2023 Teach-In: February 16 and 17
Keynote Speaker
Playwright, actor, and educator Anna Deavere Smith uses her singular brand of theatre to explore issues of community, character, and diversity in America. The MacArthur Foundation honored Smith with the “Genius” Fellowship for creating “a new form of theatre — a blend of theatrical art, social commentary, journalism, and intimate reverie.”
You may know Smith best as Nancy McNally on The West Wing, or for her roles on Showtime’s Nurse Jackie or Shondaland’s Inventing Anna, but the core of her work is theater. Her play Notes From the Field was the winner of an Obie Award, the 2017 Lortel Award for Outstanding Solo Show, and was named one of the Top 10 Plays of the year by Time Magazine. Among Smith’s other awards are the 2012 National Humanities Medal, presented by President Obama; the 2015 Jefferson Lecturer honor; a Guggenheim Fellowship; and the George Polk Career Award for authentic Journalism. She has several honorary degrees, among them ones from Harvard, Spelman, and Oxford.
Smith is a professor at New York University.
February 16 Sessions (Thursday)
1:30 to 2:30 p.m. EST I Lessons from Combahee: What Black Resistance Can Teach Higher Ed
Time: 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. EST
Presenter
Shaya Gregory Poku, Vice President for Equity and Social Justice, Emerson College
Location
SPC Theatre, Little Building - Lower Level
80 Boylston St, Boston, MA 02116
Description
A brief oration describing how the black liberation struggle is highly relevant to the current equity challenges facing higher education in the U.S.
3:00 to 4:00 p.m. EST I A Presentation from the Deans’ Fellows for Racial Equity and Leadership Development
Time: 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. EST
Presenters
Beyoncé Stringer Martinez ’24, Theatre and Performance
Pranit Chand ’23, Interdisciplinary Studies
Location
SPC Theatre, Little Building - Lower Level
80 Boylston St, Boston, MA 02116
4:00 to 5:30 p.m. EST I Naming the Invisible: Deconstructing What Really Happens When We Talk and Teach about Race…and What Happens When We Don’t
Time: 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. EST
Presenter
Joshua Streeter, Assistant Professor, Emerson College
Location
Room 517, Paramount Building
55 Washington St, Boston, MA 02116
Open to Emerson Faculty Only, Limited Capacity
Pre-registration Required: https://forms.gle/2WMSJR9WNCqNLeo89
Description
In this session, participants will use embodied learning strategies to dialogue, express, connect, and co-construct meaning together. Using an inquiry-oriented approach to teaching, we will make use of several creative teaching strategies in sequence to unpack and discuss race, equity, power, and justice as it manifests in the university classroom. Come ready to explore, play, learn, and listen! This session is limited to 25 faculty members.
7:00 to 9:00 p.m. EST I An Evening in History with James Baldwin, Featuring Charles Reese
Time: 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. EST
Presenter
Charles Reese, Actor, Author, and Founder and CEO of Teeth and Eyes Communications, LLC
Location
Semel Theater, Tufte Performance and Production Center - 3rd Floor
Boylston Alley
RSVP Link: https://forms.gle/HwnFfhAnuGjjpWU8A *
* Please note, RSVPs are appreciated but do not guarantee entry on the day of the event. Guests will be seated on a first come, first serve basis. Please arrive early to guarantee your seat.
Description
An Evening in History with James Baldwin, Featuring Charles Reese
This interactive literary and performance art salon bears witness (as James Baldwin would say) to a very unique time in history by shedding a light on the secret Baldwin/Kennedy Meeting of 1963 and further sparking a conversation on Race Relations in America. Reese achieves this by using excerpts from the critically acclaimed off Broadway playbook, James Baldwin: A Soul on Fire (written by the late playwright, Howard Simon & Edited by Reese).
The "Salon Experience" pays homage to the Harlem Renaissance by providing an atmosphere styled after creative literary "in-gatherings" with a dose of storytelling. Throughout the presentation call and response songs, poetry, art and culture are used as a tool to engage, educate and entertain.
*Charles Reese Appears Courtesy of SAG-AFTRA & Actors' Equity Association.
COVID-19 Policy
Per Emerson College's Office of the Arts' protocol, all attendees and program participants must wear a well-fitted 3-ply face mask at all times when indoors at the theatre, except while actively eating or drinking concessions. N95s, KN95s, and surgical masks are recommended. No gaiters, bandanas, or masks with vents allowed.
February 17 Sessions (Friday)
9:30 to 11:00 a.m. EST I Keynote: “Talking About Race”
Time: 9:30 to 11:00 a.m. EST
Presenter
Anna Deavere Smith, Playwright; Actor; and Assistant Professor and Founding Director of the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue, New York University
Location
Robert J. Orchard Theater, Paramount Center
559 Washington St, Boston, MA 02111
AND Online
Livestream Link: emerson.edu/live
RSVP Link (RSVP is for in-person attendance only): https://forms.gle/W7vaL7RRJtPCRiAv8 *
* Please note, RSVPs are appreciated but do not guarantee entry on the day of the event. Guests will be seated on a first come, first serve basis. Please arrive early to guarantee your seat.
Description
For decades Anna Deavere Smith, who is said to have pioneered a form of documentary-style drama, has been listening to people across the country from all walks of life, using Walt Whitman’s idea “to absorb America” as an inspiration. During this presentation, to illustrate her goal of bringing “people across the chasms” of “the complex identities of America,” Ms. Smith will include theatrical performance elements, portraying people she has interviewed – and recreating a diversity of emotions and points of view on questions of race and social justice. Listening and empathy have the power to transform — a person, a relationship, a moment, a movement. In her art and activism, Smith insists: you must develop your ear to have a voice. With tensions high, the country divided, her call to listen feels as urgent now as ever.
COVID-19 Policy
Per Emerson College's Office of the Arts' protocol, all attendees and program participants must wear a well-fitted 3-ply face mask at all times when indoors at the theatre, except while actively eating or drinking concessions. N95s, KN95s, and surgical masks are recommended. No gaiters, bandanas, or masks with vents allowed.
11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. EST I Education Behind the Wall: Teaching about Race and Racism Inside Prison
11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. EST
Panelists
Wendy Walters, Professor, Emerson College
Yasser Munif, Associate Professor, Emerson College
Cara Moyer-Duncan, Associate Professor, Emerson College, and Assistant Director for Emerson Prison Initiative
Moderator
Kim McLarin, Interim Dean of Graduate and Professional Studies and Professor of Creative Writing, Emerson College
Location
SPC Black Box, Little Building - Lower Level
80 Boylston St, Boston, MA 02116
Description
If racial retrenchment and an antidemocratic backlash make it challenging to teach truthfully about entrenched white supremacy and structural inequality in the academy, how much more challenging is it to teach these important issues inside a carceral context? How much more vital and necessary is it to do so?
2:00 to 3:00 p.m. EST I Lessons from Listening to the Nation: A Conversation with Anna Deavere Smith
Open to Emerson Students Only, Limited Capacity
Pre-registration is required.
Time: 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. EST
Moderator
Lizzy Cooper Davis, Assistant Professor, Emerson College
Description
Anna Deavere Smith has spent more than four decades listening to and performing the voices of the nation—often in relation to race and racism—as part of her project, “On the Road: A Search for the American Character.” What lessons have emerged from these decades of listening? What discoveries have come from embodying our national character? And as we strive to have conversations about race and racism that are brave, empathetic, and productive, what might we learn from Smith’s work of listening, embodying, and performing?
3:30 to 4:30 p.m. EST I Teaching While Black: How Cultural Legacies, Creative and Communication Arts Education, and Institutional Racism Have and Are Impacting the Experiences of Black Professors
Time: 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. EST
Presenter
Moderator
James Mason, Associate Provost and Dean of Faculty, Massachusetts College of Art and Design
Location
Online Only
Attendees should not share their confirmation link, as it will be unique to each participant.
Description
In this era when calls for anti-racist approaches and the rejection of anti-Blackness are reverberating in both US American society and across academia, it is critical that both institutions and professors take concrete steps to respond meaningfully. In this session, Black professors at multiple intersections of identity will discuss how their pedagogy, creative works and scholarship function as embodiments of the histories, cultures and communities racism and colonialism endeavored to silence, demean and destroy. They will also share how Arts and Communications programs in Predominantly White Institutions can intentionally and ethically make structural and pedagogical decisions that not only make space for but advance anti-racism.