How can creativity help us survive—and reimagine—systems that fail to meet our most basic needs?

Inspired by "Kristina Wong: Food Bank Influencer", this dynamic panel discussion moderated by Director of Artistic Programming and Interim Executive Director of Emerson’s Office of the Arts, Ronee Penoi, explores how artists, cultural organizers, and communities are responding to the intertwined food and housing crises with ingenuity and solidarity. From pandemic-era mutual aid kitchens to grassroots rent parties that kept the lights on and the music playing, we’ll examine how cultural expression has long been a lifeline in times of precarity.

Panelists will discuss the radical potential of the arts to foster collective care, build community resilience, and galvanize action around economic justice. Together, we’ll reflect on how performance, storytelling, and creative organizing can disrupt narratives of scarcity and shame—and instead amplify voices, strategies, and solutions rooted in abundance and mutual support.

Join ArtsEmerson for a timely conversation that lives at the intersection of art and activism.

 

Aja Burrell Wood is the managing director for Berklee’s Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice. Wood oversees the day-to-day operations of the institute and collaborates with founder and artistic director Terri Lyne Carrington on developing curriculum, programs, and initiatives in addition to teaching courses related to gender and justice in jazz, and curating events, among other duties.

This week, we take a deep dive into air quality as we look at the release of AMERICAN EXPERIENCE's Clearing the Air: The War on Smog. From smog in the movies to combatting air pollution to the preservation of the environment in places like Yosemite, we'll look at the challenges and also celebrate the beauty of fresh air.

Melissa Lane is the Class of 1943 Professor of Politics at Princeton University, where she is also Associated Faculty in Classics and in Philosophy, and has received the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize, the Stanley J. Kelley Teaching Award of the Department of Politics, and the Faculty Community Engagement Award of the Pace Center for Civic Engagement.

She currently also holds a three-year appointment dedicated to delivering periodic public lectures in London as the fiftieth Professor of Rhetoric at Gresham College. She has held a Guggenheim Fellowship in the field of Classics, as well as fellowships and visiting professorships at a number of institutions including the ANU, Auckland, Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, the American Academy in Rome, and the École Normale Supérieure. Lane was educated in Californian public schools, then at Harvard University and the University of Cambridge, where she received an MPhil and PhD in Philosophy and then taught for fifteen years before moving to Princeton in 2009.

Her most recent monograph, titled Of Rule and Office: Plato's Ideas of the Political and published in 2023 by Princeton University Press, was awarded the 2024 Book Prize of the Journal of the History of Philosophy; her 2012 book Eco-Republic continues to be widely discussed. Lane has appeared multiple times on ‘In Our Time’ on BBC Radio Four, and been published in periodicals in the US, UK, Italy and Germany.

This lecture is supported by an ILA Major Grant.

The Lowell Humanities Series is sponsored by the Lowell Institute, Boston College's Institute for the Liberal Arts, and the Provost's Office.

Join award-winning author, director, producer, and independent filmmaker Zachary James Miller, who will discuss the acclaimed author Richard Wright. This will be a historical look at Wright's life and time in Paris, his legacy, along with his work, both literary and political, and the times he lived in. Miller will be in conversation with Barbara Abrams, PhD, professor and chair, History, Language, Global Culture Department, and Philosophy Department, Suffolk University.

The Boston Public Library welcomes Paola Mendoza as a speaker for the Lowell Lecture Series. As a Latinx film director, best-selling author, and film director, Mendoza will speak to the BPL community about her own experience as a community organizer and change-maker, sharing her personal journey.

Mendoza will be in conversation with BPL President David Leonard and in addition to her film and activism work, she'll discuss her work as an author and will sign copies of her books at the end of the program. Mendoza’s talk on her life as an activist, artist and leader contributes to the library’s organizational artistic theme of Revolutionary Art.


After the main program, in-person audience members are invited to meet the speaker.

Paola Mendoza is a Latinx artist, film director, author, and cultural organizer. She co-founded the Women's March and served as its Artistic Director. She has organized creative actions across the country and is a bestselling author of the books Sanctuary, and the New York Times bestseller "Together We Rise: Behind the Scenes at the Protest Heard Around the World". Mendoza uses art to disrupt and disarm, to change our thinking and to advance movements for immigrants, women, and reproductive justice.

Nuila’s stunning debut "The People’s Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine," which details the stories of five Houstonians unable to access healthcare in his hometown of Houston, TX, was selected as a semi-finalist for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction and named one of the Best Books of 2023 by Amazon, Kirkus Reviews, and The Washington Post.

Dr. Nuila is an associate professor of medicine, medical ethics, and health policy at Baylor College of Medicine, where he directs the Humanities Expression and Arts Lab (HEAL) program. His work and research on the use of arts and humanities in medical practice have been supported by the Association of American Medical Colleges, and he has received fellowships for his writing from MacDowell, Yaddo, the Logan Nonfiction Program, and the Texas Institute of Letters. His features and essays have appeared in Texas Monthly, The New York Times Sunday Review, VQR, The Atlantic, and The New England Journal of Medicine. His short fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, McSweeney’s, Guernica, and other magazines.

Cosponsored by the Park Street Corporation Speaker Series.

The Lowell Humanities Series is sponsored by the Lowell Institute, Boston College's Institute for the Liberal Arts, and the Provost's Office.

We're taking a deep dive into road trips. Find ideas for day trips, recipes and playlists for your journey, and stories and books about travel.

Dive deep into the Roman city of Pompeii as we approach the 1,946th anniversary of Mt. Vesuvius's catastrophic eruption.