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SPARK Archive

SPARKs are designed to ignite your thinking about change and how it happens. Through interviews, book talks, field trips, film screenings, and more, you'll get to know the women and non-binary people leading change in a wide range of areas, and learn more about the hard, but important, work of building a better future.

Below is an archive of SPARKs and associated resources. If you would like to recommend additional resources for any of these topics, please email athenacenter@barnard.edu.

In 2021-2023, funding for SPARK was provided by the Harnisch Foundation. 

2024-2025 SPARK :: Transition

Saturday, August 31, 2024 at 1 pm

Registration required.

Join the Director of the Athena Center for Leadership, Umbreen Bhatti '00, for a walking tour of Harlem as a site of transition and transformation for the city and country. On our walk, we will explore the birth of Harlem as a Black Mecca, its transition into the Renaissance period, its role in the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, and its contemporary stories as a neighborhood that faces both challenges and opportunities. Along the way, we will learn about historic icons like Arturo Schomburg, Langston Hughes, Madame CJ Walker, Florence Mills, Ella Fitzgerald, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., W. E. B. DuBois, and countless others. The tour will be led by community historian Asad Dandia of New York Narratives.

Space is limited. Registration is closed. 

September 10, 2024 at 8:30 pm

Join the Athena Center for Leadership and the Office of Community Engagement and Inclusion for a debate watch party on September 10th! Whether you're an American or not, whether you're a Democrat, Republican, or Independent or unaffiliated, this debate promises to be a unique opportunity to witness history in the making. Kimberly Peeler-Allen, co-founder of Higher Heights, will provide expert commentary.

Open to all Barnard and Columbia students, but space (and pizza!) are limited - so be sure to register. Registration is now closed. 

October 1, 2024 at 8:30pm 

Join the Athena Center for Leadership and the Office of Community Engagement and Inclusion for a debate watch party on October 1! Whether you're an American or not, whether you're a Democrat, Republican, or Independent or unaffiliated, this debate promises to be a unique opportunity to witness history in the making. 

Open to all Barnard and Columbia Students, but space (and pizza!) are limited - so be sure to register. Registration is now closed. 

2023-2024 SPARK :: Dialogue

 Monday, September 25, 2023 at 5 pm

Columbia Graduate School of Journalism | Pulitzer Hall | Joseph Pulitzer World Room, 3rd Floor

2950 Broadway New York, NY 10027

Who tells the story matters. This power-packed panel of women newsroom leaders are demonstrating that the people closest to the story should become the storytellers of record. Leveraging local in bold new ways, Cristi Hegranes (Global Press) trains and employs local women journalists in some of the world's least-covered places; Yukari Kane (Prison Journalism Project) is training incarcerated writers to elevate new perspectives on the criminal justice system, and Akoto Ofori-Atta (Capital B) centers Black voices and partners with the communities it serves. Moderated by Lorraine Ali of the LA Times, this dialogue probed challenging issues of audience, representation and how changing the storyteller can help us all better understand the world and our places in it. RSVP for this event has ended. 

This event was presented by the MacArthur Foundation in collaboration with the Columbia Journalism School and the Athena Center for Leadership. 

October 23, 2023 :: Dr. Erika Kitzmiller, term assistant professor in education studies, led a conversation about how dialogue with educators and youth has been central to building trust with the communities and schools where she engages in practitioner-based advocacy and research to showcase the challenges and possibilities for expanding educational justice in under-resourced urban public schools. 

November 2, 2023 :: Professor Tamara J. Walker, Associate Professor of Africana Studies and author, most recently, of Beyond The Shores: A History of African Americans Abroad, invited students interested in all things travel to discuss whether it’s possible to be a global citizen in an ethical and sustainable way. What might that look like in the age of travel influencing, pandemics, climate change, and anti-racism? She also reflected on her own travel experiences and shared insights from her work with her nonprofit The Wandering Scholar, which makes international education opportunities accessible to high schoolers from low-income backgrounds.

We Need More People: On Finding Common Ground In Our Work To Build The World We Want To Inhabit :: The Second Annual Grace Lee Boggs ’35 Lecture with Mariame Kaba, co-author of Let This Radicalize You

Thursday, November 9, 2023 at 5:30 pm, Diana Event Oval 

Mariame Kaba, longtime organizer, educator, librarian and co-author of Let This Radicalize You, joined us for a conversation with Barnard student, Emily Bach, and Athena Center for Leadership Director Umbreen Bhatti '00 about the role of dialogue in driving change. 

This event was presented by Barnard's Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, the Athena Center for Leadership, Barnard Center for Research on Women, the Office of Community Engagement and Inclusion at Barnard, and Barnard's Young Alumnae Council. 

Power of Stories Workshop

Friday, December 8 | 9am - 1pm
Event Oval, Diana Center

Everyone in the Barnard community has experienced firsthand the impact words can have, especially in the aftermath of violence or in ongoing crises. In this moment of immense loss of life, political strife, and public assembly, many in this community are using their words to effect change. There is no substitute for political protest and the staggering meaning it can make and break on the public stage.

This half-day workshop is not a substitute for political protest or speech, but another outlet for individual and collective sensemaking in profoundly troubling times. The goal is to bring students from a variety of positionalities and political perspectives together to interpret relevant poetry and literature surrounding the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian conflict, to write or tell their own stories (fictional or biographical), and together to read and interpret those stories with as much rigor and respect as published works of literature. We invite students to recommend poetry, short fiction, or excerpts from novels for the group to read at the beginning of the workshop. We seek students who wish to draw on their own creative energies to share something of their experience with others in a space devoted to careful reading, active listening, and self-expression.  Breakfast and lunch will be served.

Dinner and Dialogue

  • Monday, October 30 :: Feminism
  • Monday, December 4 :: Political Engagement
  • Monday, February 12 :: News
  • Monday, March 25 :: Power

Join Athena for Dinner and Dialogue, a series of delicious dinners and quality conversations about topics that we don't often find ourselves having the right time, space, or conditions to discuss. 

Each dinner will take place at the NYC home of an alum and will bring together up to 5 students and 5 alums for a lively, facilitated conversation that we hope will leave you feeling like you have a better understanding of another perspective and like you're part of an amazing community - because you are. 

Athena visited Peoplehood's flagship NYC location to learn about their mission “to equip people with space, support and skills to build deeper, more meaningful relationships with others and themselves.

Founded by the same people that created SoulCycle, Peoplehood provides 60-minute sessions called “Gathers,” where participants practice active listening, the #1 relationship-building skill and a key component in healthy dialogue. To get better at listening you need to practice. Peoplehood is that practice! 

2022-2023 SPARK :: On Protest

September 20, 2022

Sponsored by the Barnard Zine Library

From documenting protests to illustrating interviews, personal and political minicomics give you the power to witness your world. During this workshop, participants discussed how nonfiction comics are a powerful format for journalism, took a crack at drawing an interview comic, and created short zines about their own identities. 

September 28, 2022

The Barnard Center for Research on Women, Barnard Archives, and Special Collections are hosting a conversation about organizing, advocacy, oral history, and the role of archives, with former members of the Coalition for Women Prisoners, founded in 1994 to support women impacted by the criminal legal system in New York State. 

Dr. Erika Kitzmiller :: September 29, 2022

Dr. Kitzmiller, faculty in education, led a discussion about how her own public education advocacy and protests in Philadelphia shaped her teaching and scholarship. She was be joined by Paloma Mallan '23, a student in the education program.

Dr. Sandra Goldmark :: October 4, 2022

"The year I finally got arrested. (Weirdly, not at a climate march). And how it changed the way I think about protest." A conversation and lunch with Director of Sustainability and theater professor Sandra Goldmark.

Dr. Jennie Kassanoff :: October 19, 2022

Jennie Kassanoff, Adolph S. and Effie Ochs Professor of American Studies and History, led a discussion about her research into voting rights protests, Mississippi civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer and questions of food justice in mid-century Mississippi. Is it better to protest in the streets or at the ballot box?

 

October 13, 2022

To view the recorded Q&A, click here.

Truth Tellers is a new documentary film chronicling the lives of courageous Americans fighting for peace, racial equity, environmental justice and indigenous rights through the eyes of Robert Shetterly, a long time activist and artist. The film explores the intersection of these issues stressing the urgency of coming together to confront them and galvanizing our resolve to uphold our country’s founding ideals. Truth Tellers is both a story of Shetterly’s art and activism and a history lesson of what is required of a citizen in a democracy.

What are the intersections of art and activism? Why is it necessary to immortalize stories of change? We explored this and much more in a Q&A following the film with activist Maulian Dana about her experiences and her collaboration with artist Robert Shetterly.

October 6, 2022

In honor of LGBTQ history month and Barnard's Queer Awareness month, we invited students to join Barnard's Artemis Rising Foundation Filmmaker Fellow, Sekiya Dorsett, for a screening of her documentary, Stonewall 50: The Revolution, followed by a panel discussion on the connections/divergences between LGBTQ activism and the Civil Rights Movement.

Links to watch all four episodes of Stonewall 50: The Revolution are available on NBC here:https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/stonewall-50-film

Panelists included Brooke Sopelsa, Editorial Director of NBC Out, and Jah Elyse Sayers, queer researcher and organizer, as well as other guests.

This SPARK event was held in partnership with Barnard's Film Program. 

October 7, 2022

This event was followed by a field trip to Stonewall. 

October 17, 2022

Click here to view the recording.

Barnard faculty member Manijeh Moradian and attorney and advocate Azadeh Shahshahani were in conversation about the women-led protests in Iran that have captured the attention of women around the world. What are Iranian women and men fighting for, and why? How can we understand this uprising in the historical context of Iranian society and also in relation to movements against patriarchal authoritarianism globally?

This virtual conversation was moderated by Umbreen Bhatti '00, Constance Hess Williams '66 Director of the Athena Center for Leadership at Barnard, as part of SPARK, Athena's 2022-2023 series on protest, and was co-sponsored by the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Barnard Center for Research on Women.

 

Abolitionist Feminism in the Archive 

A conversation with Sarah Haley (Columbia University), Emily Thuma (University of Washington, Tacoma), and Eve Glazier (BC '23)

Wednesday, October 26, 6-7:30 p.m

Presented by the Barnard College Archives and Special Collections

About the event

Over the past year, archivists at Barnard have been processing the collections of the New York Coalition for Women Prisoners, a formation led by formerly incarcerated people organizing against the gendered violence of the carceral state. Working with the materials of the CWP and its members has sparked significant reflection about the relationship between archives and the carceral state and, in turn, the implications of incorporating stories, narratives, and histories of anti-carceral organizing into the institutional archive as it currently exists. As scholars like Saidiya Hartman, Marisa Fuentes, and Jarrett Drake teach us, the archive—much like the prison—is a site of containment, one which confines, controls, and exerts ownership over knowledge to discipline our collective understanding of history and the present towards the needs and desires of the racial capitalist state.

With this in mind, what does it mean to archive the histories and narratives of incarcerated people when the archive itself is, in many ways, a carceral enclosure? What are the implications of holding collections of materials documenting anti-carceral struggles within universities like Columbia, which are deeply invested in maintaining systems of carcerality and fueling carceral expansion in their surrounding neighborhoods?

This panel brought together scholar-activists who have gone against the grain of the carceral archive to construct historical accounts that deepen geneaologies of anti-carceral organizing and propel today’s abolitionist feminist movements forward. Through grappling with these questions, we’ll begin to imagine the possibilities (or impossibilities) of an abolitionist feminist archive.

Students joined Athena for a field trip to the Paint the Protest exhibit at Off Paradise gallery (120 Walker Street, Manhattan).

Paint the Protest is a group exhibition honoring artists who center cultural dissent in their practices. The exhibit features established artists, as well as those outside the canon, and their commentaries on topical political demonstrations in a variety of mediums. In the curator's words, "this exhibition threads a needle between representation and real-world dissent. It features the work of artists who... portray the very language of opposition, the semiotics of rebellion."

 

Wednesday, January 25, 2023, 6 - 9 PM

Link to event recording

 

Over the past year, bills aimed at preventing boycotts of fossil fuels, firearms, and other industries have been introduced in dozens of states. These bills are nearly identical to the anti-boycott laws that have been passed in 34 states since 2015 and that specifically focus on boycotts of Israel.

Does the government have the power to condition jobs and investments on an individual or company having a particular political position? Should it? In June 2022, a federal appeals court upheld Arkansas’s anti-boycott law in Arkansas Times LP v. Waldrip, et al — a decision the ACLU has petitioned the Supreme Court to review and overturn.

A full house joined us for a screening of Boycott, a 2022 film that focuses on anti-boycott laws that require the recipient of state contracts to affirm that they will not engage in a boycott of Israel, and features the Arkansas Times publisher. The film was followed by a conversation with the director of the film, the news publisher featured in the film, and First Amendment experts about how anti-boycott legislation works, in what realms we might see it next, and what the future of this particular, powerful form of protest might look like.

Panelists included:

  • Julia Bacha, Director of Boycott
  • Ramya Krishnan, Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University
  • Alan Leveritt, Arkansas Times
  • Lawrence Glickman, Professor of American Studies at Cornell University

Moderated by Rozina Ali of New York Times Magazine.

Co-sponsored by the Athena Center for Leadership at Barnard College, the Barnard Center for Research on Women, the Barnard Film Program, and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

Natalia Ortiz, PhD Term Assistant Professor in Education: February 2, 2023. Students joined Dr. Ortiz for a lunchtime conversation about when and how her understanding of teaching shifted and evolved to one that would require protest and resistance both in and out of the classroom, as Freire reminds us, "still rejected by many people in spite of its obviousness, that education is a political act."

 

Rebecca M. Jordan-Young, PhD: April 20, 2023. Dr. Jordan-Young joined a small group of students for lunch and conversation about how the idea of protest has shaped her teaching, research, and work. Rebecca M. Jordan-Young, PhD, shares:

"Beginning with organizing protests in the 1980s that linked demands for campus divestment from South Africa to the struggle for racial justice in Philadelphia, my involvement in protest has involved a deep commitment to linking the ends with the means, and paying attention to process and my own privilege. When does effective protest require leading, and when does it require following and supporting?"

 

Wednesday, February 8, 2023

How do we visually represent our reproductive justice advocacy in social space? What is the importance of physical ephemera in protest movements today and in the past? In this workshop, students learned how to ideate and materialize designs centered on reproductive justice with the Design Center and Athena Center. Students created original collaborative designs and translated them to historically relevant material forms including buttons, posters, t-shirts, and patches. Through this hands-on process, students came away with material ephemera in support of the reproductive justice movement and learn new tools and making processes including screen printing, digital embroidery, and button making.

 

 

 

Wednesday, February 15, 2023

Students joined us for an engaging event on protest surveillance and how to avoid being surveilled. This event provided attendees with valuable information on how surveillance technologies are used to monitor and control protest movements and practical tips for avoiding surveillance and protecting your privacy while participating in protests.

We were joined by Will Owens, the director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project in the field of protest surveillance, who will provide an in-depth look at the latest technologies used by law enforcement and government agencies, as well as the potential implications of these technologies for civil liberties.

Monday, April 3, 2023

 

This fall, PBS released a stunning three-part series: The U.S. and the Holocaust. Co-directed by Sarah Botstein ‘94, the series sheds light on what the U.S government and Americans knew and did — and did not do — as Hitler rose to power. 

The Kraft Center, the Athena Center for Leadership at Barnard, and the Office of DEI collaborated to host a screening of a portion of the documentary which was followed by a conversation with Botstein, Avalon Fenster '24, and Deborah Lauter, Executive Director of The Olga Lengyel Institute for Holocaust Education and Human Rights. 

Watch The U.S. and the Holocaust - 

The Olga Lengyel Institute for Holocaust Education and Human Rights

 

 

April 18, 2023

“Society is a reflection, in part, of our cultural and creative industries, so for me being in the music business is also a form of protest, advocacy, [and] human rights work."

Binta Niambi Brown '95, Way Back Wednesday

The Athena Alum Network presented a fireside chat with Binta Niambi Brown '95 about her shift from a successful career in law into uncertainty - and ultimately, success once again - and how your work can be your stand. Today, Brown, the founder of omalilly projects, a full scale talent management company with record label and film/tv production services capacity, and consultancy, spends her days driving change in the entertainment industry. When do you know if you should make a change, and how do you do it once you've decided? Moderated by Reni Calister '11.

Follow omalilly projects:
Website   Instagram   Facebook   LinkedIn

Follow Togethxr:
Website   Instagram   Facebook   Twitter   LinkedIn

April 25, 2023

Barnard welcomed Ericka Huggins, photographer Stephen Shames, Angela LeBlanc-Ernest, and former members of the Black Panther Party, Yasmeen Majid and Claudio Chesson-Williams, to Barnard College in celebration of the new book Comrade Sisters: Women of the Black Panther Party. Our panelists talked about the diverse and crucial roles women played in the Black Panther Party, followed by a moderated Q&A and book signing. This event was free and open to the public (in person and online). 

Sponsored by Barnard Library and Academic Information Services, The Athena Center, The Barnard Center for Research on Women, Barnard's Africana Studies department, and The Digital Humanities Center.

2021-2022 SPARK

November 11, 2021

To view the SPARK video, click here.

Is the way you spend your money aligned with your values? Whether you're buying yourself a coffee or investing, the choices you make with your money matter. Click above to watch our conversation with Barnard alumna and entrepreneur Eva Yazhari ‘06 in which we discuss what conscious investing looks like and, for the entrepreneurs among us, how to build a business that attracts the attention of conscious investors.

This event was held in partnership with the Francine A. LeFrak Foundation Center for Well-Being.

If you are interested in learning more about the the good your money can do, please review the following list of resources (compiled by Anna Kohlasch BC '22):

February 22, 2022

To view the SPARK video, click here

The way forward for Black America is the way forward for America, argue Black thinkers in The Black Agenda, a compilation of essays that highlight the range and force of Black leadership in climate policy, criminal justice, healthcare, and more. Click above to see our conversation with Athena Fellow Mariame Sissoko ‘24 and editor of The Black Agenda, Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman, which explores what an equity lens and an anti-racist framework can look like and accomplish when applied to some of our most intractable challenges.

If you are interested in learning more, please review the following list of resources (complied by Molly Leahy '24):

December 2, 2021

To view the SPARK video, click here. (starts at 6.20)

Click above to watch this conversation with Akoto Ofori-Atta, Cofounder and Chief Audience Officer of Capital B, a Black-led, nonprofit local and national news organization reporting for Black communities across the country, launching early 2022.

Akoto and Lauren Williams, formerly SVP and Editor in Chief of Vox, have teamed up to create a first-of-its kind, local-national hybrid nonprofit news organization for Black Americans: Capital B. For too long, news organizations have failed to recognize the contributions of Black Americans and address the issues facing their communities. Newsrooms are still majority white and male and this influences what news is reported and how it’s communicated.

We were thrilled to be in conversation with Akoto and learn more about what journalism for underserved audiences can and should look like, and her journey to launch Capital B.

If you're interested in learning more, please review the following list of resources (compiled by Anna Kohlasch BC '22):

April 14, 2022

To view the SPARK video, click here.

Two+ years into a global pandemic, our cities — normally, vibrant, buzzing spaces for serendipity and community — feel… different. What’s changed? More importantly, what opportunities exist for us to design our cities at this point, taking our new realities into account? What could the city that never sleeps look like?

What would our cities look like if they centered our biological needs? To learn more, listen in to this conversation with Dr. Marishka Brown, Director of the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research (NCSDR), hosted by neuroscientist Maria de la Paz Fernandez and urban ecologist Elizabeth Cook, both members of Barnard’s faculty.

If you are interested in learning more, please review the following list of resources (complied with support from Molly Leahy '24):

  • “Divided We Sleep,” an article published by Science, provides a clear and in-depth look at how poor sleep disproportionately undermines the health of communities of color. (Several scientific studies about sleep and racial inequity are linked in this article for those who are interested.)
  • In addition to her role as Director of the National Center on Sleep Disorder Research, Dr. Brown chairs the working group for sleep health objectives in the Department of Health and Human Services’ Healthy People 2030, which sets data-driven national objectives to improve health and well-being over the next decade.
  • Research on sleep can be found here.
  • For more information on clinical trials, click here.
  • Research from Dr. Louis Ptacek on insomnia.
  • More information on Circadian Rhythm Sleep-Wake Disorders.
  • In August 2020, Dr. Brown spoke with Dr. Chandra Jackson, an investigator for environment and sleep research at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on sleep and health. 
  • In this editorial, Dr. Jackson and Dr. Dayna Johnson propose ideas for tackling sleep health disparities. 
  • In 2019, California became the first state to push back the start times at most public middle and high schools. Learn more about the law, its advantages, and the controversy here. 
  • Check out this short article “Good Sleep for Good Health” from the NIH about how good sleep improves brain performance, mood and health and for tips on how to get a better night’s sleep.
  • This TED-Ed video gives an overview of the benefits of a good night’s sleep for memory, and this TED video discusses 6 tips for better sleep.

And here are some direct links to research from Dr. Brown:

 

September 30, 2021

To view the SPARK video, click here. 

 

On September 1, 2021, Texas' Senate Bill 8, which effectively bans abortions after 6 weeks of pregnancy, went into effect. Click above to see our conversation with co-authors Kathryn Kolbert and Julie F. Kay about reproductive freedom - the threats and more importantly, what we can do about them. This conversation was moderated by Gaby Goldstein, Co-Founder of Sister District.

If you are interested in learning more about what you can do NOW to save reproductive freedom, please review the following list of resources (compiled by Anna Kohlasch BC '22):

 

January 26, 2022

To view the SPARK video, click here.

Kamal Sinclair is making the world more beautiful as the Executive System Co-Leader of the Guild of Future Architects. At its core, future architecture is a values-based, collaborative approach to actualizing systemic change. Click above to see our conversation with Kamal on how we can get to work building the world we want to live in, the art and practice of future architecture, and the potential for transformational impact to advance justice, inclusion and shared prosperity.

This event was held in partnership with Barnard's Design Center.

If you are interested in learning more, please review the following list of resources (complied by Molly Leahy '24):

October 18, 2021

To view the SPARK video, click here.

Black Americans have never owned more than a disproportionately small fraction of the nation’s wealth. In her book, The Color of Money, Mehrsa Baradaran highlights how credit policies and housing policies have embedded inequalities that have become self-perpetuating and challenges the notion that black banks and community self-help -- championed by activists and presidents alike -- can meaningfully reduce the racial wealth gap. Click above to see our conversation with Mehrsa about how we got here and what a path to real economic justice might look like. Merhsa was in conversation with Angela Simms, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Urban Studies at Barnard College. 

This event was held in partnership with the Francine A. LeFrak Foundation Center for Well-Being as well as Undesign The Redline @ Barnard.

If you are interested in learning more about the racial wealth gap, please review the following list of resources (compiled by Anna Kohlasch BC '22):

October 12, 2021

To view the SPARK video, click here.

How do you turn a hobby into a business? And how can that business lift up other women? Click above to see our conversation with Barnard alumna and entrepreneur Kaylin Marcotte ’12. Kaylin is the founder & CEO of JIGGY, a direct-to-consumer jigsaw puzzle brand on a mission to modernize and elevate the humble jigsaw, and support female artists around the world.

This event was held in partnership with the Francine A. LeFrak Foundation Center for Well-Being.

If you are interested in learning more about women's entrepreneurship, please review the following list of resources (compiled by Anna Kohlasch BC '22):

February 9, 2022

To view the SPARK video, click here.

An urgent and fractious national debate over public monuments has erupted in America. Some people risk imprisonment to tear down long-ignored hunks of marble; others form armed patrols to defend them. Why do we care so much about statues? And who gets to decide which ones should stay up and which should come down? Click above to see our conversation with Barnard alumna Erin Thompson, the country’s leading expert in the tangled aesthetic, legal, political, and social issues involved in such battles, in which Erin discusses all that protesting statues entails and her book, Smashing Statues, which traces the turbulent history of American monuments and its abundant ironies, starting with the enslaved man who helped make the statue of Freedom atop the US Capitol, to exploring the surprising motivations behind such contemporary flashpoints as the toppling of a statue of Columbus at the Minnesota State Capitol. Written with great verve and thoroughly researched, Smashing Statues gives readers the context they need to consider the fundamental question: Whose voices must be heard and whose pain must remain private?

This event was held in partnership with Barnard's American Studies, Anthropology, Art History, and Political Science Departments.

If you are interested in learning more, please review the following list of resources (complied by Molly Leahy '24):

  • Erin’s website
  • Click here to purchase her book, Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of American Monuments.
  • “What Does It Mean to Tear Down a Statue?,” a conversation with Erin in response to the destruction of confederate statues across the U.S. during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.
  • “Meet the Indigenous Activist Who Toppled Minnesota’s Christopher Columbus Statue,” an article by Erin which features Bad River Anishinaabe activist Mike Forcia, which tells the history of the oppression of Indigenous groups in Minnesota, and explains the motivations behind the protest which toppled the state capitol statue of Columbus.
  • Erin featured on Bloomberg News The Science Of discussing why people destroy monuments and the robust history of this practice.
  • “Ghosting the Confederacy,” a piece by Erin on the forgotten eugenicist history of Charlottesville, Virginia's Robert E. Lee statue––the focal point of violence during the 2017 Unite the Right rally––and the city’s decision on what to do with the monument. (In December 2021, the City Council of Charlottesville voted unanimously to donate the Lee monument to an African American heritage center that plans to melt the bronze statue and create a new piece of artwork.)

If you want to study this topic while at Barnard, Art History Professor Elizabeth Hutchinson teaches American Monument Cultures. Professor Hutchinson recommends that interested students read about the Equal Justice Initative’s Community Remembrance Project. Inspired by the ways our nation’s current era of mass incarceration is deeply rooted in America’s history of racial injustice, EJI is collaborating with communities to document and memorialize victims of racial violence and foster meaningful dialogue about race and justice. 

Monuments in New York City: opportunities, activism, and history

  • The New-York Historical Society presents Monuments: Commemoration and Controversy.
  • Currently, just five out of New York City’s 150 statues of historic figures depict women. She Built NYC is a public-arts campaign that aims to rectify this imbalance by installing monuments that honor pioneering women and celebrate their contributions to the city and beyond.
  • In 2014, non-profit organization Monumental Women formed with the goal of creating the first statue of real women in Central Park. (Historically, the only representation given women were statues of fictional characters like Alice in Wonderland and Mother Goose). In August 2020, the organization unveiled the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument, featuring Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony.
  • In November 2021, the New York City Public Design Commission, which oversees art at city-owned property, approved a plan to relocate a statue of Thomas Jefferson from the Council chambers at City Hall to the New-York Historical Society. Learn about the Commission’s decision and its complexity in this NYT article.
  • In 2017, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that New York City would conduct a “ninety-day review of all symbols of hate on city property.” (Find the report here.) This review included statues of Christopher Columbus which sparked outrage from the New York City public, especially among Italian-Americans. Read more about the protests and debates that ensued in this New Yorker article.