Co-Sponsored Events
2024-25
Black History Found and Forged: Chronicling the East Marshall Street Well Project
February 1, 2025
The East Marshall Street Well Project works to address some of the exploitative medical practices perpetrated by Virginia Commonwealth University on Richmond’s Black communities since the 1800s. Representatives from the community and VCU will contextualize this history and discuss efforts to create oral history and memorialization projects that work toward reparative justice. Please join us during Black History Month to reflect upon important local Black history in the making.
Prior Academic Years
Structured Narrative in Journalism and Literature: India and America
The speaker for this event was Ratan Bhattacharje, Affiliate Faculty in English at VCU and former Chair, Post Graduate Dept of English, Dum Dum Motijheel College (West Bengal State University).
New Perspectives on Health Equity through the Humanities
"New Perspectives on Health Equity through the Humanities" is a one-day symposium that explored the history of medicine and connections to current health inequities and disparities across a variety of health professions disciplines. The keynote lecture was given by Jason Glenn, PhD, Associate Professor of History and Philosophy of Medicine, University of Kansas.
Stonebreakers: Film Screening and Discussion
In a year of uprisings and political unrest, Stonebreakers (2023) documents the fights around monuments in the United States and explores the shifting landscapes of the nation's historical memory.
Recovery in Practice: Columbia University 2023
How do recovery journeys inspire creative processes, inform research, and build community? "Recovery in Practice" was a 3-day symposium at Columbia University which explores the topic of recovery as a praxis for art, research, and discovery.
Mini Memoir Writing Workshop with Sonja Livingston
The speaker for this event was Sonja Livingston, Associate Professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of four books, including Ghostbread, a memoir of childhood poverty which won an AWP Book Prize for Nonfiction and has been widely adopted for classroom use.
7th Annual Pocahontas Reframed Film Festival
The 7th annual Pocahontas Reframed Film Festival took place from November 17-19, 2023 at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture. The festival highlights Native film, music and culture and is the only festival of its kind on the East Coast.
The Lives Between the Lines: Film Screening and Discussion
The Lives Between the Lines (2022) tells the story behind the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia. Following the film was a panel discussion with the film's director Erik Duda, Jessica Harris (descendant of enslaved communities in Central Virginia), Dr. Carmen F. Foster (member of the Family Representative Council for the East Marshall Street Well Project), and DeTeasa Brown Gathers (Founding Co-chair of the Descendants of Enslaved Communities at the University of Virginia, DEC-UVA).
Living Legacies: “Have You Seen the Nurse?": A Conversation with St. Philip School of Nursing Alumnae
This event took place on February 22, 2024. Tori Tucker, RN, PhD, VCU Health System; HRC Residential Fellow 2023-24, spoke with St. Philip School of Nursing Alumnae Mary Gilbert Holmes, RN and Burlette Cooke Trent, RN on legacies of segregation in nursing and Black girlhood. Co-sponsored by the Office of Health Equity, Humanities Research Center, HRC Health Humanities Lab, VCU Health, School of Medicine, and the School of Nursing.
Living Legacies: Navigating Medicine with Dr. Philip E.B. Byrd Jr.
This event took place on February 27, 2024. The speaker was Philip E.B. Byrd Jr., MD, School of Medicine Alumnus 1969, in conversation with Sarah Martey, M1 & Student National Medical Association (SNMA) Social Chair. Co-sponsored by the Office of Health Equity, Humanities Research Center, HRC Health Humanities Lab, VCU Health, School of Medicine, the School of Nursing, and the Student National Medical Association (SNMA).
Memory Symposium
The Memory Lab at the HRC presented a symposium on memory, Tuesday, April 2, 2024 from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Creative Inquiries: Suzanne Kite
This event took place on March 29, 2024. Kite aka Suzanne Kite, PhD is an award winning Oglála Lakȟóta performance artist, visual artist, composer and academic raised in Southern California. Kite's groundbreaking scholarship and practice explore contemporary Lakota myths and beliefs through research, computational media and performance. Organized by The Workshop at VCU Libraries, in partnership with VCU School of the Arts Department of Kinetic Imaging, Humanities Research Center, and the Media, Art and Text Program.
Sensing Sugaropolis: Moving Beyond the Local Scale in Sensory Geography Research
This event took place on April 25, 2024, organized by MATX and co-sponsored by the Humanities Research Center and the Department of English. The speaker was Marisa Wilson, Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Geography and the Lived Environment, School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh.
The Afterlives of Medical Exploitation: The East Marshall Street Well Project Symposium
On April 27, 2024, the Health Humanities Lab at the HRC hosted a mini-symposium on the work of the East Marshall Street Well Project, underscoring its critical importance not only for VCU as it grapples with its own history of medical racism but also for other institutions nationally as they contend with their own similar histories. This event was co-sponsored by the Humanities Research Center, Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies, and Department of History, with additional funding from a VIP grant from the Office of the Provost and the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation.
Barriers to Integration of Immigrants in Virginia
This even took place on April 29, 2024. The speakers were Dr. Saltanat Liebert, Associate Professor in the Wilder School at Virginia Commonwealth University, and Dr. Grant Rissler, Assistant Director of the Office of Public Policy Outreach (OPPO) in the Wilder School at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America's Empire
The speaker for this event was Jonathan M. Katz, freelance journalist and author of "Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America's Empire." Organized by Jason Ross Arnold and co-sponsored by the Department of Political Science, the Humanities Research Center, the Department of History and the Department of Sociology.
Intersections: Black and Indigenous Sound in the Early Atlantic World [article]
This symposium explored the intersections of Black and Indigenous sounds and music in the early Atlantic world. Co-organized by Sarah Finley (Christopher Newport University), Mary Caton Lingold (Virginia Commonwealth University), Miguel Valerio (Washington University in St. Louis), and Sarah Eyerly (Florida State University). Co-sponsored by the Humanities Research Center, the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture at William & Mary University, Christopher Newport University, Washington University of St. Louis, the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Skepticism Around Clinical Trials [video]
The Office of Health Equity and Humanities Research Center Health Humanities Lab hosted a panel on skepticism around clinical trials. The panelists for this event included Leslie Randall, MD, Director of Gynecologic Oncology at the Massey Cancer Center, and Sharon Rivera-Sanchez, Founder and Chief Executive Director of Trials of Color.
Humanities & Public Interest Technology: Leading the Ethical Governance of Innovation [video]
The speaker for this event was Sylvester Johnson, founding director of the Virginia Tech Center for Humanities.
Innovation in Participation: Public Humanities and Social and Economic Sciences in Research with Dr. Rayvon Fouché and Dr. Matthew Gibson [video]
The speakers for this event were Dr. Rayvon Fouché, director of NSF's Social and Economic Sciences Division, and Dr. Matthew Gibson, director of Virginia Humanities.
Mental Health Disparities in Marginalized Groups [video]
The Office of Health Equity and Humanities Research Center Health Humanities Lab hosted a panel discussing the clinical, political, historical and media contexts related to mental health and mental healthcare disparities. The panelists for this event included Jihad Aziz, Ph.D., University Counseling Services; McKenzie Green, Ph.D., School of Social Work; Rashelle Hayes, Ph.D., VCU Psychiatry; Oswaldo Moreno, Ph.D., VCU Psychology, and Brooke Taylor, GSWS.
Fundamentals of Race and Racism [video]
Panelists shared their stories and experiences, reflecting on how race and racism have been foundational to the institution of medicine and how structural racism impacts health and healthcare. This event was part of the History and Health: Racial Equity Series.
The Day the Klan Came to Town: A Comic Book Retelling of Community Resistance [video]
Author Bill Campbell and artist Bizhan Khodabandeh discussed their work on the acclaimed new graphic novel, "The Day the Klan Came to Town," a fictionalized retelling of a community’s resistance to a violent 1923 march of thousands of Ku Klux Klan members in Carnegie, Pa. This event was co-sponsored with VCU Libraries.
Race, Space and Power in Richmond, VA [video]
Panelists discussed health disparities in Richmond; their historical roots in Black political disenfranchisement and racial segregation; and ways that we might improve our city's health by building more equitable neighborhoods. This event was part of the History and Health: Racial Equity Series.
Medical Research and the First Heart Transplant in the South [video]
Panelists examined the first transplant in the South in the historical context of racial inequality and segregation while also exploring the changes and advances in transplantation in the 21st century. This event was part of the History and Health: Racial Equity Series.
The Virginia Humanities Conference at VCU 2022
The Virginia Humanities Conference at VCU was an event that addressed the transformational possibilities at the intersection of arts and humanities, texts and data, and the digital and computational sciences. When looking for equitable solutions to our most critical social issues, humanities and the arts interact with collective data to lead to more just choices.
Coughing and Scoffing: Inequities in the Time of COVID-19 [video]
Panelists explored how the COVID-19 pandemic reflects and exacerbates longstanding structural, systematic racial inequities that determine individual and communities’ health and access to healthcare. This event was part of the History and Health: Racial Equity Series.