Spring 201549 / 48

• Emily Hainze, PhD candidate in English and Comparative Literature , Columbia University

How do we teach the history of imprisonment in the United States when mass incarceration continues to shape our current social landscape?  Heyman Center Public Humanities Fellow Emily Hainze will speak about a curriculum project she is developing in partnership with the Prison Public Memory Project, a non-profit dedicated to recovering, preserving and interpreting the historical artifacts and cultural memory of prisons, and the communities with which they are entwined.  The talk will focus on the process of bringing archival material from the Hudson Training School for Girls (a juvenile prison facility that existed in Hudson, NY from 1904-1975) into a classroom setting.

• Glenn E. Martin, Criminal Justice Reform Advocate,
• Thenjiwe McHarris, Human Rights at Home Campaign Director, US Human Rights Network
• Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Executive Director, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
• Valerie Purdie-Vaughns, Director, Laboratory of Intergroup Relations and the Social Mind
• Alondra Nelson, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies, Columbia University

The Center for Justice at Columbia presents Race and Justice: Past, Present and Future. This roundtable examines the history of race-based injustices in America, how those practices have informed the criminal justice system today, and what implications they have for the future. The roundtable features Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad; historian, author and media commentator who is the Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; and Glenn E. Martin, a national leader and criminal justice reform advocate and founder of JustLeadershipUSA. They are joined by Columbia Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of the Laboratory of Intergroup Relations and the Social Mind, Valerie Purdie-Vaughns, and Human Rights at Home Campaign Director, Thenjiwe McHarris. The roundtable is moderated by Columbia Dean of Social Science and Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies, Alondra Nelson.

• Mary Grace Albanese, PhD candidate in English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University

What is the stuff of history? Who writes it, who is allowed to speak in it - and in what language? Heyman Center Public Humanities Fellow Mary Grace Albanese will speak on a nascent oral history project that aims to gather, publish, and translate Haitian and Haitian-American narratives. The talk will focus particularly on the role of oral history in a Kreyol-French-English linguistic context and, more broadly, on the challenge of translation to the historian.

• John Lucas, Filmmaker,
• Jamal Joseph, Professor of Professional Practice, School of the Arts, Columbia University
• Jason Pollard, Film Editor,
• Sam Pollard, Producer, Director and Film Editor,

The Heyman Center for the Humanities and the Center for Justice at Columbia present a film screening and discussion of the documentary film "The Cooler Bandits."  Over twenty years ago, four men committed a series of restaurant robberies during which they locked the restaurant employees in the walk-in coolers, gaining them the moniker "the Cooler Bandits." Although no one was physically injured, the group received collective prison sentences of up to 500 years. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with the Director, John Lucas, along with two of “the Cooler Bandits,” Donovan Harris and Richard Roderick. Joining them will be the film’s producer and editor, Sam and Jason Pollard, respectively. The discussion will be moderated by Columbia School of the Arts Professor Jamal Joseph.

• Claudia Rankine, Poet,
• Dawn Lundy Martin, Essayist and Poet,
• Messiah Ramkissoon, Poet, Emcee, and Youth Activist,
• Timothy Donnelly, Author, Chair of the Writing Program, Columbia University School of the Arts
• Monica Miller, Associate Professor of English, Barnard College

An evening of justice poetry featuring Claudia Rankine, award-winning poet and author of Citizen, finalist for the 2014 National Book Award; along with Dawn Lundy Martin, award-winning poet and activist, and Messiah Ramkissoon, poet, emcee, youth activist, and three-time winner at The Apollo. Joining the dialogue is Columbia School of the Arts Professor Timothy Donnelly, award-winning poet and Poetry Editor of Boston Review.