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Intellectual collaborations thrive in environments where ideas are shared, freely and respectfully, among people representing different backgrounds and perspectives. This is why the Neubauer Collegium regularly opens its inquiries and conversations to the public.

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Panafrica Days Symposium

Silhouette of a profile with an abstract drawing of Africa in the head.
Symposium

Panafrica Days Symposium

A daylong series of discussions will center on the ideas and artists featured in the "Project a Black Planet" exhibition at the Art Institute.

This daylong series of discussions will focus on the ideas and artists featured in Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica. The exhibition, on view at the Art Institute of Chicago through March 30, was informed by the multi-year, international Panafrica research project at the Neubauer Collegium and curated by members of the research team.

Presented as part of Panafrica Days, a four-day series of activities jointly organized by the Art Institute of Chicago, the Black Arts Consortium at Northwestern University, Chicago Humanities, and the Neubauer Collegium.

SCHEDULE

10:10 am
Introductory Remarks
Antawan Byrd
Assistant Professor of Art History, Northwestern University; Associate Curator, Photography and Media, Art Institute of Chicago

10:25 am
Keynote Address
Koyo Kouoh
Executive Director and Chief Curator, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town, South Africa

11:20 am
Panel: On the Circulation and Transmission of Africa/Diasporic Aesthetic Practices
Huey Copeland
Andrew W. Mellon Chair and Professor of Modern Art and Black Study, University of Pittsburgh
Krista Thompson
Mary Jane Crowe Professor of Art History, Northwestern University
Ebony Patterson
Artist
Kodwo Eshun
Artist

Moderated by Dieter Roelstraete (Curator, Neubauer Collegium)

1:40 pm
Keynote Address
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
Artist

2:30 pm
Panel: Panafrica’s Future Conversations
Hélio Menezes
Artistic Director, Museu Afro Brasil, São Paulo, Brazil
Marilyn Nance
Photographer
Serubiri Moses
Visiting Faculty, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College

Moderated by Matthew Witkovsky (Richard and Ellen Sandor Chair and Curator of Photography and Media, Art Institute of Chicago)

4:05 pm
Keynote Address
Louis Chude-Sokei
Professor of English, Wein Chair and Director of African American and Black Diaspora Studies, Boston University

5:00 pm
Closing Remarks
Adom Getachew
Professor of Political Science and Race, Diaspora & Indigeneity, University of Chicago

Art Institute of Chicago

A daylong series of discussions will center on the ideas and artists featured in the "Project a Black Planet" exhibition at the Art Institute.

Register

Panafrica Days | Reception for Let's Get It On: The Wearable Art of Betye Saar

Panafrica Days | Reception for Let's Get It On: The Wearable Art of Betye Saar

This reception celebrating the work of Betye Saar is presented as part of Panafrica Days.

Let’s Get It On: The Wearable Art of Betye Saar offers the first sustained look at a pivotal moment in Betye Saar’s career, when a visit to Chicago’s Field Museum in 1974 transformed the way she conceived of herself as an artist. A display of more than 60 objects—including a ceremonial robe from Cameroon, costumes and jewelry designed by Saar, drawings, photos, archival materials, and more—casts new light on the way Saar’s early career in costume design informed her pioneering work in assemblage and installation. Let’s Get It On is presented as part of a series of exhibitions and events linked to Panafrica: Histories, Aesthetics, Politics, a multi-year research project at the Neubauer Collegium that is exploring the connections between Pan-African politics and culture.


This event has been organized as part of Panafrica Days, a four-day series of activities jointly organized by the Art Institute of Chicago, the Black Arts Consortium at Northwestern University, Chicago Humanities, and the Neubauer Collegium.

Neubauer Collegium

This reception celebrating the work of Betye Saar is presented as part of Panafrica Days.

Register

Director’s Lecture with Drew Gilpin Faust

Director's Lecture

Director’s Lecture with Drew Gilpin Faust

Drew Gilpin Faust, President Emerita of Harvard University, is a renowned scholar of American history.

About the Speaker

Drew Gilpin Faust is the Arthur Kingsley Porter University Research Professor at Harvard, where she served as president from 2007 to 2018.

Faust previously served as founding dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (2001-2007). Before coming to Radcliffe, she was the Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania.

She is the author of seven books, including, most recently, Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury, published in August 2023. Her earlier book, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (2008), was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize and was awarded the Bancroft Prize, the New-York Historical Society’s American History Book Prize, and recognized by The New York Times as one of the “Ten Best Books of 2008.” This Republic of Suffering is the basis for a 2012 Emmy-nominated episode of the PBS American Experience documentaries titled Death and the Civil War, directed by Ric Burns.

Faust’s honors include awards in 1982 and 1996 for distinguished teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994, the Society of American Historians in 1993, and the American Philosophical Society in 2004. In September 2018 she was awarded the John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity by the Library of Congress. She received her bachelor’s degree from Bryn Mawr in 1968, magna cum laude with honors in history, and master’s (1971) and doctoral (1975) degrees in American civilization from the University of Pennsylvania. She and her husband live in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

About the Director's Lecture Series

The Roman Family Director’s Lecture series at the Neubauer Collegium, made possible through the generous support of University of Chicago Trustee Emmanuel Roman, MBA’87, brings distinguished speakers to the University of Chicago to share their insights with faculty, students, and the broader community. The aim of these events is to deepen public knowledge about the world and humanity’s place in it. More >

Drew Gilpin Faust, President Emerita of Harvard University, is a renowned scholar of American history.

Register

Opening Reception for Raqs Media Collective: Cavalcade

Photograph of the three artists of the Raqs Media Collective.
Exhibition Opening

Opening Reception for Raqs Media Collective: Cavalcade

Part of the Reimagining Cosmopolitanism research project, this exhibition will feature multimedia work by the Delhi-based Raqs Media Collective.

In the spring of 2025 the Neubauer Collegium will present Cavalcade, a new multimedia work by the Delhi-based group Raqs Media Collective. The exhibition will mine the productive friction between age-old Hindu mythology and Indian hyper-modernity. Conceived in part within the framework of the multi-year research project Reimagining Cosmopolitanism at the Neubauer Collegium, Cavalcade expands our understanding of what it means to be “cosmopolitan” beyond the traditional reach of the human.

Neubauer Collegium

Part of the Reimagining Cosmopolitanism research project, this exhibition will feature multimedia work by the Delhi-based Raqs Media Collective.

Register