental Studies, Global Studies, Government, Philosophy, Spanish, Science, Technology, and Society, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the Latin American Studies program.
Lynda Barry has worked as a painter, cartoonist, writer, illustrator, playwright, editor, commentator, and teacher and found that they are very much alike. She lives in Wisconsin, where she is associate professor of art and Discovery Fellow at University of Wisconsin Madison.
Barry is the inimitable creator behind the seminal comic strip that was syndicated across North America in alternative weeklies for two decades, Ernie Pook’s Comeek, featuring the incomparable Marlys and Freddy. She is the author of The Freddie Stories, One! Hundred! Demons!, The! Greatest! of! Marlys!, Cruddy: An Illustrated Novel, Naked Ladies! Naked Ladies! Naked Ladies!, and The Good Times are Killing Me, which was adapted as an off-Broadway play and won the Washington State Governor’s Award.
She has written four bestselling and acclaimed creative how-to graphic novels for Drawn & Quarterly, What It Is which won the Eisner Award for Best Reality Based Graphic Novel and R.R. Donnelly Award for highest literary achievement by a Wisconsin author; Picture This; Syllabus: Notes From an Accidental Professor, and Making Comics, which received two Eisner Awards and appeared on numerous best of the year lists including the New York Times. In 2019 she received a MacArthur Genius Grant. Barry was born in Wisconsin in 1956.
This talk will be of interest to anyone who would like to know more about the intersections of reproductive justice and racial justice, health and medicine, and feminist scholarship. All are welcome to attend!
WHAT IS COLOR? The Global and Sometimes Gross Story of Pigments, Paint, and the Wondrous World of Art is a wide roaming and inclusive romp that connects cow pee, squashed bugs, rainbow flags and pink triangles, mud paintings, Yayoi Kusama’s dots, Buddhist monks’ robes, Kerry James Marshall’s extensive palette of blacks, Renaissance forgery, mummies, and more. It’s a 150 page hybrid picture book graphic novel that explores the science and stories behind pretty much every pigment humans have made, plus their connection to the history of art around the world.
Sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities, Colby College Museum of Art, the departments of Education, Chemistry, Biology, and the Arts Office.
Laura Fernández, assistant professor of Latinx studies at the University of Richmond, received a degree in Latin American and Iberian Cultural Studies from the University of Notre Dame (M.A.) and a Ph.D. in Latin American Cultural and Literary Studies with a Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Latinx Studies from The Ohio State University’s Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Dr. Fernández is currently working on a book project based on her dissertation, “Giving the Midwestern White Gaze a Latinx Spin: Mediated Latinx Lives in the American Heartland.”
She is a specialist in Latinx popular culture whose research covers a number of areas including Othered Latinidades, rural Latinx narratives, and the intersections of race, ethnicity, and gender of Latinx representations in U.S. pop culture. Her most recent article, “Latinidad Served on the Side: The Latinx Blanqueamiento in Midwestern-Set TV Series,” published in the journal Chiricú, addresses the erasure of a Latinx character’s ethnic identity to maintain the mythos of the Midwest as the American heartland.
The seminar series is sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities, with co-sponsorship from the Departments of American Studies, Art, Cinema Studies, Economics, English, Environmental Studies, Global Studies, Government, Philosophy, Spanish, Science, Technology, and Society, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the Latin American Studies program.
What if starting up a computer game could offer us as meaningful a natural experience as going outside? Games, especially digital ones, are frequently dismissed as frivolous, arcane, or violent, and people tend to picture those who play them as antisocial homebodies. But research shows that games are played by nearly everyone, often together with others, and increasingly, that they are played wherever we go. This talk contends that games offer unique and playfully persuasive opportunities not only to engage directly with environmental issues, but also to foster moments of empathy, loss, care, experimentation, and optimism—important ways of coming to terms with our planetary troubles.
Alenda Y. Chang is an Associate Professor in Film and Media Studies at UC Santa Barbara. With a multidisciplinary background in biology, literature, and film, she specializes in merging ecocritical theory with the analysis of contemporary media.
The seminar series is sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities, with co-sponsorship from the Departments of American Studies, Art, Cinema Studies, Economics, English, Environmental Studies, Global Studies, Government, Philosophy, Spanish, Science, Technology, and Society, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the Latin American Studies program.
Amanda Lilleston is a visual artist living in Maine. Her creative practice grows from the traditional and expansive world of printmaking. Her artwork depicts a long and evolving relationship with human anatomy, physiology, and ecology. Using printmaking techniques and paper joining, Lilleston transforms zoological/anatomical/botanical imagery into adapting structures and environments.
Lilleston has exhibited her work both nationally and internationally including the International Triennial Colour in Graphic Arts in Torún, Poland; Boston Printmakers North American Print Biennial; the Atlanta Print Biennial; the Zillman Art Museum, and upcoming participation in the DI CARTA / PAPERMADE 6th edition: International Contemporary Art Biennale at the Museo Civico Palazzo Fogazzaro in Schio, Italy. She has prints in permanent collections at the Munakata Shiko Memorial Museum of Art in Japan, the Southern Graphics Council International Print Archives, and the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, among others.
The seminar series is sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities, with co-sponsorship from the Departments of American Studies, Art, Cinema Studies, Economics, English, Environmental Studies, Global Studies, Government, Philosophy, Spanish, Science, Technology, and Society, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the Latin American Studies program.
Pieced together from Timothy Treadwell’s actual video footage, Werner Herzog’s remarkable documentary examines the calling that drove Treadwell to live among a tribe of wild grizzly bears on an Alaskan reserve. A devoted conservationist with a passion for adventure, Timothy believed he had bridged the gap between human and beast. When one of the bears he loved and protected tragically turns on him, the footage he shot serves as a window into our understanding of nature and its grim realities.
Sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities.
You – yes, you reading this right now. Statistics say you get more of your news from TikTok than any other demographic. Is this a good thing, or are we totally cooked? Dexter Thomas, a journalist who has reported on drugs, videogames, and cops, talks us through how we can stop doomscrolling, stop being scared to argue with friends, and finally figure out what’s actually happening around us.
Dexter did his PhD on Japanese hip-hop at Cornell University. He has produced documentaries on drugs, extremism, prisons, and videogames for HBO and VICE, made a podcast series for Princeton, and has written for WIRED and The Guardian. His work has earned him three Emmy Awards and a Pulitzer Prize (with the Los Angeles Times). He also once ate donuts in a parking lot with JD Vance.
Q&A session will be moderated by Alison Beyea, Executive Director of the Goldfarb Center, and Koto Yamada, Class of ’25.
Please note: This event is primarily student-focused. Only students will be allowed to ask questions during the Q&A session.
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