Past Events

During US colonial rule in the Philippines, reinforced concrete was used to the near exclusion of all other building materials. Diana Martinez shows how the material's stability, plasticity, and strength served the shifting imperatives of colonialism.

Offering an alternative intellectual history of early America through the lens of Benjamin Franklin's Philadelphia, Diego Pirillo explores the entanglement among books, knowledge, and colonialism.

Reckoning with aging and mortality, democracy in crisis, the role of the writer, and the fate of books, Thomas Farber presents the latest in his series of creative memoirs that grapple with life and its limits.

Getting started on your publishing journey can be both daunting and mystifying. Editor Ryan Kendall of Duke University Press provides tools to approach the process with confidence and clarity.

Because so little of her work survives intact, Sappho has long been particularly available for reinterpretation. Engaging with this rich field of possibility, panelists reflect on the ways in which the Sapphic tradition has contributed to counterintuitive modes of thinking — and thus to the radical work of critical theory.

Lynne Huffer and Mario Telò discuss the collaboration on their forthcoming book, The Pleasure of Texting: Sapphic Writing and Reading at the Edge of the World, which documents their extraordinary yearlong texting exchange.

Drawing upon recent narratives and media representations of the refugee “crisis” at Europe’s edges, Debarati Sanyal tells a new story about those on the move, the technologies unleashed on them, and the artistry with which migrants and allies bear witness to displacement.

Alice Diop is one of the most significant filmmakers working in France today. Her intimate, observational films explore the lives of people on the margins of contemporary French society.

This conference showcases the rich array of original research projects undertaken by students in the 2025-26 Townsend Honors Thesis Workshop.

Why do we look away from the suffering of others, cover our faces in shame, and lower our heads in grief? Benjamin Saltzman explores these gestures in art, poetry, and philosophy as an essential language for our uncomfortable engagements with the world.