Mandel Center for the Humanities

March 20, 2025

 Mandel Atrium (5:30pm - 6:45pm)

In celebration of James Baldwin's centenary, the Mandel Center will host a collective reading of his works. Bring your favorite passages from Baldwin to share with the group!

March 26, 2025

  Mandel Reading Room 303 (4:o0pm-5:30pm)

A Conversation with Maurice Ebileeni and Ayelet Ben-Yishai

In the fall of 2022, Ayelet Ben Yishai and Maurice Ebileeni – both faculty members in the English department at the University of Haifa – co-authored an op-ed. While in agreement on much of its content, they faced an unforeseen difficulty in forging an authorial “we” to speak in one voice on equal terms. Ben-Yishai, a Jewish Israeli, and Ebileeni, a Palestinian and a citizen of Israel, have since engaged in a candid (and mostly difficult) dialogue, writing to and with each other, testing out the possibilities for a common existence for themselves as colleagues and friends, and for Israelis and Palestinians in general – “from the river to the sea.” The dialogue is ongoing but has, since last year, taken on a new urgency and assumed the form of a work-in-progress. This event invites the audience to join in, exploring questions of identity, culture, complicity, Zionism, the occupation, Palestinian displacement, history, the present, and the future.

April 1, 2025

Mandel 303 (1:00pm-2:00pm)

Sahid Mondal (English) and Lianne Gallant (History) moderated by Brian Horton (Anthropology, AAAS)

January 15, 2025

Mandel 303 (12pm-1:20pm)

An event with author Nicholas Nugent. 

From book description:  We may think of “globalism” as a recent development but its origins date back to the fifteenth century and beyond, when seafarers pioneered routes across the oceans with the objectives of exploration, trade, and profit.
 
These voyages only became possible after certain technical innovations—improvements in ship design, compasses, and mapping—enabled navigation across unprecedented distances. The mariners’ embarkation points were the vibrant ports of the West—Venice, Amsterdam, Lisbon—and their destinations the exotic ports of the East—Malacca, Goa, Bombay—where they tracked down the elusive spices, so much in demand by Western palates.

January 28, 2025

Mandel 303 (12-1pm)

Race & Health with Professor Wangui Muigai (AAAS, History) and Professor Yesmar Oyarzun (Anthropology)

February 3, 2025

Usdan International Lounge (4:00pm-5:30pm)

A Conversation with Shane Burley and Ben Lorber, Moderated by Sarah Mayorga

"Safety through solidarity means we cannot truly end antisemitism by building higher walls, fortifying nation-states, hiring more police or militarized security at synagogues, or going along with politics that scapegoat activists of color and divide communities. It means we must fight antisemitism at its root by building powerful mass movements to transform society’s underlying inequality, exploitation, and alienation....It means we must recognize the intersectional links between antisemitism and capitalism, anti-Blackness, anti-LGBTQ bigotry, and other structures of oppression, and build relationships of co-resistance between Jews and other marginalized groups." --From Safety through Solidarity by Shane Burley and Ben Lorber

Co-sponsored by the Department of Anthropology, the Education Program, the Legal Studies Program, the Department of Sociology, the Department of Journalism, the Department of Women's and Gender Studies, and the Dean of Arts and Sciences

February 10, 2025

Mandel 303 (12-1:30pm)

A global outlook is important to our individual and collective well-being, and multilingualism is crucial for developing such an outlook. With this idea as our starting point we will explore how multilingualism can inform our sense of identity, strengthen our civic and community spaces,  clarify shared and universal value, and of course influence our educational institutions to prepare students for a more interconnected world. 

Speakers: Kelly Linehan (Waltham Public Library), Robin Feuer Miller (GRALL), Chandler Rosenberger (International & Global Studies), John Tessitore (National Commission on Language Learning of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences). 

February 24, 2025

Mandel Atrium (4:00pm-5:30pm)

The aim is to explore the complex and often contradictory experience of being Afro-descendant in Paris. While the city is celebrated globally as a symbol of enlightenment, culture, and opportunity, and a place of refuge, it also embodies systemic inequities, colonial legacies, and racial discrimination that cast a shadow over its bright reputation.

Through this lens, the theme examines Paris as a space of duality—where Afro-descendant communities contribute vibrantly to its identity but also face exclusion, stereotypes, and socio-economic challenges. It reflects on how the city’s history, policies, and culture intersect with race and power, and rethinks Paris as both a beacon of light and a site of struggle for equity and recognition.

February 25, 2025

Mandel 303 (4:00pm-5:30pm)

This lecture challenges the dominant narrative of universalism grounded in the Enlightenment philosophy and, often heralded as a foundation of equality and justice, by interrogating its history and applications. While universalism claims to transcend differences and promote equality, it has frequently been weaponized to impose a singular, Eurocentric perspective that erases cultural diversity and reinforces systemic racism.

It is a proposal for a vision of “grounded universality,” one that respects pluralism, centers historically excluded voices, and reimagines universalism as a framework rooted in equity, inclusion, and shared humanity rather than domination.

February 26, 2025

Mandel 303 (12:00pm-1:30pm)

This conference addresses how universalist ideals are weaponized to control and assimilate non-white bodies, particularly those of Muslim and non-white women. Framed as upholding neutrality and equality, these policies and social norms often serve to enforce conformity to white standards while marginalizing diverse identities.

The discussion delves into examples such as bans on the hijab, which claim to liberate women while denying them agency, and the imposition of beauty norms, that devalue cultural expressions. These practices are examined as tools of surveillance and assimilation, where bodies are policed to fit a narrow definition of “acceptable” citizenship under the guise of universalism.

March 4, 2025

Mandel 303 (11:30 a.m.)

How will America's colleges and universities adapt to remarkable technological, economic, and demographic change? Join us for a discussion of Arthur Levine's The Great Upheaval as we explore how higher education is evolving in response to these shifts.

A light deli lunch will be included.

RSVP via Google Forms.

March 6, 2025

Mandel 303 (12pm - 1pm)

Graduate Talks from Anik Chartrand (English) and Alexandra Szabo (History). Moderated by Sabine von Mering (CGES, GRALL). 

March 12, 2025

Mandel 303 (12:15pm-1:15pm)

Time Travel with Professor Katie Elliott (Philosophy) and Professor John Plotz (English)

Why did it take until a century ago for people to dream up the idea of time-travel, and another fifty years for the idea of changing your own past to occur to people? And why has it become an essentially omnipresent idea ever since?

Suppose your parents met in 1980. If you traveled back in time to 1980, could you help facilitate their meeting? (Yes). Could you prevent their meeting? (No.) What explains the asymmetry?

Suppose you knew everything that was going to happen in advance. What would be the point of doing anything? What would motivate you to act? What kinds of reasons would make you do one thing rather than another? Could you experience yourself as an agent if you had a certain kind of foreknowledge? If God knows all that will ever be, how can God experience themselves as an agent?

Learn the answers to these questions and more!

March 13, 2025

Mandel 303 (11:30am)

You’re invited to the Nobel Laureate Reading Group! Join us in discussing Nobel Prize-Winning Author Han Kang’s The Vegetarian. Light lunch will be provided.

RSVP HERE via Google Forms.