Born in 1942 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Beatriz Sarlo is one of Latin America’s most important cultural critics. Having studied literature at the University of Buenos Aires, Sarlo founded the journal Punto de Vista with a group of progressive intellectuals during the military regime. She has published studies on Argentina’s literary greats including Sarmiento, Borges, and Cortázar. In her departure from traditional literary criticism to a broader definition of culture, Sarlo has combined her formal training in literature with a more inclusive definition of cultural production to include other popular expressions in both Argentinian culture and beyond to address cultural […]

Thelma Golden will deliver the 16th annual David C. Driskell Distinguished Lecture in the Visual Arts at the University of Maryland. Golden has served as director and chief curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem since 2005 and was a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art from 1988 to 1998. Golden is an active guest curator, writer, lecturer, juror, and advisor. This lecture will coincide with the James A. Porter Colloquium on African American Art, organized by Howard University, scheduled for April 7–9, 2017. The Colloquium’s theme this year is “Interventions, Ruptures, and Affirmations: Archival Engagements in African […]

William Ferris is the Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History at UNC–Chapel Hill and an adjunct professor in the Curriculum in Folklore. He is associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South, and is widely recognized as a leader in Southern studies, African American music, and folklore. He is the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Ferris has written and edited 10 books and created 15 documentary films, most of which deal with African American music and other folklore representing the Mississippi Delta. He co-edited the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (UNC Press, 1989), which […]

Elizabeth Petrick, assistant professor of history at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, will give a talk for the German Historical Institute’s spring lecture series, The Making of the Digital World. Petrick's research focuses on the history of information technologies, civil rights, public policy, and the relationship between development and use of technology. Her book Making Computers Accessible: Disability Rights and Digital Technology (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015) explored the efforts of activist groups, computer companies, and legislators to promote access to computer technologies for people with disabilities. She is currently beginning a project on the intellectual history of computer interfaces, specifically on research starting in the […]