Addressing the debate surrounding immigration policy in the United States and the overall perception of immigrants, Faviana Rodriguez will discuss her practice of creating unapologetic art pieces and the growing influence of artists in the political realm.

Rodriguez is the Artistic Director of CultureStr/ke, a national network of professional and emerging artists, social change experts, and creative producers who seek to support the national and global arts movement around immigration. 

Favianna Rodriguez will talk about her art practice creating powerful and unapologetic art pieces and will share snippets of Migration is Beautiful, the recent documentary highlighting her creative projects. Rodriguez is the Artistic Director of CultureStr/ke, a national network of professional and emerging artists, social change experts, and creative producers who seek to support the national and global arts movement around immigration. 

What I Am Thinking About Now: Professor Geri Augusto (Africana Studies)

What I Am Thinking About Now: Professor Paja Faudree (Anthropology)

This conversation reflects on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s significant but under examined 1964 visit to West and East Berlin. King managed to cross into East Berlin without a passport and spoke to immense crowds on both sides of the Berlin wall. He spoke urgently about segregation in the US, the Berlin wall, divided societies world wide and the importance of emphasizing a "common humanity." 

Discussion led by Taylor Branch, Author of "The King Years: Historic Moments in the Civil Rights Movement"

This two-day exploratory seminar on the law, social movements, and criminalization of race and ethnicity brought together scholars, theorists, advocates, artists, and activists from across the country to examine the dynamic relationship between the "two I's" of immigation and incarceration and discuss how that relationship works in complex ways to criminalize and/or ostracize people living in predominatly Latino, black, and poor white communities. 

The documentary “The House I Live In” offers a poignant look inside U.S. drug policy and its far-reaching effects. Immediately following the screening, audience members are invited to join an improvisational brainstorm session on racialized mass incarceration & immigration inspired by techniques from Theater of the Oppressed. This participatory activity will be led by distinguished artists, image theater experts and scholars: Bryonn Bain, Lani Guinier, Tim Mitchell, Gerald Torres, and Tricia Rose. 

What I Am Thinking About Now: Professor Matthew Guterl (American Studies, Africana Studies)

In the midst of the Cold War, Josephine Baker was not your typical radical. She lived in a castle. She wore the best clothes.  She operated a Disney-esque theme park. And she adopted a mixed race family.  So what, Guterl has been asking, is so radical about that?  And what does this story matter today?

Brown's first African-American alumnus, Inman Page (class of 1877) led a remarkable career as an educator, following his escape from slavery and his years at Brown. Near the end of his life, in the 1930s, he profoundly influenced a teenage boy who grew up to become the great novelist Ralph Ellison. In 1979, Ellison came to Brown to talk about his mentor and the lasting impact of Brown on all of the students who fell under Page's influence (literally, in Ellison's case).

Brown University professors offer brief commentaries on the racial implications and various aspects of policing practices like Stop and Frisk, before opening the floor for discussion.

Stefano Bloch, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Urban Studies Program and Cogut Center for the Humanities

Nancy Khalek, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies

Linda Quiquivix, Postdoctoral Fellow in Critical Global Humanities, Cogut Center for the Humanities

Tricia Rose, Director, CSREA