VCU news

By Brian McNeill

Editor's note: Bob Woodward’s upcoming talk at Virginia Commonwealth University has been moved to the W.E. Singleton Center for the Performing Arts, 922 Park Ave. in response to anticipated crowd size. For more details, visit: news.vcu.edu

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Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, author and associate editor of The Washington Post Bob Woodward will speak at Virginia Commonwealth University in September, two weeks after the release of his latest book, “Fear: Trump in the White House.”

Woodward, who shared a Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for coverage of the Watergate scandal with Carl Bernstein and in 2003 as lead reporter for coverage of the 9/11 attacks, will speak on “Truth, Freedom of Expression, Democracy and the Age of the American Presidency.”

Woodward, the author of 18 national nonfiction bestselling books, will speak at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 25,  in the W.E. Singleton Center for the Performing Arts, 922 Park Ave.

The event, which will be free and open to the public, is part of the fall 2018 speaker series of the Humanities Research Center in the College of Humanities and Sciences. It is co-sponsored by VCU’s Office of the President and the Richard T. Robertson School of Media and Culture.

“We invite our neighbors across Richmond — as well as students, staff and faculty at VCU — to join us for these exciting talks on a broad range of issues,” said Humanities Research Center Director Richard Godbeer, Ph.D. “Together these talks demonstrate the vitality of the humanities and their relevance to the issues we face today as we head further into the 21st century.”

Hong Cheng, Ph.D., director of the Robertson School, called Woodward’s visit “a golden opportunity for Robertson students to listen to this legendary and iconic journalist” in person, and said the school is thrilled and proud to host him.

“I have no doubt our students will deepen their understanding of how to pursue truth and how to protect democracy as journalists through Mr. Woodward's visit,” Cheng said. “I also hope our students will learn from this world-famous hero the importance, excitement and challenge of journalism. A deep understanding and intense love for this profession are especially essential for these future journalists in this ever-changing and increasingly complex world.”

Another highlight of the center’s fall speaker program will be Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Ph.D., who will visit VCU to talk about her recent book, “Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge.”

Dunbar, the Charles and Mary Beard Professor of History at Rutgers University and director of the Program in African American History at the Library Company of Philadelphia, will speak at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 5, in the auditorium of VCU’s Institute for Contemporary Art, 601 W. Broad St.

Dunbar’s talk, “Declaring Freedom from a Founding Father: The Life of Ona Judge and Her Escape from the Washingtons,” will be free and open to the public. Free tickets are available at https://icavcu.org/lectures/lecture-dunbar/.

The event is presented in partnership between the Humanities Research Center and the ICA as part of its inaugural exhibit, “Declaration.”

“Dr. Dunbar is an engaging, dynamic speaker and a brilliant historian,” Godbeer said. “The story she will share with us is deeply moving. Her talk will pave the way for a major speaker series next year commemorating the 400th anniversary of the first recorded arrival of Africans in Virginia and British North America. That series will consider the subsequent experiences of Africans and African-Americans in Virginia, British America and the United States and the continued impact of that history today.”

Also this fall, the Humanities Research Center will continue its partnership with the religious studies program of VCU’s School of World Studies and thePowell-Edwards Lecture Series in Religion and the Arts to bring to campus Fariba Enteshari, founder and executive director of the Rumi Educational Center. Enteshari will speak on “Rumi’s Poetry and His Vision of Love Among Faith Traditions.”

The center also will continue and conclude its series, “Gender TRANSgressions, Past and Present,” featuring leading scholars working in LGBTQIA+ studies. These four events are co-sponsored by the Office of the President, the Division of Inclusive Excellence, the LGBTQIA+ Hub Action Committee and the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies.

And the center will continue its “Meet VCU’s Authors” series, in partnership with VCU Libraries, with Brooke Newman, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of History, who will speak on her book, “A Dark Inheritance: Blood, Race and Sex in Colonial Jamaica,” and Incoronata (Nadia) Inserra, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Focused Inquiry in University College, who will speak on her book, “Global Tarantella: Reinventing Southern Italian Folk Music and Dances.”

The full schedule of the Humanities Research Center’s fall speaker series is below. All events are free:

“Declaring Freedom from a Founding Father: The Life of Ona Judge and Her Escape from the Washingtons”Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Ph.D., Charles and Mary Beard Professor of History, Rutgers University

Wednesday, Sept. 5, 6 p.m., Institute for Contemporary Art, 601 W. Broad St.

RSVP at: icavcu.org/lectures/lecture-dunbar/Presented in partnership with the Institute for Contemporary Art.

 

“A Dark Inheritance: Blood, Race and Sex in Colonial Jamaica” Brooke Newman, Ph.D., associate professor of history and associate director of the Humanities Research Center

Monday, Sept. 17, 4 p.m., Multipurpose Room, Second Floor (Room 250), Cabell Library, 901 Park Ave.

Newman’s new book provides a major reassessment of the development of race and subjecthood in the British Atlantic. It shows how colonial racial ideologies rooted in fictions of blood ancestry at once justified hereditary African slavery and barred members of marginalized groups from claiming the inherited rights of British subjects.

Part of the fall 2018 “Meet VCU’s Authors” series, in partnership with VCU Libraries.

 

“Truth, Freedom of Expression, Democracy and the Age of the American Presidency” Bob Woodward, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, author and associate editor of The Washington Post

Tuesday, Sept. 25, 6 p.m., Lecture Hall (Room 303), Cabell Library, 901 Park Ave.

Co-sponsored by the Office of the President and the Richard T. Robertson School of Media and Culture.

 

“Global Tarantella: Reinventing Southern Italian Folk Music and Dances” Incoronata (Nadia) Inserra, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Focused Inquiry, University College

Tuesday, Oct. 2, 4 p.m., Multipurpose Room, Second Floor (Room 250), Cabell Library, 901 Park Ave.

Examining tarantella’s changing image and role among Italians and Italian Americans, Inserra illuminates how factors such as tourism, translation and world music venues have transformed the tarantella cultural tradition, prompting a reassessment of gender relations in the Italian South and helping to create space for Italian and Italian-American women as they reclaim gendered aspects of the genre.

Part of the fall 2018 “Meet VCU’s Authors” series, in partnership with VCU Libraries.

 

“Arresting Dress: Cross-Dressing, Law and Fascination in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco” Clare Sears, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology, San Francisco State University

Wednesday, Oct. 10, 4 p.m., Multipurpose Room, Second Floor (Room 250), Cabell Library, 901 Park Ave.

This event is part of the speaker series “Gender TRANSgressions, Past and Present.”

 

“True Sex: The Lives of Trans Men at the Turn of the Twentieth Century” Emily Skidmore, Ph.D., assistant professor of history, Texas Tech University

Monday, Oct, 29, 4 p.m., VCU Globe, Room 1030J, 830 W. Grace St.

This event is part of the speaker series “Gender TRANSgressions, Past and Present.”

 

“Rumi’s Poetry and His Vision of Love Among Faith Traditions” Fariba Enteshari, founder and executive director of the Rumi Educational Center

Wednesday, Nov. 7, 4 p.m., Cabell Library Lecture Hall, 901 Park Ave.

In partnership with the Program in Religious Studies and the Powell-Edwards Lecture Series in Religion and the Arts

 

“Making Fairyland in Twentieth-Century Miami: Gender, Sexual and Racial Transgressions” Julio Capó Jr., Ph.D., associate professor of history, University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Wednesday, Nov. 14, 4 p.m., VCU Globe, Room 1030J, 830 W. Grace St.

This event is part of the speaker series “Gender TRANSgressions, Past and Present.”

 

“Transgender Vlogs on Thailand: Transnational Imaginaries of Gender Reassignment Surgery” Aren Aizura, Ph.D., assistant professor of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies, University of Minnesota

Wednesday, Nov. 28, 4 p.m., Multipurpose Room, Second Floor (Room 250), Cabell Library, 901 Park Ave.

This event is part of the speaker series “Gender TRANSgressions, Past and Present.”