Authoritarian Currents in American Democracy: Historical Lessons and Present Risks

Friday, October 3, 2025 | 4:00-5:30 pm ET

Location: Maxwell Auditorium

What can America’s past teach us about the threats facing democracy today? In this conversation, Jamelle Bouie from the New York Times and Robert Mickey from the University of Michigan, will explore how authoritarian currents have emerged throughout U.S. history, how institutions and movements have responded, and what those lessons mean for our present moment. From struggles over race and representation to the erosion of democratic norms, the panel will grapple with the risks ahead and the possibilities for renewal.

Registration is recommended, more information can be found here.

Stitching our Stories: Threads of Self, Community and Future

Saturday, Oct. 4, Nov.1, Jan. 24, and Feb. 28 | 10:00-2:00pm ET

Location: Onondaga County Central Library, 447 S Salina St.

Organizers from the College of Arts and Sciences, iSchool, College of Visual and Performing Arts, School of Education, and Hendricks Chapel Quilters team up to present a series of "sew-in" workshops to make quilt blocks reflecting on different topics for inspiration. Built upon the foundational idea of creativity as uniquely human, session participants will learn to use textiles in creative ways to record the history of self, place, community, and imagined futures. Doing this in communion with friends, neighbors, and other community members, helps build a sustained network of fellow creatives. The practice of care and liberation through quilting reminds us that even in difficult times, creative expression remains a refuge; where joy, resistance, and empowerment endure. Advance registration is required, as space and materials are limited. Register here!

• Each sew-in is structured as an open 4-hour sewing session held at the Makerspace at Central Library in Downtown Syracuse, with a light lunch provided.
• Organizers begin with group reflection on the theme, offering guiding questions, texts, and educational resources.
• For each “sew-in," participants are invited to bring a textile that represents “threads of self” in connection with the day's respective theme (see below).
• Organizers provide all other necessary materials: fabric, thread, rotary cutters, sewing machines, irons, and sewing instructions.
• No previous sewing or quilting experience is required.
• While attendance at all 4 events is encouraged, it is not mandatory.
• By the end of each sew-in, participants will have one square block created in community. If participating in all four sew-ins, participants will have four blocks and materials to stitch them into a finished quilt.

Deanne Gebell Gitner Storytelling Symposium with CNN’s Climate Team

Tuesday, October 7, 2025 | 6:00-7:30pm ET

Location: Newhouse 3, Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium

Join us for a compelling conversation with Bill Weir, CNN’s chief climate correspondent and the visionary behind “The Wonder List” documentary series, for a conversation about the intersection of cinematography, climate change and collaboration.

Weir will be joined by CNN colleagues:

Evelio Contreras: Award-winning senior producer, photographer and editor for CNN in New York.

Julian Quiñones: Emmy Award-winning producer and director of photography who heads production for Weir.

Weir, Quiñones and Contreras are part of a three-person climate change unit that won an Emmy in 2022 for the CNN Special Report, “Eating Planet Earth: The Future of Food.” We are honored to welcome these talented journalists to Newhouse for the Deanne Gebell Gitner Storytelling Symposium, established in honor of associate professor Seth Gitner’s late mother. The symposium supports student access to industry expertise and celebrates storytelling.

RSVP to attend.

PSC Core Workshop: Publicly Engaged Research Methods & Ethics

Wednesday, October 8, 2025 | 2:00 – 3:30pm ET

Location: Tolley 304 (and via Zoom)

Led by Prof. Brice Nordquist, A&S Dean’s Professor of Community Engagement and Director of the Engaged Humanities Network, this workshop focuses on understanding and establishing research methodologies and ethics when working in community settings. Workshop facilitators and participants will discuss how their methodologies have contributed to the work they conduct, and how these frameworks both limit and expand what is possible with community partners. We'll discuss how research ethics develop across projects and will consider how to (re)evaluate our own ethics as our projects and careers progress. Space is limited! Register here.

Through the Latine Lens: Community, Politics, and Truth

Wednesday, October 15, 2025 | 12:00-1:00pm ET

Location: Newhouse 3, Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium

Join us for a Latine Heritage Month panel featuring Newhouse alumnus as they discuss journalism's role in shaping narratives, uplifting community voices and navigating today’s political climate. Lunch will be provided. This event is sponsored by the S.I. Newhouse School for Public Communications and is open to the entire campus community.

Environmental Storytelling CNY: Food Sovereignty Across Cultures and Communities

Friday, October 17, 2025 | 10:00am–12:00pm ET

Location: SUNY ESF, 24 Marshall Hall

Join growers, storytellers, and community advocates—Mike Akins (MLK Elementary Helping Hands Garden & Hillbrook Community Garden) and Monu Chetri (Deaf New Americans Advocacy, Inc. & Asha Laaya Farm) for a workshop exploring food sovereignty through the land, labor, and language of community agriculture. Participants will visit community gardens and local farms, engaging directly with food justice organizers featured in our Environmental Storytelling Guide on Food Sovereignty. Through shared movement and conversation, we’ll explore the roots of food sovereignty on Onondaga Land and reflect on how storytelling can seed more just and sustainable food systems across our city and region.

Space is limited! Register by Oct. 10

Creative Connections: Sharing Black/Arab Experiences Through Art and Literature

Saturday, Oct. 18; Saturday, Nov. 15; Saturday, Dec. 6 | 1:00 – 4:00 PM ET

Location: North Side Learning Center, 501 Park Street, Syracuse, NY 13203

The Breedlove Readers and The Black/Arab Relationalities Initiative invite you to a three-part community workshop series in collaboration with Write Out and Me/We Art Therapy Lab & Studio where we’ll explore Laila Sabreen’s novel You Truly Assumed. Together, we’ll reflect on Black and Arab experiences through art and literature in an open and welcoming space.

Please apply by September 22nd using this link: https://bit.ly/BreedloveBARI

Transportation is available upon request. Childcare will also be provided.

This is a community-centered workshop with limited space available. Participation in all three workshops is required for acceptance. The novel will be provided to all accepted applicants!

Co-Organizers

Dr. Courtney Mauldin-Jones (The Breedlove Readers)

Dr. Carol Fadda (The Black/Arab Relationalities Initiative, BARI)

Dr. Dana Olwan (The Black/Arab Relationalities Initiative, BARI)

Johanna Bermudez (The Black/Arab Relationalities Initiative, BARI)

Public Talk: A Conversation with Artistic Noise: 25 Years of Making Art in Collaboration with System-Impacted Young People

Monday, October 20 | 1:00–2:00 p.m. ET
500 Hall of Languages & via Zoom

You’re invited to a special public conversation and workshop with Artistic Noise, a New York City–based nonprofit that has spent nearly 25 years creating artistic experiences with young people whose lives have been impacted by the juvenile court, shelter, foster care, and mental health systems. Join Artistic Noise staff members and alumni for a free event exploring their almost 25-year history working across the fields of juvenile justice reform, nonprofit arts initiatives, and art-therapeutic programming for system-impacted youth.

Zoom link: https://syracuseuniversity.zoom.us/meeting/register/jXlAjeVoR0mty8zStgSNWQ

CART will be provided.

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Workshop: “Working Outside (and Inside) the Box”

Monday, October 20 | 2:00–3:00 p.m. ET | 500 Hall of Languages

Request a spot in a hands-on workshop that recreates one of Artistic Noise’s recent courthouse art projects: Identity Boxes, which can prompt reflection and challenge assumptions projected onto people whose lives have been impacted by the court system.

Request a spot here (space is limited): https://forms.gle/92CHXNqE7ex5N69D6

Speakers/workshop leaders are:
Calder Zwicky, Executive Director
Victoria Hristoff, Director of Art Therapy and Youth Services
Samantha Cortez, Manager of Alumni Artist in Residence program

In Conversation: How to Disagree Agreeably

Friday, October 24, 2025 | 7:30-8:30 ET

Location: Zoom, Register Here

Based on the political causes they’ve championed as public intellectuals, one might expect philosopher Cornel West and legal scholar Robert George to bitterly dislike one another. But nothing could be further from the truth. The progressive West and conservative George are good friends, united by their interest in great thinkers from the past and by their commitment to lively, respectful debate on the questions that matter most.

For this In Conversation event, they will be joined by award-winning journalist Jane Ferguson, whose experiences as a decorated war correspondent in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan have made her keenly aware of how entrenched disagreement can lead to violence and unspeakable suffering.

Beyond the Fight for Existence: Trans* Knowledge on Life, Care and Repair

Tuesday, October 28 | 11:00-7:00pm

Location: Schine 304 ABC

Syracuse University’s Department of Women’s and Gender Studies and the Trans Diasporic Study project host a day-long symposium seeking to expand shared understandings of retreating as response to the lack of care facing trans*, travesti, and trans of color populations across the hemisphere. More information coming soon!

Featured presenters:

• Isobel Bess (Poet)
• Talia Mae Bettcher (Cal State Los Angeles)
• Dylan Blackston (New Mexico State University)
• Amy Marvin (Hamilton College)
• Andrea Pitts (SUNY Buffalo)
• Cole Rizki (University of Virginia)
• Marina Segatti (Syracuse University)
• Mohammad Seraji (Community Organizer)
• Marlene Wayar (Futuro Trans Collective, FLACSO-Buenos Aires)
• Abraham Weil (University of Kansas)

On Discomfort: Feminist Pedagogy Workshop

Tuesday, November 4 | 12:00-2:30 PM ET

Location: Sim 319

Feminist pedagogy for our times requires discomfort. In this workshop hosted by Women's and Gender Studies, Miriam Ticktin (CUNY Graduate Center) encourages participants to think together about how to cultivate and work with discomfort in our research and our political lives. Sometimes discomfort is avoided by claiming innocence, and by not acknowledging our own forms of implication, interestedness, pleasure or power in our research sites. How might a feminist pedagogy and research practice lean into discomfort in a way that is responsible, even as it is difficult?

Related: Ticktin presents a public lecture on Nov. 3.

On the Swamp: Fighting for Indigenous Environmental Justice

Thursday, November 6 | 7:00-8:00 PM ET

Location: Zoom, Register Here

Researchers and educators sometimes think about their work as supporting efforts to promote justice, including environmental justice, which is sometimes defined as the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people in environmental decision-making. Using examples from his 2024 book, On the Swamp: Fighting for Indigenous Environmental Justice, Emanuel reflects on how his work as a scientist and community-engaged scholar has not only supported efforts to promote environmental justice but has also been transformed by the principles of environmental justice.

Webinar attendees can expect to gain a clearer understanding of how Indigenous peoples in eastern North Carolina have survived, thrived, and maintained ties to their ancestral homelands despite colonial exploitation, extractivism, and environmental degradation. Overall, the webinar aims to broaden scholars’ and professionals’ perspectives on responsibility, accountability, and justice in their own work.

Agriculture as Folklife: Reclaiming Land, Seed, and Cultural Futures

Tuesday, November 11 | 7:00-8:00 PM

Location: Zoom, Register Here

What happens when agriculture is treated only as an industry, a program, or a curricular unit? What is lost when land is seen only through the lens of economic development? For many, the result is disconnection from place and from one another. Reclaiming agriculture as folklife requires shifting how systems understand and support land access, foodways, and intergenerational learning.

Educators can expect to learn about unconventional public land access models, agricultural movements within K–12 public institutions, pathways to seed and food sovereignty, and ways to help each other reconnect to land, identity, and intergenerational belonging.

From Sacred Leaf to Illicit Crop: Coca, Memory, and the Politics of Vegetal Excess in Colombia

Thursday, November 13 | 4:00-5:30 PM

Location: TBD!

In this public talk, Engaged Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow Miryam Nacimento takes relationships between mestizo peasant farmers (campesinos) and the coca plant as a window to understand the changing place of rural mestizos in Colombia’s racial politics. Focusing on a peasant village in the country’s southwest, she traces how farmers’ identities transformed as coca moved from being a plant cultivated for traditional consumption to one grown for the illicit drug trade.

PSC Core Workshop: Communicating with and Across Communities

Thursday, November 13 | 12:00 – 1:30 PM ET

Location: Tolley Hall 304 and via Zoom

This workshop, led by EHN Program Manager Mary-Jo Robinson, emphasizes the importance of cultivating effective community engaged and public facing communications. After providing an overview of potential strategies for demystifying academic data, processes, and jargon, Robinson provides strategies for approaching communications across contexts, genres, and media in community engaged work.

Translating your Humanities Scholarship to Expand Reach and Recognition

Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025 - 10-11:30am EST on Zoom

How would you describe your humanities scholarship to your Dean or Provost, or translate the value of your research to an external funder? What about to people who may be outside the humanities, such as a journalist, podcaster, or even your neighbor? How can you tell your story in ways that matter beyond institutional metrics? In this workshop for the CNY Humanities Corridor, Anke Finger and Kath Burton will address these questions and provide strategies for humanists to effectively communicate with wider publics. Learn how to talk about your work, explain your process and methods, and make the case for maintaining the humanities as institutional and cultural priorities. More info or register now.