Are you a member of the press interested in attending an event? Please contact Events Assistant Kendra Sullivan at ksullivan@gc.cuny.edu. Thank you.
Praise for Recent Events
Presented as a concise history of modern art’s development through the mid-twentieth century, “The Making of Americans” offers all the elements of a serious, scholarly exhibition. “The Making of Americans” is an indispensable reminder that even though art history is written by the victors, it doesn’t evolve without persistent, healthy contestation. -Christopher Howard, Artforum, Critic’s Pick on The Making of Americans
A discussion around Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention to a packed auditorium was hosted by GC professor and longtime labor activist Stanley Aronowitz. It was a spirited defense of Marable, the book, and an assessment of Malcolm’s life and his impact on America and the entire world. One of Cornel West’s most powerful questions put to the audience was “How do we talk about Malcolm in the age of Obama?” Gary Younge said that Marable’s book rescued Malcolm from the pedestal and put him back with the people. –Marc W. Polite on Manning Marable’s Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention
Dr. [Cornel] West’s passion, intellect and charisma captivated the eager crowd. Mr. [Gary] Younge rounded out the conversation, tying Malcolm X’s work to movements across the globe. -Paul Russell on Manning Marable’s Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention
J. Hillis Miller is a remarkably lucid speaker, capable of expressing even the most complex concepts with clarity and communicable understanding. –Susan Bernofsky on What’s Left to Translate? Re-reading Benjamin’s “The Task of the Translator
At the end of the conference, Professor Bishop said, “This was a great opportunity for our doctoral students in art history to hear the most innovative protagonists from the museum world and art history in dialogue. Many of them wish to pursue careers in curating, and this conference offered a much-needed overview of major international developments in contemporary museums." -Jackie Glasthal on The Now Museum: Contemporary Art, Curating Histories, and Alternative Models
The room went into a tizzy when Judith Butler began her presentation, perhaps the best of the evening, which teased out the Freudian undertones in the Spivak’s famous phrase “white men saving brown women from brown men.” The event finished with Professor Spivak commenting on everything from her own family history to the current situation in North Africa, before receiving a rousing round of applause from the at-capacity auditorium. -David Berke on Can the Subaltern Speak?: Reflections on the History of an Idea
Chapbooks are stealth books. They can slip under a door. They don’t impose. They suggest. They carry little baggage. They’re not one thing or another. They imply, insinuate, inquire. They don’t expect an answer. They have a long history; they have no history. –James Haug from The Third Annual Chapbook Festival
Raj Patel spoke to a standing room crowd at the CUNY Graduate Center. The topic: “What are the Barriers to Food Sovereignty?” The crowd: a curious mix of students, activists and concerned citizens. The talk was a two-hour meandering affair ranging from the current worry of global food prices to what Patel called “a lack of imagination of how deep the problem goes.” It was a lesson from which we could all take a page. –Kendra Pierre-Louis on What are the Barriers to Food Sovereignty?
CUNY’s Proshanky Auditorium was packed…we were treated to variations on those themes: the pleasurable, corrosive superiority of class; our natural barbarity veiled in feigned civility; the animals of sex and violence that lurk under our pretense of self; and thankfully, the capacity of beauty to counter cruelty. One by one, these phrases lit up the outline of a dark truth; whatever privilege enjoyed by those present in the room was inextricably linked to the suffering of many outside of it, and the laughter at Wallace Shawn’s wit began to subside. After experiences like that, I find I am kinder to people, because I’m reminded of what we’re all capable of, for better and worse. It was a good night at the theatre. –August Schulenburg on The Plays and Essays of Wallace Shawn
Those who heard Mr. Kloppenberg present his argument at a conference on intellectual history at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center responded with prolonged applause.” –Patricia Cohen, The New York Times on The Third Annual U.S. Intellectual History Conference
I had the pleasure of attending a reading and Q & A with American poet Diane di Prima, in correspondence with the release of a set of chapbooks by CUNY’s Lost & Found Poetics Group. The discussion provided many thought-provoking exchanges, the most intriguing of which concerned di Prima’s ideas about the creative process. –David Parsons on Diane di Prima: An Evening of Reading and Conversation
People in the standing-room-only audience shouted out names of other women they’d lost. As the chorus of voices died down, Sarah Chinn, director of CLAGS, exhorted the audience, “Hug the lesbian next to you!” And a sea of gray-haired women leaned over seats to embrace each other. So began the conference “In Amerika They Call Us Dykes: Lesbian Lives in the 1970s.”About 450 people gathered to remember, recover and reconsider an oft-maligned, even-oftener neglected decade of lesbian activism and cultural production. –Emily Douglas on In Amerika They Call Us Dykes: Lesbian Lives in the 1970s
Mary Gordon’s illustrated talk offered an evocative and persuasive examination of the different, and shared, impressionism of Ford and Janice Biala. –Sara Haslam and Seamus O’Malley on Ford Madox Ford and America
The room was packed with an audience interested in hearing about Islamic fashion; Emma Tarlo spoke about the current designers, bloggers and individuals who shape Islamic Fashion in the British world. It was definitely an overpowering night. –Elif Kavakci on Visibly Muslim
