A panel conversation responding to the ongoing attacks on teaching accurate history, with Shevrin Jones, Laura Briggs, Raphael Rogers, and Jennifer Rich, moderated by Barbara Krauthamer.For not the first time in U.S. history, the content of public school curricula is being challenged across the country. Since January 2021, 41 states have introduced…

2021 HISTORY WRITER IN RESIDENCE PUBLIC LECTURE BY GREGG MITMAN The word “hotspot” can mean a place where fires flare, where novel viruses appear, where human rage erupts. In the turbulence of ecological, public health, and political crises, hotspots portend disaster and death. Too often hotspots and the menaces they pose are only made visible, onl…

A conversation with Landfall director Cecilia Aldarondo, with an introduction and moderation by Patricia Montoya.Through shard-like glimpses of everyday life in post-Hurricane María Puerto Rico, Landfall is a cautionary tale for our times. Set against the backdrop of protests that toppled the US colony’s governor in 2019, the film offers a prismati…

2021 James Baldwin LectureYoung people have transformed the climate and environmental movement. Youth of color and youth from the Global South have been especially central in this process. In this conversation, Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate and executive director of the Sunrise Movement Varshini Prakash ‘15 reflected on their personal exp…

The gravity of climate change and the environmental emergency demands not just attention but concerted action. But what form will that action take? Will states exercise more authority to impose solutions without democratic process? Will corporations seize opportunities to rebuild devastated communities, privatizing land and infrastructure in the pr…

Feinberg Series Panel Discussion with Bill McKibben, Robert Pollin, Thea Riofrancos & Eve Vogel, moderated by Ashwin Ravikumar with an introduction by Kevin Young.We have only a few years left to make deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions. This event will reflect on the implications of the U.S. election results for meeting this imperative. What are…

Feinberg Series Panel Discussion with Angélica Maria Bernal, Nigel Clark, Gregory Cushman, and Andrea Marston, moderated by Kiran Asher and with an introduction by Heidi Scott. November 18, 2020Human exploitation of the underground has been central to the unfolding climate and ecological emergency. Inseparable from empire-building, colonialism, and…

Feinberg Series lecture on the disappearing snails of Hawaii by Thom van Dooren.Thom van Dooren is a field philosopher, storyteller and Associate Professor, University of Sydney and the University of Oslo. Moderated by Malcolm Sen with an introduction by Brian Ogilvie.The Hawaiian Islands were once home to one of the most diverse assemblages of ter…

UMass Amherst Department of History Distinguished Annual Lecture and Feinberg Series Lecture by Mike Davis, moderated by Vijay PrasahdCalifornia Burning: The Apocalyptic Trinity of Climate Change, Alien Plant Invasion and ExurbanizationAn activist and writer, Mike Davis is the author of 20 books, including City of Quartz, Ecology of Fear, Planet of…

Educator, writer, public scholar and spoken word artist Walidah Imarisha explores the history of sci-fi and social change, sharing tools for using science fiction as a practice ground for social justice strategizing and vision. Imarisha is co-author with adrienne maree brown of Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements.…

Domestic workers are drawing lessons from past movements to organize on a massive scale and build feminist economies. A panel conversation with Linda Burnham (National Domestic Workers Alliance), Monique Tú Nguyen (Matahari Women Workers’ Center), and Jennifer Guglielmo (Putting History in Domestic Workers’ Hands), moderated by Diana Sierra Becerra…

Venezuelan communes are radical experiments in grassroots democracy and economic production that attempt to “concretize utopia.” Atenea Jiménez (Network of Communers, Venezuela) and George Ciccariello-Maher (Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, New York) examine the communes’ history, achievements, and present challenges. Presented by…

An exploration of efforts to create intentional communities based on participants' visions of just and harmonious social relationships. Often described as “utopian,” these movements have focused on realizing transformative visions on a small scale in the “here and now,” and were envisioned by participants as an opportunity to live rightly even with…

In the 1980s, Salvadoran revolutionaries fought to overthrow a U.S.-backed dictatorship and build popular democratic alternatives. Many people in Massachusetts supported them. Former guerrilla Carlos Henríquez Consalvi, peasant organizer Rosa Rivera, and Pioneer Valley Workers Center immigrant rights organizer Diana Sierra Becerra will discuss the …

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II is president of Repairers of the Breach, national co-chair of the 2018 Poor People’s Campaign, and leader of an alliance of more than 200 progressive organizations best known as “Moral Monday.” This coalition has led justice work in North Carolina for a decade and inspired organizing across the nation. Delivered at UMa…

A panel discussion with Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (author of From #Blacklivesmatter to Black Liberation and How We Get Free), Kali Akuno (Cooperation Jackson), and Mary Hooks (Southerners on New Ground), moderated by Toussaint Losier (UMass). Presented by the 2018 Feinberg Series. Sept 6, 2018By UMass Amherst History Department

This lecture by Jen Manion (Amherst College) explores how the penitentiary system in early America exploited racist ideologies, gender norms, sexual desire and antipathy toward the poor to justify its existence and expansion. Presented by the UMass Amherst's 2016-2017 Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series. Nov 15, 2016. Image Credit: "Freedo…

A panel discussion on the history and current realities of the migrant detention regime with David Hernández (Latina/o Studies, Mount Holyoke College), Carl Lindskoog (History, Raritan Valley Community College), Megan Kludt, (Curran and Berger Immigration Law), and Mizue Aizeki (Immigrant Defense Project). This event was part of the 2016-2017 Feinb…

An evening of conversation with local and national voices on police violence in Springfield, MA and beyond, featuring Kissa Owens (mother of Delano Walker), Andrea Ritchie (attorney, writer, Soros Justice Fellow), ShaeShae Quest (Out Now), and Rhonda Y. Williams (scholar and community organizer). Presented by the University of Massachusetts Amherst…

Lecture by award-winning historian Talitha L. LeFlouria (University of Virginia) on the plight of post-Civil War black women prisoners and their day-to-day struggles to overcome work-related abuses and violence, based on LeFlouria's award winning book. This event was the 2016 UMass/Five College Graduate Program in History Distinguished Annual Lectu…

"Racist and Systemic Police Violence, Chicago Style." Lecture by longtime civil rights attorney Flint Taylor of the People's Law Offices on police torture and violence in Chicago, including the 1969 assassination of Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, the torture of African American suspects by police commander Jon Burge, and the rec…

"Women, Incarceration and Carceral Feminism," Feinberg Series Keynote Panel with Andrea James, Mariame Kaba, Herschelle Reaves, and Elias Vitulli. Moderated by Victoria Law. Presented by the UMass Amherst History Department's 2016-2017 Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series, The U.S. in the Age of Mass Incarceration: http://www.umass.edu/hist…