A former Commencement Speaker and Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Nelson has spent the decades since his time at Brown building one of the most versatile careers in modern entertainment. From his iconic turn as Delmar O’Donnell in the Coen Brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? to his critically acclaimed performance as Looking Glass in HBO’s Watchmen, Nelson has amassed over 100 screen credits while simultaneously establishing himself as a formidable voice in American letters and theater.

In this live, candid conversation, Nelson, BAI Director Sydney Skybetter, and student interlocutor Ilektra Bampicha-Ninou ’26 will explore the intersections of acting, authorship, and the mechanics of storytelling in an era of Hollywood upheaval. The dialogue will dive deep into Nelson’s latest creative frontiers: His newest novel, Superhero (2025), a biting exploration of the Hollywood machine; insights into his latest film as writer-director, The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd and his recent role in Captain America: Brave New World; and the dystopian themes of his recent Off-Broadway hit, And Then We Were No More.

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to welcome one of Brown’s most distinguished artistic alumni back to campus for a Ruckus Session that promises to be as provocative and intellectually rigorous as the career it celebrates.

Part of the virtual “Journalism and History When History Is News” series.

Starting in March 2026, more than a dozen scholars will offer short online introductions to key topics in the broad period of the American Revolution as part of the JCB’s 2026 and Beyond initiative.

Join us on Tuesday, March 31 at 4 p.m. for a virtual conversation about Common Sense and more with Joseph Rezek, Associate Professor of English and Director of American Studies at Boston University.

Previous events from this series have been posted on the JCB YouTube channel.

Register here!

Join us for Visualizing the Age of Revolutions: A Conversation with the Curators of the Brown 2026 Exhibits at the John Carter Brown Library on Friday, March 20, 2026 at 4 p.m.

This event will feature Gwendolyn Collaço, Anne SK Brown Curator for Military and Society, John Hay Library and Karin Wulf, Beatrice and Julio Mario Santo Domingo Director and Librarian, John Carter Brown Library. Their discussion will be moderated by José Montelongo, Maury A. Bromsen Curator of Latin American Books, John Carter Brown Library.

Attendees will have an opportunity to view the JCB’s current exhibition, “1776 Across the Americas.” A reception will follow.

This event will be hybrid. To register for the online event, please use this link.

Join us for a Brown2026 lecture on how access to information in the digital age can affect civic participation.

Dr. Eva Miller is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at UCL History. She is a cultural historian with an interest in public art, museums and exhibitions, and popular understandings of the deep past.

Her postdoctoral project explored the ancient Middle East, the modern West, and the relationship between the two, through asking questions about processes of rediscovery, transmission, and reception. She is interested in the wider intellectual climates that shaped and were shaped by the rediscovery of ‘new pasts’ from Egypt and Iraq, and how they wound up being used, by different groups and in different ways, to work out what it meant to be modern. She has explored how these pasts became part of a self-justifying teleological narrative of a ‘rise of civilization’, and a transfer from East to West, in her book, Early Civilization and the American Modern: Images of Middle Eastern Origins in the United States, 1893–1939 (UCL Press 2024). Her edited volume Finding Antiquity, Making the Modern Middle East: Archaeology, Empires, Nations (with Guillemette Crouzet, Bloomsbury 2025) considered how antiquity(/ies) and archaeology were mobilised by European and Middle Eastern imperial and national powers, and ordinary dealers, writers, and administrators on the ground.

Increasingly, her research focuses on larger questions about interpreting the past, and the significance of ‘origins’ and ‘firsts’ in museums and public culture. Among other areas, she has worked on self-Orientalising German Jewish art, cryptozoological investigations of living dinosaurs attested in ancient Babylonian artefacts, anthropological theories of the evolution of languages and writing, modernist theories about the ziggurat as the ideal skyscraper, and the role of art in science museums.

Eva’s background is in the art, history, and languages of ancient Mesopotamia. She holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford where her thesis investigated representations of enemy punishment in palace art and Akkadian cuneiform texts of the 7th century BCE Assyrian monarch Ashurbanipal. She has previously been a teaching fellow for the ancient Middle East at UCL History, a teaching fellow at the University of Birmingham, and Henri Frankfort Fellow at the Warburg Institute.

Brown University is observing the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States through “Brown 2026,” a campus-wide initiative to demonstrate the important role of research and teaching universities in fostering open and democratic societies. With support from the College, Brown 2026 facilitates student reading opportunities and supplies books, with author discussions to follow.

This event features the book The Self in the West and East Asia: Being or Becoming (Polity, November 2024) by Jin Li. From the fraught world of geopolitics to business and the academy, it’s more vital than ever that Westerners and East Asians understand how each other thinks. As Jin Li shows in this groundbreaking work, the differences run deep. Li explores the philosophical origins of the concept of self in both cultures and synthesizes her findings with cutting-edge psychological research to reveal a fundamental contrast.

For more information, including a full list of Brown 2026 Reads selections, visit https://brown2026democracy.brown.edu/research-teaching/brown-2026-reads.

Join us for an author discussion of Shirley Chisholm in Her Own Words, a new book edited by Zinga A. Fraser, the leading scholar dedicated to the study of Chisholm’s legacy.

Thursday, March 5, 2026, from noon to 1:30 p.m. in the Racial Justice Resource Center on the second floor of the Rockefeller Library. Free and open to the public.

Many Americans are familiar with Chisholm’s importance as the first Black woman in Congress and the first woman and African American to run for president with either major party. This long-overdue treatment of her work establishes Chisholm as an unparalleled public intellectual and Black feminist both in her time and now. The book not only contextualizes the Civil Rights and Black Power era, it also provides timeless insights on issues that are exceedingly relevant in our current moment. Featuring a captivating introduction by Fraser, Shirley Chisholm in Her Own Words introduces a new generation to one of the most impactful proponents of democracy in America.

Zinga A. Fraser

Dr. Zinga A. Fraser is an author, lecturer, historical consultant and curator. She is the Director of the Shirley Chisholm Project on Brooklyn Women’s Activism. Currently, she is an Associate Professor in the Africana Studies Department and Women’s and Gender Studies program at Brooklyn College. Dr. Fraser is a foremost expert on Shirley Chisholm and Black Congressional Women and Black feminist politics and culture. She served as the historical consultant on the Netflix feature “Shirley,” written and directed by John Ridley and starring the film’s producer, Regina King. She was the co-curator Shirley Chisholm at 100: Changing the Face of Democracy, which is the first major museum exhibition on the life and legacy of Shirley Chisholm at the Museum of the City of New York that closed in July. Dr. Fraser has published several works including her most recent book, Shirley Chisholm: In her Own Words a Collection of Speeches and Writings, which explores Chisholm’s intellectual legacy under the University of California Press, and is currently completing her book manuscript titled, Sister Insider/ Sister Outsider: Shirley Chisholm and Barbara Jordan, Black Women’s Politics in the Post- Civil Rights Era. She has appeared on local, national and international news outlets such as The New York Times, Washington Post, Time Magazine, AP Press, Essence Magazine, History Channel, Elle Magazine docuseries, Buzzfeed News, C-SPAN, The History Channel, BBC- Africa, NY1 and WNBC-TV, WABC- TV, WCBS-TV, USA Today, National Public Radio and a host of more. She is a well sought after speaker at colleges, universities, foundations and organizations.

Before entering academia, Dr. Fraser was a Legislative Assistant on Capitol Hill. Dr. Fraser has won numerous fellowships and awards from the American Association of University Women (AAUW), American Political Science Association, Columbia and Northwestern University and the Delta Research and Educational Foundation. She holds a doctorate in African American Studies from Northwestern University, and a Master’s of Arts from the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University and Undergraduate degree in Political Science and African American Studies from Temple University. Dr. Fraser abides by one of Shirley Chisholm’s most famous quotes: “Service is rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.”

Keisha N. Blain

Dr. Keisha N. Blain, a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow and Class of 2022 Carnegie Fellow, is a renowned historian of the 20th century United States with broad interests and specializations in African American History, the modern African Diaspora, and Women’s and Gender Studies. She is a Professor of Africana Studies and History at Brown University and an affiliated faculty member in American Studies and in the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies.

Dr. Blain is the author and editor of eight books, including Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018), winner of the 2018 First Book Award from the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians and the 2019 Darlene Clark Hine Award from the Organization of American Historians; Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America (Beacon Press, 2021), finalist for the 2022 NAACP Image Award and the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award; and (with Ibram X. Kendi) Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 (Penguin Random House/One World, 2021), which debuted at #1 on the New York Times Best Sellers list.

Her latest book, Without Fear: Black Women and the Making of Human Rights (W.W. Norton, 2025), was longlisted for the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence. The book offers a sweeping history of human rights told through the ideas and experiences of Black women in the United States from the early nineteenth century to the present. Dr. Blain is now completing a book for W.W. Norton entitled Black Thinkers: The Global Impact of Black Intellectual Thought.

Sponsors

Sponsored by Department of Africana Studies/Rites and Reason Theatre, Department of History, Brown 2026, and the Brown University Library.

This workshop is the second part of a two-day visit by Dr. M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska, associate professor of history at American University. With a PhD in American Studies from Brown, her research interests include public history, museum studies, historiography, visual and material culture, communications and media history, and critical theory. She is author of History Comes Alive: Public History and Popular Culture in the 1970s (UNC, 2017). Her current project, “The Historian and the Historian-ish,” is about how content creators – journalists, podcasts, reenactors, influencers – shape public understanding of the past.

This interactive session invites students to bring an example of public-facing or popular history—a museum exhibit, podcast, TikTok, website—to interpret collectively. Using these materials, we will examine how historical knowledge circulates outside academic settings and how audiences actually encounter and interpret the past. We will test and model approaches for analyzing a range of cultural artifacts: foregrounding close reading, comparison, and critical analysis of popular historical forms. 

Light refreshments will be provided in the Seminar Room on the second floor of the Nightingale-Brown House.

This research project, proposed by Gwendolyn Collaço, Faiz Ahmed and Karin Wulf, was the winner of a CMES funding competition in Spring 2025.

 

About:

Although attention to American interactions with the Islamic world have often foregrounded contemporary conflicts and geopolitics, the United States has long been in contact with Islamicate societies through the circulation of peoples, commodities, artworks and texts. Throughout the long 19th century, insurrections in Islamicate societies—of Greeks against the Ottoman Empire, Algerians against the French and Indians against the British—had particular resonances in American society. This year-long research project examines this rich history of encounters, characterized by a mix of solidarity, fascination and exoticization, and the role that they played in defining America’s early identity.

Engaging with questions of foreign trade, slavery, civil discord and humanitarianism, the initiative explores these topics in collaboration with other units on campus. The symposium will expand upon these themes.

Symposium Program

In the contemporary, people are engaging in forms of historical practice that allow them to act in the role of the historian—whether that means assembling and displaying an archive of materials or images online; contesting a historical institution’s claim over interpretation or archival materials; or sharing information on social media in the authoritative voice of the lecturer or guide.

This talk examines how the paradigm came to be and what it has meant for the historical profession, and for American society as a whole. By analyzing how historical expertise is performed, circulated and contested, the speaker argues that embracing the Historian-ish offers opportunities to expand publication, rethink authority in historical discourse and foster a more participatory and inclusive practice of history in contemporary American society.

Presented by M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska, Ph.D. ’12 in American Studies from Brown University. 

The Summit on the Future of Health Policy in Rhode Island, a daylong convening of policymakers, researchers, and community leaders focused on the most pressing health policy challenges facing the state. The summit will feature moderated panels on primary care access, health care affordability, and how the state can navigate changes in federal health policy.

This summit, which is sponsored by the university’s Brown 2026 initiative to support community-academic collaboration, builds on Brown’s ongoing partnerships to advance a health care system that is more affordable, accessible, and equitable. We hope you will join us for this engaging discussion.

Agenda at a Glance

Panel A: What policies could increase access to primary care in Rhode Island?

9:15 am to 10:30 am

Moderator: Ateev Mehrotra, MD, MPH, Chair, Department of Health Services, Policy & Practice, Brown University School of Public Health

Panelists:

• Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi, JD – Speaker of the House, Rhode Island House of Representatives

• Martha Wofford, MBA – President & CEO, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island

• Caroline Richardson, MD – Chair of Family Medicine, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University

• Jason Buxbaum, PhD – Assistant Professor, Brown University School of Public Health

Panel B: What are policy options for making health care more affordable in Rhode Island?

10:45 am to 12 pm

Moderator: Andrew M. Ryan, PhD, Director, Center for Advancing Health Policy Through Research (CAHPR), Professor, Brown University School of Public Health

Panelists:

• Cory King, MPP – Health Insurance Commissioner, Rhode Island Office of the Health Insurance Commissioner

• Lindsay Lang, JD – Director, HealthSource RI

• Erin Fuse Brown, JD, MPH – Professor, Brown University School of Public Health

Panel C: How should Rhode Island navigate the impacts of the 2025 federal reconciliation bill on Medicaid?
1:15 pm to 2:30 pm

 

Moderator: Elizabeth Burke Bryant, JD, Professor of the Practice of Health Services, Policy & Practice, Brown University School of Public Health and Hassenfeld Child Health Innovation Institute

Panelists:

• Senator Louis P. DiPalma, MS – Chair of the Senate Committee on Finance, Rhode Island Senate
  
  
• Kristin Sousa, MSW – Medicaid Director, Rhode Island Executive Office of Health and Human Services
  
  
• Weayonnoh Nelson-Davies, JD – Executive Director, Economic Progress Institute
  
  
• ​​​Hayden Rooke-Ley, JD – Senior Fellow in Health Services, Policy & Practice, Brown University School of Public Health

Please note: Registration is required and space is limited. Parking is available on-site at the South Street Landing Garage (330 Eddy St, Providence, RI 02903). Breakfast will be served at 8:30 am and the program will begin at 9 am.

Join us virtually on February 9, 2026 at 5 p.m. EST for a conversation between JCB Library Director Karin Wulf and Jamelle Bouie. Based in Charlottesville, Virginia, Jamelle Bouie is a columnist for The New York Times. He covers history and politics. In addition, he co-hosts the Unclear and Present Danger podcast on the political and military thrillers of the 1990s.

For 2026, the John Carter Brown Library is hosting a series of events titled Journalism and History When History Is News about the important relationship between journalism and history. Supporting excellent journalistic coverage of the events of 250 years ago, and exploring how historians and journalists work in parallel and often synergistic ways, this series is part of a project supported by the Emerson Collective, and in partnership with The Atlantic.

Register here: https://brown.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_F_OwjGiISpaMzxf1FyhfzQ.

 

About the series

Is journalism the “first rough draft of history?” Journalists and historians often work in tandem, serving as one another’s sources for primary research and background information. Sometimes the relationship is tense, with historians wishing for fuller context in reported news, and journalists likely wishing that historians better understood what it means to cover events as they’re unfolding. It’s much too simple, though, to say that historians stick in the past, and journalists in the present. Historians have always regularly worked looking forward, with a consciousness of development in their own time, and journalists regularly reach back to explain the right now in terms of what came before.

But what happens when history is the news? In 2026 both journalists and historians are covering the American Revolution, a sprawling cultural, military and political phenomenon. In short, we have much to share.

For 2026, the John Carter Brown Library is hosting a series of events about the important relationship between journalism and history. Supporting excellent journalistic coverage of the events of 250 years ago, and exploring how historians and journalists work in parallel and often synergistic ways, this series is part of a project supported by Emerson Collective, and in partnership with The Atlantic.

The series begins with four online interviews in February 2026 with historians and journalists who think and work historically and journalistically. Over four events, Karin Wulf will be in conversation with Jamelle Bouie, a columnist for The New York Times; John Dickerson, a reporter and anchor most recently for CBS Evening News; Jennifer Scheussler, a reporter for The New York Times; and a panel of historians including Laurent Debois of Duke University, Nicole Hemmer of Vanderbilt University, and Martha Jones of Johns Hopkins University.

Brown University is observing the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States through “Brown 2026,” a campus-wide initiative to demonstrate the important role of research and teaching universities in fostering open and democratic societies. With support from the College, Brown 2026 facilitates student reading opportunities and supplies books, with author discussions to follow.

This event features the book Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress – and How to Bring It Back (Public Affairs, February 2025) by Marc Dunkelman. In the text, he 
vividly illustrates what progressives must do if they are going to break through today’s paralysis and restore, once again, confidence in democratically elected government. To get there, reformers will need to acknowledge where they’ve gone wrong. Progressivism’s success moving forward hinges on the movement’s willingness to rediscover its roots.

For more information, including a full list of Brown 2026 Reads selections, visit https://brown2026democracy.brown.edu/research-teaching/brown-2026-reads.

Please note new date!

Join us on Thursday, January 22, 2026 at noon in the John Carter Brown Library Conference Room for a viewing of JCB copies of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense featuring Dr. Joseph Adelman.

Registration is required. Please register at https://forms.gle/iWKYHdfb5dQmRCur8.

About the speaker

Professor Joseph Adelman (Framingham State University) is a historian of media, communication, and politics in the Atlantic world. He is the author of Revolutionary Networks: The Business and Politics of Printing the News, 1763-1789 with Johns Hopkins University Press. The book was awarded an Honorable Mention for the 2019 St. Louis Mercantile Library Prize from the Bibliographical Society of America. He is now at work on a history of the Post Office in America. Adelman has been a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society, a postdoctoral fellow in the Program in Early American Economy and Society at the Library Company of Philadelphia, and served as a Lecturer in the History Department at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

Brown University is observing the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States through “Brown 2026,” a campus-wide initiative to demonstrate the important role of research and teaching universities in fostering open and democratic societies. With support from the College, Brown 2026 facilitates student reading opportunities and supplies books, with author discussions to follow.

This event features the book Skinfolk: A Memoir (Liveright, March 2023) by Matthew Pratt Guterl. In lyrical yet wrenching prose, Matthew Pratt Guterl narrates a family saga of astonishing originality, in which even the best intentions prove woefully inadequate. He takes us inside the clapboard house where Bob and Sheryl raised their makeshift brood in a nation riven then as now by virulent racism and xenophobia. Chronicling both the humor and pathos of this experiment, Skinfolk exposes the joys and constraints of love, blood, and belonging, and the persistent river of racial violence in America, past and present.

For more information, including a full list of Brown 2026 Reads selections, visit https://brown2026democracy.brown.edu/research-teaching/brown-2026-reads.

Brown University is observing the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States through “Brown 2026,” a campus-wide initiative to demonstrate the important role of research and teaching universities in fostering open and democratic societies. With support from the College, Brown 2026 facilitates student reading opportunities and supplies books, with author discussions to follow.

This event features the book Integrated: How American Schools Failed Black Children (Pantheon, March 2025). Award-winning scholar Noliwe Rooks weaves together sociological data, cultural history, and personal records to challenge the idea that integration was a boon for Black children. At once assiduously researched and deeply engaging, Integrated tells the story of how education has remained both a tool for community progress and a seemingly inscrutable cultural puzzle. Rooks’s deft hand turns the story of integration’s past and future on its head and shows how we may better understand and support generations of students to come.

For more information, including a full list of Brown 2026 Reads selections, visit https://brown2026democracy.brown.edu/research-teaching/brown-2026-reads. 

Hybrid Event

Wednesday, December 10, 2025, from 2:30 to 5 p.m.

In person: Patrick Ma Digital Scholarship Lab at the Rockefeller Library. Free and open to the public. Light refreshments.

Online: https://brown.zoom.us/j/98923019954?jst=2

Program

Introduction

“Qing’s Embattled Navy” – Adam Reiffen (Military Fellow, Watson School)

Presenters

• Jason Mao ’28 – “John Hay Behind the Policy: Lincoln, Boxer, and the Remission”
• Brooke Cohen ’26 – “The Minister’s Wife and the Empress Dowager: A Friendship that Humanized China in U.S. Policy-making”
• Hank Zhou ’27 – “Personal Diplomacy and Structural Constraints: Wu Tingfang, John Hay, and the Limits of Sino-American Relations, 1900-1902”

Break

• Morgan Glazier’ 26 – Title TBD
• Renee Kuo ’27 – “The “Land of Opportunity”: From John Hay’s Open Door to Brown-in-China”
• Emma Brignall ’27 – “New Leaders of the Young Republic: American Education in the Making of Modern China”

Sponsored by Brown University Library, Brown 2026, China Initiative, and Cogut Collaborative Humanities.

As Medicare Advantage (MA) continues to grow, now covering over half of all Medicare beneficiaries, questions around its cost to taxpayers and value to enrollees are increasingly central to the congressional agenda. Recent analyses show that upcoding alone could account for over tens of billions in annual overpayments, while prior authorization practices and limited transparency create administrative burdens and raise concerns about access and oversight.

With policymakers eyeing MA reforms as potential pay-fors in a year-end health package and CMS regulations on the horizon, this bipartisan, educational briefing will provide a forum to explore pragmatic, research-backed options for strengthening the program’s integrity without undermining beneficiary access. The discussion will focus on potential areas to revitalize the MA program with growing consensus, such as improving risk adjustment, addressing upcoding incentives, enhancing transparency, and reforming prior authorization.

PANEL DETAILS

Opening & Closing Remarks:

Ashish Jha, Dean, Brown University School of Public Health

Keynote:

U.S. Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS)

Panel 1 - Fixing the Fundamentals: Payment Integrity and Oversight

Moderator: Andy Ryan, Director of the Center for Advancing Health Policy through Research

Panelists:

• David Meyers, Assistant Director of CAHPR and Associate Professor of Health Services, Policy & Practice
• Chris Pope, Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute
• Anna Bonelli, Director of Health Policy, Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget
• Erin Fuse Brown, Professor of Health Services, Policy & Practice, Brown University School of Public Health

Panel 2: Medicare Advantage’s Future: Balancing Growth, Competition, and Accountability

Moderator: Molly Turco, Health Policy Expert & Independent Consultant, MTT Strategies and Former Senior Policy Advisor for Medicare Advantage & Part D, CMS

Panelists:

• Thomas A. Scully, JD, General Partner at Welsh, Carson, Anderson, & Stowe and Former Administrator of CMS
• Brian Sutter, Partner & CEO, Capitol Hill Consulting Group and and Former Staff Director of the Way and Means Subcommittee on Health
• Shawn Maree Bishop, Senior Advisor at Akin and Former Chief Health Advisor for the U.S. Senate Finance Committee
• Joe Albanese, Director of Policy, Center for Medicare, CMS

Join STAT News’ Anil Oza and Nature’s Max Kozlov ’20 for a panel about covering the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) during the Trump administration. HHS has seen a number of dramatic changes this past year - with firings, layoffs and resignations, alleged political interference, grant cancellations and total upending of processes; this panel will discuss how health reporters navigate such a dynamic, changing environment and what implications these changes at HHS have for the United States.

This event is part of the People, Place and Health Collective’s seminar series: The 1st. This series (named after the First Amendment) brings together speakers from across the United States to talk about issues in public health in a time when there is unprecedented attacks on science and academic freedom.

This event is part of Brown 2026. Brown University is observing the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States through “Brown 2026,” a campus-wide initiative to demonstrate the important role of research and teaching universities in fostering open and democratic societies.

Brown 2026 brings together and highlights work across Brown’s community that challenges us to confront and engage with divergent perspectives and important issues that face democracies today. Through free inquiry and research, the initiative also aims to expand knowledge about the complex values and events that led to the establishment of our nation, and the many legacies of the American Revolution.

From its beginnings, Brown’s mission has been linked to the advancement of a democratic society through its commitments to freedom of expression and freedom of academic inquiry, thoughtful debate and deliberation, diversity of thought, and respect for the equality of all people in an open society.

Join BAI Director Sydney Skybetter for live, candid conversations where visionary artists, researchers, and cultural leaders share their creative practices, discuss the future of arts scholarship, and examine the rapidly evolving landscape of contemporary culture.

Sam Gill is the president and CEO of the Doris Duke Foundation (DDF), a New York-headquartered, national philanthropic organization that operates five national grantmaking programs—in the performing arts, the environment, medical research, child and family well-being, and mutual understanding between communities.

This event is part of Brown 2026, a campus-wide initiative to observe the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States to demonstrate the important role of research and teaching universities in fostering open and democratic societies. Learn more: brown2026democracy.brown.edu.

In conversation with Brown University President Christina H. Paxson, 66th U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will reflect on her experience in U.S. foreign policy and will discuss global diplomacy and national security in a rapidly shifting geopolitical landscape. Tickets are required.

This event, part of the Stephen A. Ogden Jr. ’60 Memorial Lecture series, is co-sponsored by Brown 2026 and The Thomas J. Watson Jr. School of International and Public Affairs.

About the Speaker

Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and a Senior Fellow on Public Policy. She is the Denning Professor in Global Business and the Economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In addition, she is a founding partner of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm. From January 2005 to January 2009, Rice served as the 66th Secretary of State of the United States, the second woman and first Black woman to hold the post. Prior to that, Rice also served as President George W. Bush’s Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (National Security Advisor), the first woman to hold the position. Rice served as Stanford University’s provost from 1993 to 1999, during which time she was the institution’s chief budget and academic officer. Earlier, Rice served on President George H.W. Bush’s National Security Council staff. She has authored and co-authored numerous books. In addition, she co-founded the Center for a New Generation (CNG), an innovative, after-school academic enrichment program for students in East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park, California, and serves on the boards of C3.ai, an AI software company; and Makena Capital Management, a private endowment firm. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Rice earned her bachelor’s degree in political science, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Denver; her master’s in the same subject from the University of Notre Dame; and her Ph.D., likewise in political science, from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver. Rice is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been awarded over fifteen honorary doctorates.

About the Ogden Lecture

The Stephen A. Ogden Jr. ’60 Memorial Lecture on International Affairs is the University’s oldest and most prestigious foreign affairs lecture series. The lectureship honors Stephen A. Ogden Jr., a member of the Class of 1960, who wanted to advance the cause of world peace through a career in international relations. Since the inaugural Ogden Lecture in 1965, Brown has welcomed many heads of state, senior elected officials, career diplomats and other policymakers and close observers of the international arena.

About Brown 2026

This event is part of Brown 2026, a campus-wide initiative to observe the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States to demonstrate the important role of research and teaching universities in fostering open and democratic societies. Learn more at brown2026democracy.brown.edu.

About The Watson School

As Brown University’s new policy school, The Thomas J. Watson Jr. School of International and Public Affairs serves as the central home on campus for teaching, research, and public engagement around economic, social and policy challenges. Through rigorous scholarship that transcends traditional academic boundaries and a commitment to openness and diversity of ideas, The Watson School is dedicated to creating policy-focused learning experiences and informed policy research solutions that can change systems and societies for the better.

In conversation with Brown University President Christina H. Paxson, Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will discuss her five-decade career in public service, her views on democracy, the U.S. political system, international affairs and her hopes for the future of the country. This event will be the 104th Stephen A. Ogden Jr. ’60 Memorial Lecture. Tickets are required, and event details, including location, have been sent to registered attendees.

This Ogden Lecture is co-sponsored by Brown 2026 and The Thomas J. Watson Jr. School of International and Public Affairs.

About the Speaker

Hillary Rodham Clinton has spent over five decades in public service as an advocate, attorney, First Lady, U.S. Senator, U.S. Secretary of State and presidential candidate. As 67th U.S. Secretary of State, her “smart power” approach to foreign policy repositioned American diplomacy and development for the 21st century. Clinton played a central role in restoring America’s standing in the world, reasserting the United States as a Pacific power, imposing crippling sanctions on Iran and North Korea, responding to the Arab Awakening, and negotiating a ceasefire in the Middle East. Earlier, as First Lady and Senator for New York, she traveled to more than 80 countries as a champion of human rights, democracy, and opportunities for women and girls. She also worked to provide health care to millions of children, create jobs and opportunity, and support first responders who risked their lives at Ground Zero. In her historic 2016 campaign for President of the United States, Clinton won 66 million votes. She is the author of 10 best-selling books, host of the podcast “You and Me Both,” founder of the global production studio HiddenLight Productions, Chancellor of Queen’s University Belfast, and a Professor of Practice at the School of International and Public Affairs and Presidential Fellow at Columbia World Projects at Columbia University. She is married to former U.S. President Bill Clinton and has one daughter, Chelsea, and three grandchildren: Charlotte, Aidan and Jasper.

About the Ogden Lecture

The Stephen A. Ogden Jr. ’60 Memorial Lecture on International Affairs is the University’s oldest and most prestigious foreign affairs lecture series. The lectureship honors Stephen A. Ogden Jr., a member of the Class of 1960, who wanted to advance the cause of world peace through a career in international relations. Since the inaugural Ogden Lecture in 1965, Brown has welcomed many heads of state, senior elected officials, career diplomats and other policymakers and close observers of the international arena.

About Brown 2026

This event is part of Brown 2026, a campus-wide initiative to observe the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States to demonstrate the important role of research and teaching universities in fostering open and democratic societies. Learn more at brown2026democracy.brown.edu.

About The Watson School

As Brown University’s new policy school, The Thomas J. Watson Jr. School of International and Public Affairs serves as the central home on campus for teaching, research, and public engagement around economic, social and policy challenges. Through rigorous scholarship that transcends traditional academic boundaries and a commitment to openness and diversity of ideas, The Watson School is dedicated to creating policy-focused learning experiences and informed policy research solutions that can change systems and societies for the better.

What role do research universities play in the American project today? As institutions of knowledge production, intellectual formation, and social mobility, universities have long been central to the nation’s progress. Yet, they face growing skepticism about their purpose, accessibility, and political entanglements. This panel brings together leading scholars—Johann N. Neem (History), Jennifer Morton (Philosophy), Miguel Urquiola (Economics), and Harry Brighouse (Philosophy)—to discuss the evolving mission of research universities in the 21st century. How should they balance innovation with tradition, truth seeking with activism, expertise with democratic accountability, and inclusion with excellence? Join us for a thought-provoking conversation on the future of higher education and its place in American civic and economic life. 

Join us for a special event with acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. In partnership with Brown 2026, a university-wide initiative to commemorate the 250th anniversary of American independence, this evening will offer an exclusive preview of his upcoming film, “The American Revolution,” followed by a conversation between Burns and President Christina H. Paxson about the filmmaking process and the enduring legacy of the American Revolution. Don’t miss this opportunity to delve into one of the most transformative periods in world history with one of its most celebrated chroniclers.

About the Speaker

Ken Burns is an American filmmaker and Emmy and Peabody award winner, known for his acclaimed historical documentaries and television series that chronicle American history and culture. His newest film, “The American Revolution,” examines how America’s founding turned the world upside down. Burns received an honorary degree from Brown in 2019.

About Brown 2026

This event is part of Brown 2026, a campus-wide initiative to observe the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States to demonstrate the important role of research and teaching universities in fostering open and democratic societies. Learn more at brown2026democracy.brown.edu.

Registration

Registration is required and space is limited. This event is not open to the public.

This event is sold out. For those who were unable to register, the Brown 2026 Forum will be simulcast live to the Salomon Center for Teaching, Room 001.

The Brown 2026 Forum is part of Brown’s Family Weekend 2025. Visit the Family Weekend schedule for other events taking place throughout the weekend.

To request accommodations, please contact eventstrategy@brown.edu.

Calling all Middle and High School History Teachers!

Please join us for a full day of free, in-person professional development on Friday, October 17 at Brown University’s John Carter Brown Library. In collaboration with RI 250, Brown University and Brown 2026, the RI State Archives, Rhode Island Historical Society, and PBS NEWS Student Reporting Labs, Rhode Island PBS and The Public’s Radio will host sessions that emphasize the importance of media literacy in relation to documenting and examining history, particularly in the context of Rhode Island’s role in the American Revolution, as well as highlighting resources around Ken Burns’ upcoming documentary, The American Revolution.

Space is limited. Registered participants will receive: professional learning hours, ready-to-implement resources, tools to support student media creation, $100 stipend and admission to The American Revolution: An Evening with Ken Burns on Thursday, October 16 at 7:00 pm.

Visithttps://www.ripbs.org/support/events/the-american-revolution-professional-development-for-educators for more details!

Join us for “Voices of Change: The Role of Students in Modern Democracy,” a Brown 2026 event co-sponsored by Brown Votes! Brown Votes will give a presentation on the history of student civic engagement in the United States, covering notable historical examples of student discourse, protests, and engagements, and exploring the important role students have played in American democracy. The presentation will be followed by a student panel of Brown students who have a range of experiences with civic engagement. The panel will discuss how students can get civically engaged in Rhode Island and campus communities. This event will be located inside 85 Waterman Street.

Event details

The John Carter Brown Library is pleased to announce that it will host Dr. Colleen J. Shogan, 11th Archivist of the United States and the first woman in American history appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate to lead the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

This hybrid (in-person and Zoom) event will take place at 5 p.m. on Friday, October 10, 2025.

All are welcome!

Bio

Dr. Colleen J. Shogan served as the 11th Archivist of the United States, the first woman in American history appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate to lead the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). A noted author and political scientist, Colleen is deeply committed to civics education and prioritized sharing the records of the National Archives to a wider audience. Under her leadership, NARA launched numerous strategic initiatives to enhance services and make its holdings more accessible, both in-person and online, with the goal of cultivating public participation and strengthening our nation’s democracy.

Prior to becoming Archivist, Colleen served in several cultural heritage leadership roles. She was Senior Vice President and Director of the David M. Rubenstein Center at the White House Historical Association, worked in the United States Senate, and served as a senior executive at the Library of Congress and its Congressional Research Service. She was the Vice Chair of the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission and the Chair of the Board of Directors at the Women’s Suffrage National Monument Foundation.

A native of the Pittsburgh area, she holds a B.A. in Political Science from Boston College and a Ph.D. in American Politics from Yale University, where she was a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow. Colleen is the 2024 recipient of the American Political Science Association’s Hubert Humphrey Award for outstanding public service.

Colleen is currently a senior advisor at More Perfect, an alliance of 37 presidential centers and hundreds of civic leaders and organizations, that invites Americans to consider the most enduring lessons of our history while informing the future of our democracy. She is also a Senior Fellow in Civics Education at Stand Together and an Adjunct Professor of Government at Georgetown University.

In her spare time, Colleen has published eight mystery novels in her award-winning Washington Whodunit series featuring amateur sleuth Kit Marshall. Stabbing in the Senate, her debut novel, received the Next Generation Indie Book Award gold medal in 2016. Larceny at the Library won the 2021 bronze medal for mystery at the Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPYs).

Floating Coast is the first-ever comprehensive history of Beringia, the Arctic land and waters stretching from Russia to Canada. The unforgiving territories along the Bering Strait had long been home to humans—the Iñupiat and Yupik in Alaska, and the Yupik and Chukchi in Russia—before American and European colonization. Drawing on her own experience living with and interviewing indigenous people in the region, Bathsheba Demuth presents a profound tale of the dynamic changes and unforeseen consequences that human ambition has brought (and will continue to bring) to a finite planet.

Frances Perkins was the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet, the longest-serving Labor Secretary, and an architect of the New Deal. Yet beyond these celebrated accomplishments there is another dimension to Frances Perkins’s story. Without fanfare, and despite powerful opposition, Perkins helped save the lives of countless Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. Based on extensive research, including thousands of letters housed in the National Archives, Dear Miss Perkins adds new dimension to an already extraordinary life story, revealing at last how one woman tried to steer the nation to a better, more righteous course.

Join BAI Director Sydney Skybetter for live, candid conversations where visionary artists, researchers, and cultural leaders share their creative practices, discuss the future of arts scholarship, and examine the rapidly evolving landscape of contemporary culture.

Dr. Sasha Costanza-Chock (she/they/ella/elle) is a researcher and designer who works to support community-led processes that build shared power, dismantle the matrix of domination, and advance ecological survival. They are a nonbinary trans* femme. Sasha is known for their work on networked social movements, transformative media organizing, and design justice. Sasha is presently the Head of Research & Sensemaking at OneProject.org. She is also a Faculty Associate with the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and a member of the Steering Committee of the Design Justice Network (designjustice.org). They are the author of two books and numerous journal articles, book chapters, and other research publications. Sasha’s most widely read book is Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need, published by the MIT Press.

This event is part of Brown 2026, a campus-wide initiative to observe the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States to demonstrate the important role of research and teaching universities in fostering open and democratic societies. Learn more: brown2026democracy.brown.edu.

In this stunning volume, acclaimed poet Kwame Dawes explores the mythic ancestral, and spiritual journeys that make up a life. The site of the ruined ancestral home of Kwame Dawes’s family, in one of the earliest post-slavery free villages in Jamaica, Sturge Town is at once a place of myth and, for Dawes, a metaphor of the journeying that has taken him from Ghana, through Jamaica, and to the United States. Whether finding beauty in the quotidian or taking astonishing imaginative leaps, these poems speak movingly of self-reflection, family crises, loss, transcendence, the shattering realities of political engagement, and an unremitting investment in the vivid indeterminacy of poetry. 

Prominent economists Mark Blyth and Nicolò Fraccaroli reveal why inflation happens, how we combat it and how it affects our lives. With accessible and engaging commentary and a good dose of humor, Blyth and Fraccaroli bring the complexities of economic policy and inflation indices down to earth. They argue that 2021 marked the end of an era of relative price stability around the world. Inflation is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the forces shaping our economy. 

Join us for a commemorative scholarly conference marking the 90th Anniversary of W.E.B. Du Bois’ germinal work, Black Reconstruction in America (1935). This interdisciplinary gathering brings together K-20 educators, scholars and researchers to reflect on Du Bois’ transformative analysis of the post-Civil War era and its enduring relevance for contemporary discussions on race, democracy, and labor. Through keynote lectures and panel discussions, the symposium will honor Du Bois’ intellectual legacy and engage critically with the historical and theoretical frameworks he developed. 

This event is presented in partnership with The Democracy Project and Brown 2026.

Brown 2026 and the JNBC are thrilled to invite Brown community members to an evening of informal conversations with refreshments on September 18th from 5-7pm at the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study at 357 Benefit Street, on the patio if weather permits. 

For more details about the Brown 2026 Initiative please see our website: https://brown2026democracy.brown.edu/

In 1840, millions of Black Americans groaned in the chains of slavery. By 1920, millions of American men and women of every race had won the vote.
In Born Equal, the prizewinning constitutional historian Akhil Reed Amar recounts the dramatic constitutional debates that unfolded across these eight decades, when four glorious amendments abolished slavery, secured Black and female citizenship, and extended suffrage regardless of race or gender. At the heart of this era was the epic and ever-evolving idea that all Americans are created equal. The promise of birth equality sat at the base of the 1776 Declaration of Independence. But in the nineteenth century, remarkable American women and men—especially Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Fredrick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Abraham Lincoln—elaborated a new vision of what this ideal demanded. Their debates played out from Seneca Falls to the halls of Congress, from Bloody Kansas to Gettysburg, from Ford’s Theater to the White House gates, ultimately transforming the nation and the world.

An ambitious narrative history and a penetrating work of legal and political
analysis, Born Equal is a vital new portrait of America’s winding road toward equality.

About the Speaker

Akhil Reed Amar is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches constitutional law in both Yale College and Yale Law School. 

Exhibit Opening Reception

The “Fashioning Insurrection: From Imperial Resistance to American Orientalisms” exhibit opening reception will take place at the John Hay Library on Tuesday, September 9, 2025 at 4:30 p.m.

Free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be available.

Exhibit

Part of the Islamic-American Exchanges Initiative between the Brown University Library and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the exhibit, “Fashioning Insurrection: From Imperial Resistance to American Orientalisms,” will be on view in the Harriette Hemmasi Exhibition Gallery at the John Hay Library during the 2025-26 academic year, opening on August 25, 2025. The John Hay Library is open to the public during normal hours of operation.

Americans have adapted uniforms into costumes since the masquerade balls of colonial days to today’s historical films and battle reenactments. The practice took an unexpected form in the first decades following the American Revolution when the early presses of the United States closely covered imperial insurrections that unfolded across Islamicate societies against the three towering empires of the era: the Greek War of Independence against the Ottomans (1821–29), the Ottoman Algerian resistance to the French (1830–48), and the Indian uprising against the British (1857).

Alongside depictions of these struggles, American popular media paid careful attention to the “national” dress and military uniforms that could potentially unify a revolution or even aid in controlling insurrection. As the young nation navigated its connections to the Islamicate world, some reinterpreted visual and sartorial modes of imperial resistance. The reverberations of these events led to the emergence of orientalist costumes and dress that transformed regional revolutionary garb into American fashion statements of solidarity, fascination, and emulation.

Through these forms of cosmopolitan materialism, Americans announced their political stances on historic movements, sometimes also asserting their country’s imperial ambitions and legacies as it solidified its standing in the world. Such sartorial translations from uniforms to fashion informed America’s evolving relationship with its own revolutionary past. Each medium these costumes inhabited aided Americans in creatively redefining their country’s transforming identity on the international stage while facing resonant issues in their new nation, including foreign trade, slavery, and humanitarianism. Alongside contextualizing documents, the works here vividly illustrate how the U.S. wielded these movements of imperial insurrection to remold its own world image and don it with aplomb.

The Taubman Center is honored to present the Noah Krieger ’93 Memorial Lecture featuring Justice Stephen Breyer, retired Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Justice Breyer will share insights from his distinguished career and discuss the themes of constitutional interpretation and democracy explored in Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism. 

This event offers a rare opportunity to hear from one of the most influential legal minds of our time, reflecting on the role of the judiciary, the evolving meaning of the Constitution, and its impact on contemporary governance.

The conversation will be moderated by Justin Driver, Brown alumnus and Robert R. Slaughter Professor of Law at Yale Law School.

Please join us for the Imagining Democracy Book Series with Jonathan Schroeder (RISD) and panelists Keidrick Roy (Harvard) and Jasmine Syedullah (Vassar) in conversation about Schroeder’s book: John Swanson Jacobs, The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots.

In the midst of this research, Schroeder discovered a lost autobiography, The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots: A True Story of Slavery (Chicago, 2024), that changed the course of his career. Written by Harriet Jacobs’ brother, John Swanson Jacobs, and published in Australia in 1855, this narrative is written in frank truth-to-power language that is unapologetic and defiant—and that urgently needed to be brought back into the world. In his attempt to do justice to John Jacobs, Schroeder produced an “auto/biographical” edition that complemented Jacobs’ autobiography with a biography. The resulting publication, Despots, has been reviewed by The New York Times, All Things Considered, The Boston Globe, WNYC and many other outlets.

Part of Brown 2026 and JCB 2026 and Beyond.

Join us at the John Carter Brown Library on March 11, 2025 at 5 p.m. for a conversation between Professor Gordon S. Wood and JCB Director and Librarian Karin Wulf.

Gordon S. Wood is Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University. He received his B.A. degree from Tufts University and his Ph.D. from Harvard University. He taught at Harvard University and the University of Michigan before joining the faculty at Brown in 1969. He is the author of the Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 (1969), which won the Bancroft Prize and the John H. Dunning Prize in 1970, and The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1992), which won the Pulitzer Prize for History and the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize in 1993.

The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin (2004) was awarded the Julia Ward Howe Prize by the Boston Authors Club in 2005. Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different was published in 2006. The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History was published in 2008. His volume in the Oxford History of the United States, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 (2009) was given the Association of American Publishers Award for History and Biography in 2009, the American History Book Prize by the New York Historical Society for 2010, and the Society of the Cincinnati History Prize in 2010.

In 2011 he was awarded a National Humanities Medal by President Obama and the Churchill Bell by Colonial Williamsburg. In 2011 he also received the Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr, Award from the Society of American Historians. In 2012 he received an award from the John Carter Brown Library and the John. F. Kennedy Medal from the Massachusetts Historical Society. In 2015 he received the Centennial Medal from the Harvard Graduate School. In 2015 he edited two volumes, The American Revolution: Writings from the Pamphlet Debate: 1764-1776, for the Library of America. He reviews in the New York Review of Books. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

“Letters from the Corporation of Brown University: Lives of Usefulness and Reputation, 1764 - 2023”

The Conversation with Lauren Zalaznick will be hosted by Kevin McLaughlin, Director of JNBC, George Hazard Crooker Professor of English, Comparative Literature, and German Studies, Dean Emeritus of the Faculty.

This conversation will focus on Lauren Zalaznick’s edition of letters submitted by members of the Corporation of Brown University after their terms—from 1764 to 2023. These letters provide a window into the role of the Corporation in the long history of the university. They also reflect the country’s key social, cultural, and political transformations throughout the more than 250 years of its existence. One includes an entry from a trustee who was admitted as an undergraduate despite being unable even to afford the application fee; another presents reflections by a member who spearheaded the adoption of Brown’s groundbreaking Open Curriculum. This conversation with Lauren Zalaznick, who has herself served as a Corporation member, provides an opportunity to reflect on the role of this important body in supporting the university as it strives to fulfill its mission to prepare students to lead “lives of usefulness and reputation,” as it is stated in Brown’s charter.

Join the Department of English on February 20 at 5:30 to celebrate the publication of Professor Philip Gould’s latest book, War Power: Literature & the State in the Civil War North (Oxford University Press). 

The event will include a panel discussion moderated by Kevin McLaughlin featuring Colleen Boggs (Dartmouth College), Glenn Hendler (Fordham University), and Timothy Sweet (West Virginia University). A light reception will follow. 

“Our shoulders and hips were invented by salamanders. Hidden motives bind us to cuckoos and caterpillars. Our faces form biological maps while our organs trace the shapes of our animal ancestors. From the cellular to the celestial, Your Kingdom inquisitively and energetically investigates our notion of biological kingdoms, calling us to ‘let the body feel all its own evolution inside’”

American presidents have often pushed the boundaries established for them by the Constitution; this is the inspirational history of the people who pushed back. Corey Brettschneider shows that these presidents didn’t have the last word; citizen movements brought the United States back from the precipice by appealing to a democratic understanding of the Constitution and pressuring subsequent reform-minded presidents to realize the promise of ‘We the People.’ This is a book about citizens – Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Daniel Ellsberg, and more – who fought back against presidential abuses of power. Their examples give us hope about the possibilities of restoring a fragile democracy.

In The Darkened Light of Faith, Melvin Rogers provides a bold new account of African American political thought through the works and lives of individuals who built this vital tradition—a tradition that is urgently needed today. The book reexamines how figures as diverse as David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Anna Julia Cooper, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, Billie Holiday, and James Baldwin thought about the politics, people, character, and culture of a society that so often dominated them. An ambitious account of the profound ways African Americans have reimagined democracy, The Darkened Light of Faith offers invaluable lessons about how to grapple with racial injustice and make democracy work.

An intimate and searching account of the life and legacy of one of America’s towering educators, a woman who dared to center the progress of Black women and girls in the larger struggle for political and social liberation. When Mary McLeod Bethune died, tributes in newspapers around the country said the same thing: she should be on the Mount Rushmore of Black American achievement. Indeed, Bethune is the only Black American whose statue stands in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol, and yet for most, she remains a marble figure from the dim past. Now, seventy years later, Noliwe Rooks turns Bethune from stone to flesh, showing her to have been a visionary leader with lessons to still teach us as we continue our journey toward a freer and more just nation.

This book discussion is for Brown 2026 Winter Reading. For a lecture and panel-based conversation with the Democracy Project on April 10, please see this event link.

For one hundred and sixty-nine years, a first-person slave narrative written by John Swanson Jacobs—brother of Harriet Jacobs—was buried in a pile of newspapers in Australia. Jacobs’s long-lost narrative, The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots, is a startling and revolutionary discovery. A document like this—written by an ex-slave and ex-American, in language charged with all that can be said about America outside America, untampered with and unedited by white abolitionists—has never been seen before. The second half of the book contains a full-length, nine-generation biography of Jacobs and his family by literary historian Jonathan Schroeder. To truly reckon with the lives of John Jacobs is to see with new clarity that in 1776, America embarked on two experiments at once: one in democracy, the other in tyranny.

An eye-opening rethinking of nineteenth-century American history that reveals the interdependence of the Northern industrial economy and Southern slave labor. Examining producers and consumers linked in economic and moral relationships across great geographic and political distances, Plantation Goods explores how people in the nineteenth century thought about complicity with slavery while showing how slavery structured life nationwide and established a modern world of entrepreneurship and exploitation. Seth Rockman brings together lines of American history that have for too long been told separately, as slavery and capitalism converge in something as deceptively ordinary as a humble pair of shoes.

A galvanizing anthology for those seeking to build an inclusive democracy. Keisha N. Blain’s latest volume, Wake Up America: Black Women on the Future of Democracy, brings together the voices of major progressive Black women politicians, grassroots activists, and intellectuals to offer critical insights on how we can create a more equitable political future. In addressing our most pressing issues and providing key takeaways, Wake Up America serves as a blueprint for the steps we can take right now and in years to come.

Internationally acclaimed Grammy and Academy Award-winning artist Jon Batiste comes to Brown this January. Fresh off a North American tour for his latest studio album, World Music Radio, which was nominated for six Grammys, including Album of the Year, Batiste will bring his prolific and brilliant musicianship to The Lindemann’s Main Hall for an exclusive Brown-campus-only concert.

Brown University students, faculty, and staff are welcome to enter to receive two (2) tickets (one pair) to the Jon Batiste performance on Saturday, January 25, 2024, at 7:00 PM. Submissions must include a Brown University email address.

The John Carter Brown Library will host an illustrated lecture by Prof. Eric Slauter, Deputy Dean of the Humanities at the University of Chicago, followed by conversation with Rhode Island Secretary of State the Honorable Gregg Amore.

This is a hybrid event and is open to the public. Please feel free to join us in person or online!

Part of Brown 2026 and JCB 2026 and Beyond.

Brown 2026 Launch Events on January 24, 2026

From 2 to 3:30 p.m. on Friday, January 24 in room 303 at the John Hay Library, the Library will host a symposium: Rethinking Fringes and Mainstreams: Insights into the History of the American Right from The Divided America Project Archive.

At 5 p.m. on the same day at the John Carter Brown Library, Professor Eric Slauter of the University of Chicago will deliver an illustrated lecture entitled, “A Portable History of the Pocket Constitution.” A conversation with the Honorable Gregg Amore, Rhode Island Secretary of State, will follow.

Hybrid Format and Registration for Rethinking Fringes and Mainstreams

Rethinking Fringes and Mainstreams: Insights into the History of the American Right from The Divided America Project Archive will be presented in hybrid format. Please RSVP below if you plan to attend on Zoom.

Rethinking Fringes and Mainstreams: Insights into the History of the American Right from The Divided America Project Archive

This panel considers the significance of the John Hay Library’s Hall-Hoag Collection of Dissenting and Extremist Printed Propaganda, a uniquely deep and extensive archive documenting the ideological ferment of post-war America at a granular level. Under the banner of the Divided America Project, and with generous support from the Arcadia Fund and the National Historic Records Preservation Commission, the John Hay Library has nearly completed digitizing the collection, which will provide public access to more than a million images of printed materials produced by local, regional, and national issues-focused groups in the U.S. from the 1950s to the 1990s. Rare for university-based collections of this kind, Hall-Hoag is particularly strong in documents from a wide range of right-wing groups. The scholars assembled for this panel will reflect on how this collection and its broad accessibility can inform our understandings of how ideas from political extremes find their way into the mainstream, the long history of right wing extremism in the U.S., and the value of collections like Hall-Hoag for engaging civic memory and public discourse. Materials from the collection focusing on religious groups will be on display in the John Hay Library’s Harriette Hemmasi Exhibition Gallery and in an online exhibit, and other Hall-Hoag documents will be available for viewing following the panel.

Program

Following welcome remarks by Joseph S. Meisel, Joukowsky Family University Librarian, two library staff members — Andrew Majcher, Head of Digital Services and Records Management, and Ariel Flowers, Divided America Project Archivist — will speak briefly about the project. Then, each of the four guest panelists will give short presentations before engaging in a discussion.

Panelists

• Seth Cotlar ’90, Willamette University, Professor of History (presenter and moderator)
• Jennifer Mittelstadt, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, Professor of History
• Marsha E. Barrett, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Assistant Professor of History
• John S. Huntington, Houston Community College, Professor of History

Brown 2026

Brown 2026 draws on Brown’s strength as a rigorous, multidisciplinary research institution and as a community of learning that seeks to confront important questions that have faced democracies in the past and that will continue to face them in the future. To learn more: https://brown2026democracy.brown.edu/research-teaching

Accessibility

If you need a disability-related accommodation, please reach out to John_Shamgochian@brown.edu as far in advance of the event as possible. Thank you.”