February 2018

Franke Lectures organized by Crystal Feimster and Joe Fischel to explore ‘New Orleans in the American Imaginary’

“New Orleans in the American Imaginary” is the topic for the spring Franke Lectures in the Humanities sponsored by the Whitney Humanities Center.
 
This semester’s series has been organized in conjunction with the Yale College seminar taught by Joseph Fischel, associate professor of women’s, gender and sexuality studies, and Crystal Feimster, associate professor of African American studies. Natasha Trethewey will deliver the opening lecture, “‘Bellocq’s Ophelia’: New Orleans in the American Imaginary,” at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 28.
 

NYT Opinion: "How the Right Co-Opts Frederick Douglass" by David Blight

Two hundred years ago, one of the most important Americans was born close to the Tuckahoe River on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Frederick Bailey didn’t know the exact date of his birth, so he chose Feb. 14. Twenty years later, when he escaped from slavery, he became Frederick Douglass. By the time of his death in 1895, he had become one of the greatest orators and writers of the century.