Courage + Resilience Events

Spring 2024

Solidarity Keeps Us Alive: Collective Struggles and Incarcerated Women in Turkey and the US

Tuesday, February 20, 2024, at 4:30 PM in Ecumenical Center

This event brings together voices from two political struggles against women’s imprisonment in Turkey and the US. Emek Ergun (Associate Professor, Women's and Gender Studies & Global Studies, UNC Charlotte) and Sashi James (Families for Justice and Healing, Roxbury MA) will join in a conversation about prison conditions, politics of prisons, and solidarity practices that flourish within and outside prisons. By telling the inspiring stories of courage and resilience of Kurdish women political prisoners in Turkey and incarcerated women of color in Massachusetts, the conversation will contribute to the efforts to forge solidarity among freedom struggles across borders. The event will also include the promotion of a new book on imprisoned Kurdish Women politicians in Turkey, The Purple Color of the Kurdish Politics (Pluto Press, 2022).

Sponsors: Arts & Ideas and the Sociology & Criminology Department

The Arthur Nolletti, Jr. Film Series: Till

Wednesday, February 21, 2024, at 4:30 PM, at DPAC

Chinonye Chukwu’s Till tells the powerful story of Mamie Till-Bradley, the Chicago educator-turned-activist after the heinous lynching of her 14-year-old son, Emmett. His murderers have unfortunately never been brought to justice. Nevertheless, six decades after the crime, on March 29, 2022, President Biden signed the Emmett Till-Anti-Lynching Act into effect. Till not only acknowledges Till-Bradley’s courage and resilience, but also forcefully addresses questions of equity, inclusion, power, social justice in the lives of Black Americans.

Dr. Jeffrey Coleman, Vice President & Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, will lead a post-screening discussion with Dr. Jon Huibregtse and members of the Black Student Union and Brother2Brother. This event is being held in partnership with Framingham Public Library.

Sponsors: Arts & Ideas and the Division of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement

Lisa Iglesias: Chivalry Timbers

Reception in the Mazmanian Gallery Tuesday, February 27 at 2:30 PM
Lecture in the Forum, McCarthy Center, Tuesday, February 27, 2024 at 3:30 PM

Artist Lisa Iglesias (she/they) will present an exhibition in Mazmanian Gallery and speak about her artwork. Her projects incorporate expansive histories and potentials of drawing and painting, take into consideration the translation of patterns, images and gestures across materials. Iglesias’ multidisciplinary work explores issues of social participation, collectivity, caretaking, family connection, and transnational identity, all of which speak to the Arts & Ideas theme of resilience.

Sponsors: Arts & Ideas

Big Ink for Big Hearts

Tuesday and Wednesday, March 5 and 6, 2024
The Forum for the two days of workshop

“Big Ink for Big Hearts” is a two-day participatory art event on campus in which the travelling artist group Big Ink brings their custom-designed giant mobile printing press "Big Tuna" to FSU to print 16 large-scale woodblocks (up to 4 feet by 8 feet!) that are created in advance by students, faculty, staff and/or community members addressing the Arts & Ideas theme of "Courage and Resilience.” The groups develop images for their woodcuts that may highlight key figures from historical or contemporary courageous movements or initiatives, or that may explore more personal stories of courage and resilience.

Sponsors: Arts & Ideas, The Art & Music Department, and CELTSS
Community Partnerships with the Mill Contemporary Art Studios, the Black Student Union, and Classes taughy by Marc Cote, Paul Yalowitz, Zeynep Gonen, and Lissa Bollettino

The Linda Vaden-Goad Authors and Artists Series: Katherine Scheidler & Marcus Greene

Tuesday, March 26, 2024, at 4:30 PM in Heineman Ecumenical Center
Zoom Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEvdeCpqDIrHtIOiszZO0VKD7NSFNqWa8he

Katherine Scheidler's new publication Renegade Teacher: Inside School Walls with Standards and the Test will be described to provide insights about the national test, which has been considered poor, intrusive, and unfair. With her experience as a school district assistant superintendent, Scheidler studies the tests annually and sees them changing over the years to become better - and more needed today with learning lost during the pandemic school shutdown. Marcus Greene's creative work explores his interest in the formal construction of imaginary spaces - sometimes suggesting nature or physical science, sometimes mythical or archetypal environments, and sometimes suggesting passages to other dimensions.

Creating Between Two Worlds: Contemporary Artistic Diasporas

Wednesday, April 10, 2024, at 4:30 PM in Alumni Room
Zoom Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAkduuprToqHNQMw2j16RkuHx48M_0P084c

Contemporary diasporic experiences remain defined by myriad transnational crossings. How do artists address transnational identity in their work? What is the relationship between identity formation and visual culture? Moderated by FSU Professor Alexander Hartwiger, artists Jasmine Chen, Saberah Malik, and Stephen Marc will discuss the relationship between artistic practices and diasporic experience in the United States. Values in their work –a courageous synthesis of memory and the unsettling nature of diasporic existence-- find roots in bi-cultural experience. Their accounting for personal origins and ancestry display a sense of resiliency to and acknowledgment of a complex relationship with mainstream society.

Sponsors: Arts & Ideas, the Division of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement, and Paul B. Rosenberg Fund for Museum Education