Past Events
In August 1831, a group of enslaved people in Southampton County, Virginia, rose up to fight for their freedom. They attacked the plantations on which their enslavers lived and attempted to march on the county seat of Jerusalem, from which they planned to launch an uprising across the South. After the rebellion was suppressed, well over a hundred people, Black and white, lay dead or were hanged. The uprising was the idea of a single man: Nat Turner. An enslaved preacher, he was as enigmatic as he was brilliant. He was also something more—a prophet, one who claimed to have received visions from the Spirit urging him to act.
Monday, October 7, 2024
6:00 p.m.
Live via Zoom
This event is free and open to the public.
Register here to join the conversation
Gregory P. Downs is professor of history at University of California, Davis. He is the author of three books on the Civil War Era and a book of short stories, as well as many op-eds for leading newspapers. He is co-editor of the ‘Journal of the Civil War Era’. Downs assisted in the completion of ‘Nat Turner, Black Prophet’ which represents the research of Anthony E. Kaye (1962–2017).
Vincent Brown is Charles Warren Professor of American History and Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. He teaches courses in Atlantic history, African diaspora studies, and the history of slavery in the Americas. Brown is the author of The Reaper’s Garden: Death and Power in the World of Atlantic Slavery and Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War, and he is producer of Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness, an audiovisual documentary broadcast on the PBS series Independent Lens.
Past Events
The 2024 presidential election cycle has been a rollercoaster ride. Join renowned pollster
David Paleologos, Director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center and one of the nation’s most respected and trustworthy pollsters to discuss the most recent Suffolk University survey results, the crucial issues motivating voters, and the key demographics that could make or break this next most unprecedented presidential election. The afternoon’s moderator is Katie Lannan, who covers the State House for GBH News. Previously, she spent seven years on Beacon Hill reporting on the policy and politics of state government for the State House News Service.
Friday, October 18, 2024
Live at 12:00 pm via Zoom
Register Here
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Past Events
Some of the most polarizing and provocative issues in any generation depend upon the First Amendment protections of free speech and the press. Edward I. Masterman, JD ‘50, LLD ‘90, along with his wife Sydell, established the Masterman Speaker Series on the First Amendment and the Fourth Estate to provide a forum for robust and honest debate concerning freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and their attendant responsibilities. The Masterman family believes that informing the uninformed and engaging curious people in ongoing conversations about our nation’s fundamental principles will serve to strengthen our democracy.
Each year, the Masterman Speaker Series brings together representatives from government, the legal profession, and the press for the purposes of informing, educating, and engaging those who care deeply about these First Amendment issues.
Tuesday, October 1, 2024
12:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Suffolk University Law School, Sargent Hall
120 Tremont Street, Faculty Dining Room
Masterman Flyer
Join our panel of experts:
Jonathan M. Albano, Partner, Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP. A renowned litigator with over 40 years of experience:
Dan Lothian, Editor-in-Chief, GBH News and The World. An acclaimed broadcaster who began his career in radio at the age of 16 and has extensive domestic and international reporting experience:
Dr. Rachael V. Cobb, Moderator, Associate Professor of Political Science, Suffolk University. A prominent scholar who specializes in American politics, focusing on voting rights and political participation:
Past Events
In this live podcast, we focus on ballot measures that affect the LGBTQ+ community and how they are likely to shape the outcome of the presidential election. Hosts Rachael Cobb and Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber in conversation with Polly Crozier, Director of Family Advocacy at GLBTQ Legal Advocates &
Defenders (GLAD), and Kayci Resende-Abbott, a Suffolk University Philosophy major with a double minor in Women and Gender Studies & Black Studies, the Black Student Union President, and a Fellow with the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ+ Advancement. They will discuss the electoral power of LGBTQ+ Americans, the demand for equal rights, and how their influence plays a role in presidential politics.
Rachael Cobb, associate professor in the Political Science & Legal Studies Department, and Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber, associate professor and chair of Communications, Journalism & Media, joined forces to launch “Election Connection,” a platform they hope will help listeners engage with the political process.
Election Connection examines a new topic each week to help listeners better understand the electoral system. Examining issues like primary elections and voting by mail, the two hosts provide background information and historical context in simple, understandable terms.
Thursday, September 26, 2024
12:30 p.m.
73 Tremont Street, 1st Floor Amenities Room
This event is free and open to the public.
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Past Events
SUFFOLK UNIVERSITY AND BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY PRESS
FIRST ANNUAL BOOK FESTIVAL
Luisa Neubauer, Sabine von Mering, and Jule Manitz in conversation with Beth Daley
Thursday, September 19, 2024
6:00 p.m.
Modern Theatre
525 Washington Street, Boston, MA 02111
Register here to attend in person
Register here to attend via Zoom.
Click here for a PDF Flyer
Join us as we welcome Luisa Neubauer, the acclaimed German climate activist and co-founder of the school strike for climate movement in Germany, commonly referred to as Fridays for Future. She will discuss her recent co-authored book, Beginning to End the Climate Crisis: A History of our Future with Sabine von Mering, director of the Center for German and European Studies and professor of German and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Brandeis University and co-editor of the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of Grassroots Climate Activism, and a climate activist with 350Mass, and Jule Manitz, a climate justice activist with Extinction Rebellion Boston, where she plays a pivotal role in organizing and supporting impactful protests, including civil disobedience actions. The evening’s moderator is Beth Daley, executive editor and general manager of The Conversation and a Pulitzer Prize finalist for climate reporting at The Boston Globe.
In this book, Luisa Neubauer, the best-known German climate activist, and her co-author Alexander Repenning create the history of our future. If we don’t change course now, we’ll eliminate ourselves. Politicians, entrepreneurs, citizens, everyone must take action. But how? One thing is undisputed: There is no planet B. We must inform and organize ourselves to save the future. In Beginning to End the Climate Crisis, Neubauer presents solutions that are ready to be implemented and must finally be put into practice. But she also demonstrates the attitude with which we must deal with this exceptional situation: undaunted but level-headed. And unyielding towards those who determine our future. Because the last chance for a positive end to the climate crisis is NOW.
Past Events
Monday, September 23, 2024
6:00 p.m.
Modern Theatre
525 Washington Street, Boston 02111
Register Here to Attend in-person
Register Here for Zoom
Click here for a PDF Flyer
Join us for an evening of conversation with bereaved Israeli mother Robi Damelin and bereaved Palestinian mother Laila Alsheikh who both lost their sons to the conflict. They will tell their personal stories of loss and explain their choice to engage in dialogue and reconciliation. The evening’s moderator is Charles M. Sennott, founder and editor of The GoundTruth Project and an award-winning correspondent, author, and editor with 30 years of experience in international, national, and local journalism. Previously, Sennott worked for many years as a reporter at the Boston Globe, where he became Bureau Chief for the Middle East and Europe and a leader of the paper’s international coverage. The Parents Circle – Families Forum is a joint Israeli-Palestinian organization made up of more than 750 bereaved families. Their common bond is that they have lost a close family member to the conflict. But instead of choosing revenge, they have chosen a path of reconciliation. Through their educational activities, these bereaved members have joined together to take tens of thousands of Palestinians and Israelis on journeys of reconciliation. Learn more about the work of The Parents Circle – Families Forum. American Friends of the Parents Circle – Families Forum shares the human side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the American public in order to foster a peace and reconciliation process.
Past Events
Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University is pleased to announce our new partnership with the Newburyport Documentary Film Festival. Each month the festival hosts an online discussion with the filmmakers behind some of the best new documentaries. They’ve hosted the directors of Oscar-nominated and Emmy Award-winning films, and acclaimed features that have premiered on HBO, Netflix, Hulu, PBS, and elsewhere. The complete archive of interviews can be found on the festival’s YouTube channel, here.
This month, program director James Sullivan will interview Sam Eilertson, the Boston-based co-director of the timely new film ISRAELISM. It tells the story of two young American Jews raised to support Israel unconditionally. When they visit Palestine and see firsthand what life is like there, their reconsidered beliefs come to mirror a generational shift in modern Jewish identity. They join a movement of young American Jews battling the old guard to redefine Judaism’s relationship with Israel, revealing a deepening generational divide over modern Jewish identity.
After months of special screenings, ISRAELISM will begin streaming on various platforms, including Amazon Prime and Apple TV, on June 7.
Watch ISRAELISM on Amazon Prime or Apple TV, then join us in THE WATCH CLUB (click the image) for a live Q&A with co-director Sam Eilertson on Wednesday, June 12, 2024 at 7:00 p.m.
Click Here to View the Trailer
What is THE WATCH CLUB?
Keep the conversation going throughout the year in THE WATCH CLUB. It’s like a book club, but for documentaries. Each month we’ll recommend a new documentary to stream, then invite you to join us on YouTube or Facebook for a live online Q&A with the filmmaker.
Past Events
Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University presents:
An evening with Jonathan M. Metzl, MD, PhD, acclaimed physician and sociologist upon the publication of his groundbreaking new book, What We’ve Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms. The evening’s moderator is Gary Firemen, Ph.D., associate provost and professor, Psychology Department, Suffolk University.
Tuesday, April 30, 2024
7:00 p.m. Live via Zoom
This program is free and open to the public.
Click here to register via zoom
Long at the forefront of a movement advocating for gun reform as a matter of public health, Nashville-based physician and gun policy scholar Dr. Jonathan M. Metzl has been on constant media call in the aftermath of fatal shootings. But as he came to understand it, public health is a hard sell in a nation that fundamentally disagrees about what it means to be safe, healthy, or free. In his book What We’ve Become, Metzl reckons both with the long history of distrust of public health and the larger forces—social, ideological, historical, racial, and political—that allow mass shootings to occur on a near daily basis in America.
This brilliant, piercing analysis points to mass shootings as a symptom of our most unresolved national conflicts, and ultimately sets us on the path of alliance forging, racial reckoning, and political power brokering we must take to put things right.
Metzl is the Frederick B. Rentschler II Professor of Sociology and Psychiatry and the director of the Department of Medicine, Health, and Society, at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of several acclaimed books that challenge the ways we think about illness and health— author of several acclaimed books that challenge the ways we think about illness and health—including Dying of Whiteness, The Protest Psychosis, Prozac on the Couch, and Against Health.
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Past Events
Program sponsors: Suffolk University’s Ford Hall Forum, Political Science & Legal Studies Department, History, Language & Global Culture Department, Theatre Department, and GBH Forum Network.
Facing Coups in America—Then and Now
Join us in conversation with two of the most influential scholars of their generation, sociologist and author, Arlie Russell Hochschild and Adam Hochschild, historian, author, and journalist. The afternoon’s moderator is award-winning PBS NewsHour journalist Paul Solman.
Friday, April 12, 2024, 4:00 p.m.
Modern Theatre, 535 Washington Street, Boston, MA
This event is free and open to the public; however, registration is required.
Register here to attend in person
https://ci.ovationtix.com/34432/production/1195753
Register here to attend via Zoom
https://wgbh.zoom.us/webinar/register/2616952381559/WN_lbeHyWLmSsetRffjXk6jSw#/registration
This Forum is in conjunction with the Suffolk University Theatre Department’s production of It Can’t Happen Here.
A statement…a warning…a provocation…the ultimate denial of reality.
In his talk, Adam Hochschild explains How It Can’t Happen Here Was Born. In the 1930s, the world was increasingly alarmed by the rise of fascism. In 1935, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Sinclair Lewis wrote a novel, It Can’t Happen Here, about a fascist coup in the United States, and in 1936, the novel was turned into a play, which opened simultaneously in 21 theatres across the country.
Arlie Hochschild ponders whether the events of the 1930s Germany could occur in a different form in the US in the 2020s. For the upcoming election, many arrows point to Donald Trump, a man who has long claimed that the 2020 election was stolen, criticizes the “deep state,” refuses to promise to obey the Constitution, and promises instead to deliver retribution. Focusing on globalization’s shake-up of status systems in red states, low trust in public institutions, and the play of pride and shame, she describes what circumstances have led us to this moment and asks how we might emerge with a democracy intact.
Past Events
Suffolk University’s Ford Hall Forum; Moakley Archive & Institute; Office of Diversity, Access, and Inclusion; GBH Forum Network; and The Boston Desegregation & Busing Initiative present:
Upward Mobility in Boston: 50 Years After Busing
Suffolk University’s Ford Hall Forum and Moakley Archive & Institute, The Boston Desegregation and Busing Initiative, and GBH Forum Network, continue a series of programs examining the lasting impacts of the l974 landmark decision to desegregate Boston’s Public Schools. On May 6, the panel will discuss upward mobility in Boston, exploring the city’s historic institutional roadblocks that have hindered progress for people of color fifty years after busing. The panel will explore solutions to address these persistent issues such as enhancing educational opportunities, closing the wealth gap, increasing home ownership, and broadening access to job opportunities.
May 6, 2024
6:00 p.m.
Live via Zoom
Register Here to Join the Conversation
This program is free and open to the public.
The evening’s panelists are Ron Bell, longtime community activist and founder of Dunk the Vote, and alumnus of Boston Latin School; Karilyn Crockett, Ph.D., assistant professor, Urban History, Public Policy & Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Tatiana M. F. Cruz, Ph.D., assistant professor and interdisciplinary program director of Africana Studies, Department of Critical Race, Gender and Cultural Studies, Simmons University. The program’s moderator is Kris Hooks, editor-in-chief of The Boston Globe’s newsroom team, Money, Power, Inequality: Closing the Racial Wealth Gap, which focuses on addressing the racial wealth gap in Greater Boston.
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Past Events
Suffolk University’s Ford Hall Forum and Political Science & Legal Studies Department Present:
28 Weeks: Counting Down to November 2024
As the US heads towards November 2024 and a presidential election is likely to be held between two historically unpopular candidates (again), it will be issues that drive many voters to the polls. Join nationally renowned pollster David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, for a discussion centered on the Center’s most recent national polling with USA TODAY, covering crucial issues such as reproductive rights, border security, foreign policy, and the Trump trials. The evening’s moderator is Stephanie Leydon, executive producer of digital video, GBH News.
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
7:00 p.m. Live via Zoom
PDF Flyer
This event is free and open to the public.
David Paleologos Bio
David Paleologos is the Director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center (SUPRC), where he has worked since 2002 conducting polling at the local, state, and national levels. SUPRC results have been reported by hundreds of major news organizations for their high degree of accuracy. As of winter 2024, Paleologos and SUPRC are partnered with The Boston Globe (regional polling) and USA TODAY (national polling). Other survey partners include The Los Angeles Times; The Cincinnati Enquirer; The York Daily Record; The Reno Gazette Journal; The Arizona Republic; The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; The Detroit Free Press; The Louisville Courier Journal; and NBC10 Boston-Telemundo-NECN.
Paleologos is the author of a proprietary bellwether model that has an 89% record of accuracy in predicting outcomes through the November 2022 midterm elections. In the 2022 Midterms, SUPRC went 7 for 7 in polling US Senate races in the final three weeks of the election season, correctly predicting outcomes in Nevada, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. Through 2022, SUPRC was ranked first in the nation by both fivethirtyeight.com (in the November 2022 midterms) and RealClearPolitics.com (all elections from 2014-2022.
Stephanie Leydon Bio
Stephanie Leydon is the executive producer of digital video at GBH News She produced the Newsroom’s COVID and Classroom series which offered an intimate look at the lives of three high school seniors navigating their last year of high school and a pandemic.
Stephanie joined GBH News in 2014 as a reporter and was promoted to senior editor in 2018. Her work has aired on NPR, PRI’s The World and PBS Newshour. Before joining GBH News, Stephanie worked as a television reporter and anchor at WLVI-TV in Boston, WMUR-TV in Manchester, New Hampshire and WMGT-TV in Macon, Georgia.
Past Events
Suffolk University’s Ford Hall Forum; Communication, Journalism & Media Department; History, Language & Culture Department; Office of Title IX; Women’s & Gender Studies Program; Our Bodies Ourselves Today; the Center for Women’s Health & Human Rights; and GBH Forum Network present:
Gender Equality and Reproductive Rights After Dobbs
Tuesday, April 2, 2024
3:30 pm–4:45 pm
Live via Zoom
Register here to join the conversation
This event is free and open to the public.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade sparked dramatic shifts in the abortion and reproductive rights landscape in the United States. These changes have cut to the core of the nature of democracy in America. This panel examines the far-reaching consequences of restrictions on reproductive and LGBTQ rights nearly two years after the Dobbs decision. Gender equality activists and advocates discuss how reproductive justice is intertwined with the wider attack on bodily autonomy and what we can do to protect these rights in this election year and beyond.
The afternoon’s panelists are Dallas Ducar, RN, CEO, Transhealth; Polly Crozier, Esq., Director of Family Advocacy, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), and Kristie, Monast, MS Ed, Executive Director, HealthQ. The afternoon’s moderator is Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber, PhD, associate professor and chair, Communication, Journalism, & Media Department, Suffolk University.
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Past Events
Suffolk University’s Women’s & Gender Studies Program; Black Studies Program; the Center for Teaching and Scholarly Excellence Faculty and Professional Learning Community – Race Matters; Ford Hall Forum; Department of Communication, Journalism, & Media; Department of History, Languages, & Global Culture; Department of Sociology & Criminal Justice; First Year Seminar; Black Lives Matter; Creativity & Innovation
March 26, 2024
6:00-7:30 pm
Sargent Hall, 120 Tremont Street, Smith Commons, 5th Floor, Boston, MA
This event is free and open to the public
In-person registration is not required.
If attending on Zoom, register here for the Zoom link.
Please join us for a spoken word performance by Kyla Jenee Lacey, followed by a moderated discussion about intersectionality, resistance art, and creative activism, moderated by Pascale Florestal.
Kyla Jenee Lacey is a poet, writer, black activist, and funny girl. Kyla’s poetry addresses topics like white privilege, misogynoir, patriarchy, and more. She has bylines from The Root, BET.com, the Huffington Post, and currently writes for Karen Hunter’s “The Hub News.” Kyla’s work has been referenced in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Tamron Hall, the Atlantic, NYT, Washington Post, the Boston Globe, WaPo, and many others— even Laura Ingraham from Fox News was so kind enough to refer to her work as “anti-racist propaganda.”
Pascale Florestal is a first generation Haitian American Queer Woman. She is an Elliot Norton Nominated Director, Educator, Dramaturg, Writer and Collaborator based in Boston, MA. Pascale serves as the Associate Director for The Broadway National Tour of Jagged Little Pill. She is the Director of Education for The Front Porch Arts Collective, a Black Theater Company committed to racial equity in theater in Boston. She is an Assistant Professor of Theater at Boston Conservatory at Berklee College of Music and Visiting Guest Artist Professor in Practice in the Theater Department at Suffolk University.
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Past Events
Suffolk University’s Ford Hall Forum, Communication, Journalism & Media, History, Language & Global Culture Departments, and Women’s & Gender Studies Program present:
TikTok “whisperer” Annie Wu Henry on Digital Activism, Civic Engagement, and Intersectional Representation in Politics
Thursday, April 4, 2024
73 Tremont Street, Boston, MA
Poetry Center, Third Floor, (enter through Sawyer Library on Second Floor)
12:30-1:45 p.m.
In-person and live via Zoom.
Join here for ZOOM.
https://suffolk.zoom.us/j/97081082993
Lunch will be provided.
This event is free and open to the public.
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Please join us for a conversation with Annie Wu Henry about digital activism, civic engagement, and intersectional representation in politics. The conversation will be moderated by Rachael Cobb, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of the Political Science and Legal Studies Department at Suffolk University.
Annie Wu Henry is a 28-year-old social media and digital strategy expert for progressive organizations and campaigns. She is currently the creative director for AAPI Victory Fund. Annie believes that we need on-the-ground organizing, electoral work, and online media to drive progress in society, and has taken a hand in contributing to all three. She is most well-known for her work leading John Fetterman’s digital strategy during his campaign for Senate and has been referred to as his Tik-Tok Whisperer. She has also worked with Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, the Working Families Party, and others.
As a strategist, creator, and political operative, Annie has contributed to some of the largest online advocacy platforms like @feminist, @impact, @shityoushouldcareabout, @intersectionalenvironmentalist, @so.informed, @genzforchange and has had a myriad of content go viral, being shared by the likes of Rachel Cargle, Viola Davis, Kerry Washington, Ariana Grande, Yara Shahidi, the Kardashians, Olivia Rodrigo, and others.
Past Events
Suffolk University’s Ford Hall Forum, History, Language & Global Culture and Communication, Journalism, & Media Departments, and the Women’s & Gender Studies Program present:
Barbara Abrams, Ph.D., author of the new book, ReSisters: Forensic Storytelling and the Literary Roots of Early Modern Feminism, and Laura Levitt, Ph.D., author of The Objects That Remain, join in a conversation about women’s stories of trauma and transcendence. This talk weaves together several stories of survival both chronologically and thematically and emphasizes the significance of the use of objects in women’s storytelling, from 18th Century France to the Holocaust, to the present. The afternoon’s moderator is Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber, Ph.D., chair and associate professor, Communication, Journalism & Media Department, Suffolk University.
Barbara Abrams is Chair and Professor in the History, Language, & Global Culture Department at Suffolk University. Her academic work focuses on French literature of the Enlightenment, Women’s, and Gender Studies, and Global and Cultural Studies. She is the author of numerous books, including Reframing Rousseau’s Le Lévite d’Ephraïm: The Hebrew Bible, Hospitality, and Modern Identity and Le Bizarre and Le Décousu in the Novels and Theoretical Works of Denis Diderot: How the Idea of Marginality Originated in Eighteenth-Century France.
Laura Levitt is Professor of Religion, Jewish Studies, and Gender at Temple University where she has chaired the Religion Department and directed both the Jewish Studies and the Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies Programs. She is currently the Benedict Distinguished Visiting Professor of Religion at Carleton College. Levitt is the author of The Objects that Remain (2020); American Jewish Loss after the Holocaust (2007); and Jews and Feminism: The Ambivalent Search for Home (1997) and a co-editor of Impossible Images: Contemporary Art After the Holocaust (2003); and Judaism Since Gender (1997).
Thursday, March 21, 2024
Sargent Hall, 120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA
Room 235, Second Floor
12:30 – 1:45 p.m.
In-person and live via ZOOM
Lunch will be provided.
This program is free and open to the public.
Past Events
Join us for a screening of the award-winning film In the Whale, by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Abel. The screening will be followed by a post-screening discussion with Abel.
IN THE WHALE is an award-winning feature-length film about arguably the greatest fish story ever told, though this one is true. It’s the account of a man who survived to tell the tale of being swallowed by a whale, and what happened after he escaped.
In the shark-filled waters off Cape Cod, Michael Packard has long tempted fate. For several months a year, Packard and his longtime mate, Josiah Mayo, cast off nearly every morning around dawn and navigate through the half-light to their diving grounds off Provincetown, the idiosyncratic, isolated community where they grew up at the tip of the Cape. Packard buckles on his scuba tank and plunges into the cold waters to hunt on the seafloor.
As the region’s last-remaining commercial lobster diver, the 57-year-old father has had his share of harrowing experiences, which include close encounters with great whites, nearly drowning, and having to pull up the body of a fellow diver. He even survived a plane crash in the jungles of Costa Rica, where he ran a charter fishing business. But what happened to him on a routine dive during a clear June morning was something he never imagined possible, and many around the world refused to believe.
In an experience of biblical proportions, Packard was engulfed by a humpback whale, caught in the watery cavity of its massive mouth. After some 30 seconds of pitch-black captivity, in which he expected to die, he was spit out, fins first, to the surface, where Mayo and another fisherman rescued him.
The publicity was similarly dizzying for the reclusive fisherman, whose survival story spread around the world in news dispatches. But what came after the limelight dimmed was even more significant for Packard, who overcame another big whale, his depression, through the love of the sea and his family.
Friday, April 26, 2024
Modern Theatre
525 Washington Street, Boston, MA
7:00 p.m.
This event is free and open to the public.
Past Events
Suffolk University’s Ford Hall Forum, Moakley Archive & Institute, History, Language & Global Culture and Communication, Journalism & Media Departments, Black Alumni Network, Office of Diversity, Access, and Inclusion, Student Office of Diversity, The Boston Desegregation and Busing Initiative, and GBH Forum Network present:
The Soiling of Old Glory: The Story of a Photograph That Shocked America
An evening of conversation with acclaimed historian and author Louis P. Masur, author of The Soiling of Old Glory: The Photography that Shocked America, Theodore “Ted” Landsmark, distinguished professor of public policy and urban affairs and director of the Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University, and Stanley Forman, Pulitzer-Prize winning photojournalist. The evening’s moderator is Robert Allison, professor, History, Language & Global Culture Department, Suffolk University.
Thursday, April 11, 2024
Sargent Hall, 120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA, Fifth Floor Commons
6:00 p.m. In-person and live via ZOOM
In-person registration is not required
Register Here for ZOOM
https://wgbh.zoom.us/webinar/register/5816952382129/WN_nmgESDM_SUelv2kT8Wpn7g#/registration
This event is free and open to the public.
Boston, April 5, 1976. As the city simmered with racial tension over forced school busing, newsman Stanley Forman photographed a white protester outside City Hall assaulting the Black attorney Ted Landsmark with the American flag. The photograph shocked Boston and made front pages across the U.S. and the world and won a Pulitzer Prize. Masur has done extensive research, including personal interviews with those involved, to reveal the unknown story of what really happened that day and afterward. This evocative “biography of a photograph” unpacks this arresting image to trace the lives of the men who intersected at that moment, to examine the power of photography and the meaning of the flag, and to reveal how a single picture helped change race relations in Boston and America. The Soiling of Old Glory, like the photograph itself, offers a dramatic window into the turbulence of the 1970s and race relations in America.
Past Events
Join us for a book talk with author Nancy A. Nichols upon the publication of her latest book
From the adolescent thrill of getting a driver’s license to the dreaded commutes of adulthood, from vintage muscle cars to electric vehicles, this groundbreaking book reveals the outsized impact the car has had—and will continue to have—on the lives of women. Since their inception, cars have defined American culture, but until quite recently car histories were largely written by and about men—with little attention given to the fascinating story of women and cars.
In this engaging non-fiction narrative, Nancy A. Nichols, the daughter of a used car salesman, uses the cars her father sold and the ones her family drove to tell a larger story about how the car helped to define modern womanhood. From her sister’s classic Mustang to her mother’s Chevy Convertible to her own Honda minivan, Nichols tells a personal story in order to shed light on a universal one. Cars helped women secure the right to vote, changed the nature of romance, and influenced both fashion and child-rearing customs. In just over 100 years since their inception, cars have created possibilities for commerce and romance, even as they exposed women to new kinds of danger.
Women Behind the Wheel explores the uniquely gendered landscape of the automobile, detailing the many reasons why cars are both more expensive and more dangerous for women drivers.
The automobile is on the cusp of momentous change. As we advance into the era of electric, connected, and autonomous vehicles, Nichols shows us why we should hit the brakes and look back in the rear-view mirror at this long and fascinating history.
What is the role of the car in our lives? Should we be more skeptical of technology in our society? In Women Behind the Wheel, Nichols argues convincingly that only by understanding the many ways the car has changed us, can we hope to prepare ourselves for this brave new era.
Thursday, April 18, 2024
Modern Theatre
525 Washington Street
Boston, MA
6:00 p.m. In-person and Live via Zoom
This event is free and open to the public.
Past Events
Join us for a book talk with acclaimed Boston Globe film critic Odie Henderson upon the publication of his new book.
A definitive account of Blaxploitation cinema—the freewheeling, often shameless, and wildly influential genre—from a distinctive voice in film history and criticism.
In 1971, two films grabbed the movie business, shook it up, and launched a genre that would help define the decade. Melvin Van Peebles’s Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, an independently produced film about a male sex worker who beats up cops and gets away, and Gordon Parks’s Shaft, a studio-financed film with a killer soundtrack, were huge hits, making millions of dollars. Sweetback upended cultural expectations by having its Black rebel win in the end, and Shaft saved MGM from bankruptcy. Not for the last time did Hollywood discover that Black people went to movies too. The Blaxploitation era was born.
Written by film critic Odie Henderson, Black Caesars and Foxy Cleopatras is a spirited history of a genre and the movies that he grew up watching, which he loves without irony (but with plenty of self-awareness and humor). Blaxploitation was a major trend, but it was never simple. The films mixed self-empowerment with exploitation, base stereotypes with essential representation that spoke to the lives and fantasies of Black viewers. The time is right for a reappraisal, understanding these films in the context of the time, and exploring their lasting influence.
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
Sargent Hall
120 Tremont Street, 4th Floor Faculty Dining Room
Boston, MA
7:00 p.m., in-person and live via Zoom
This event is free and open to the public.
Past Events
Suffolk University’s Ford Hall Forum; Moakley Archive & Institute; Office of Diversity, Access, and Inclusion; GBH Forum Network; and The Boston Desegregation & Busing Initiative present:
50 Years After Busing: Race, Housing, and Education Equity in Boston
Join our moderator Stephanie Leydon, executive producer of digital video at GBH News, and panelists Whitney Demetrius, director of fair housing and municipal engagement, Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association (CHAPA), Adrienne Dixson, PhD, executive director, Education and Civil Rights Initiative and professor of educational leadership studies, University of Kentucky, and Ira Jackson, research fellow at the Mossavar/Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School and visiting lecturer, Department of Sociology, Harvard University, for the second in a series examining the lasting impacts of the landmark decision to desegregate Boston’s Public Schools in 1974.
The panelists will explore the relationship between access to affordable housing and educational opportunity in Boston’s public schools, nearly fifty years after the school busing crisis. They will discuss the impact of race-based discriminatory housing policies and education funding formulas while addressing the more recent problems of gentrification and housing affordability. How does Boston position itself to compete with its suburban neighbors when it comes to educational outcomes?
Join us and lend your voice to this important conversation.
THURSDAY, February 15, 2024
6:00 P.M. LIVE VIA ZOOM
This program is free and open to the public
Click here to register for Zoom
