Institute Schedule
Monday, June 29
th
7:30pm - 10:30pm: Filene Auditorium, Moore Hall
“American Studies in the Age of AI”
Jed Dobson, Moderator
Jonathan Schroeder, “Scattered, Not Gone, Gathered, Not Forgotten: The Kinship of Harriet and John Jacobs”
Russ Castronovo, “What Happens to History in AI? Searching for Answers from the 'Artwork Essay' to Indigenous Art”
Dan Sinykin, “Reading as a Way of Life”
Tuesday, June 30
th
9:30am - 12:30pm: Filene Auditorium, Moore Hall
“The Psycho-Politics of Melancholia”
Kimberly Juanita Brown, Moderator, “Double Exposure”
Hortense Spillers, “Riding With Oedipus: Time and the Children”
James A. Godley, “The Double Not of the Lost Cause in War Poetry of the South”
7:30pm - 10:30pm: Filene Auditorium, Moore Hall
“The State of/and Asian American Studies in the Asian 21st Century”
Jodi Kim, Moderator
Mingwei Huang, "Asian/American Studies After the American Century: Revisiting the 'Chinese Factor.'"
Takayuki Tatsumi, “Twain's Connecticut Yankee from a Transchronological Literary Perspective”
Wednesday, July 1
st
9:30am - 12:30pm: Filene Auditorium, Moore Hall
“Is Post-Truth, Polarized US Politics Beyond Repair?”
Heike Paul, Moderator, “Fellow Feelings”
John Stauffer, “Post-Truth, Polarized US Politics: 1850s v. 2020s”
7:30pm - 10:30pm: Filene Auditorium, Moore Hall
“Transing Pedagogies of Refusal”
Donald Pease, Moderator
Joshua Falek, "Gender-Affirming Violence"
Peter Wallace Brown, "'How unreal all this is!': Queer Political Desire and Melville's Theory of Fiction"
Thursday, July 2
nd
9:30am - 12:30pm: Filene Auditorium, Moore Hall
“Critical Eco-Poetics”
Eng-Beng Lim, Moderator, "Botanical Megastructures"
Geoffrey Kirsch, “Nature’s Attorney: Thoreau and Environmental Personhood”
Meredith Farmer, "The Perpetual Production of New Forms; or, Melville and the Meaning of Life?"
7:30pm - 10:30pm: Filene Auditorium, Moore Hall
“Is Anti-Black Violence a Requisite Supplement to US Racial Capitalism?”
Duncan Faherty, Moderator, “Who’s Afraid of Ona Judge?”
RA Judy, "Violence and Black Studies: Black Metamorphosis and the Tenuous Distinction Between Historical and Ethnic Ties"
Anthony Barrymore Bogues, "Illiberalism , Technologies of Violence, and the Human: The Present Conjuncture"
Friday, July 3
rd
9:30am - 12:30pm: Filene Auditorium, Moore Hall
“ICE: The Social Reproduction of Disposable Populations”
Israel Reyes, Moderator
Lázaro Lima, "Daddy’s Freikorps: ICE Spectacles in the Bronation”
7:30pm - 10:30pm: Filene Auditorium, Moore Hall
“Sonic Politics and ‘Alter-Being’ in the Trumpocene”
Patricia Stuelke, Moderator, "'You can't settle the Earth, motherfucker/cause the Earth is in motion': Sonic Repertoires of Fascism and Solidarity"
Dylan Rodriguez, "Alter-Being as Counter-War"
Saturday, July 4
th
9:30am - 12:30pm: Filene Auditorium, Moore Hall
“The Libidinal Economy of US Authoritarian Populism”
Robyn Wiegman, Moderator
Donald Pease, "Theft as/of Security: The Declaration of Independence"
Sheldon George, “Psychoanalysis and Racism: The Vestigial Pleasures of American Slavery”
Liam Kennedy, “Burning Down the House: Steve Bannon and the Death Drive of Trumpism"
2:00pm - 5:00pm: Filene Auditorium, Moore Hall
“Denarrativising US Settler Historicity”
Donald Pease, Moderator
Paul A. Bove, “Henry Adams and Donald Pease: Prospecting Personae and Saving Grace.”
Christopher Pexa, "The Treaty Moment"
Nicole Morris Johnson, "'Let Me Untell Our Unhistory': On Black Feminist Archival Interventions and US Settler Historicity"
futures Institute Seminar Directors 2026
Futures participants will meet with their assigned seminar groups from 2-5pm on Tuesday through Friday. Featured below are the seminar leaders and the location of the seminar.
Kimberly Juanita Brown: Institute for Black Intellectual and Culture Life (246 Haldeman)
Duncan Faherty: 208 Dartmouth Hall
Jodi Kim: 100 Kellogg
Alan Nadel: 304 Dartmouth Hall
Heike Paul: 101 Kellogg
Israel Reyes and Eng-Beng Lim: 110 Dartmouth Hall
Patricia Stuelke: 201 Kellogg