Resources for Teachers and Students
We are pleased to offer the following online resources to encourage teachers and students to enhance their engagement with the Lowell Humanities Series. We encourage you to adopt our speakers' most recent book as well as shorter essays and contextual material as part of your syllabi. Additionally, the resources below can be paired or used separately to fit a single class or a longer unit. These links allow students to watch a Youtube video, or read a short essay or interview, before or after one of our events. Teachers might also consider using these resources in conjunction with evening reflection activities, or opportunities for reviews/reports during or beyond class-time. For speakers book titles, please see their bios. Articles in academic journals are available to members of the BC community through the library webpage.
Martin Parr
Photobiography
May 1, 2022
2PM | Devlin Hall, Room 008
Interviews:
- It’s Nice That: “All you see is lazy photography everywhere”: Martin Parr in conversation with It’s Nice That
- studio international: Martin Parr – Interview: ‘Britain is eternally fascinating … full of contradictions … Photographing it is a form of therapy’
- The Architectural Review: Interview with Martin Parr
- CR Fashion Book: Photography Legend Martin Parr Muses on Life in Interesting Times
- The Guardian: ‘I didn’t really watch any tennis’: how Martin Parr captured the Grand Slam’s real champions
- Sleek: Martin Parr: “My real goal is to photograph the British summertime, and that isn’t going to happen this summer”
- Evening Standard: Martin Parr: ‘I never get tired of photographing people, it’s the most interesting subject’
Selected Work:
Videos/Talks:
- Wex Photo Video: In Conversation | with Martin Parr
- Tate Talks: The Photobook: A History | Tate Talks
- Tate: Martin Parr – ‘Photography is a Form of Therapy’ | Tate Shots
- Science Museum: Martin Parr in conversation
Isabel Wilkerson:
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
September 8, 2021
7:00 p.m. • Virtual Event
Reviews:
- The New York Times: "Isabel Wilkerson’s ‘Caste’ Is an ‘Instant American Classic’ About Our Abiding Sin"
- The Guardian: "Caste: The Lies That Divide Us by Isabel Wilkerson--review"
- NPR: "‘Caste’ Argues Its Most Violent Manifestation Is In Its Treatment Of Black Americans"
- The Wall Street Journal: "‘Caste’ Review: The High Cost of Feeling Superior"
- Foreign Policy: "Feeling Like An Outcast"
- The New Republic: “Is America Trapped in a Caste System?”
- Los Angeles Review of Books: “The Work of Analogy: On Isabel Wilkerson’s ‘Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents’”
Interviews:
- Isabel Wilkerson, “Caste” (with Bryan Stevenson)
- Ken Burns and Isabel Wilkerson: In Conversation
- TED: “Isabel Wilkerson: The Great Migration and the Power of a Single Decision”
- C-Span: “Q&A with Isabel Wilkerson” (w/transcript)
(Audio/ Audio & Transcript)
- PBS: “‘Caste’ author Isabel Wilkerson on America’s race and class hierarchy”
- Vox: “Isabel Wilkerson wants to change how we understand race in America”
Excerpts:
Beth Lew-Williams
“The Chinese Must Go: A History of Anti-Asian Violence”
September 29, 2021
7:00 p.m. • Virtual Event
Reviews:
- International Migration Review: “Book Review: The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America”
- Humanities And Social Sciences Online: “Carrigan on Lew-Williams, ‘The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America”
- Slate: “The Idea of the Unassimilable Alien”
- The American Historical Review: “BETH LEW-WILLIAMS. The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America”
- Pacific Historical Review: “The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America”
Interviews:
- WNYC: “The Deep History of Anti-Asian Violence in the US” (audio & transcript)
- The World: “For a child migrant, days feel like a lifetime when you’re imprisoned and alone” (audio & transcript)
Dina Nayeri
Fiction Days Presents: The Ungrateful Refugee
October 20, 2021
7:00 p.m. • Virtual Event
Reviews:
- The New York Times: “She Fled the Iranian Revolution, but Her Troubles Didn’t End There”
- Star Tribune: “Review: ‘The Ungrateful Refugee’ by Dina Nayeri”
- Michigan Quarterly Review: “In Exile: A Review of The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You by Dina Nayeri”
- Kirkus: “THE UNGRATEFUL REFUGEE: WHAT IMMIGRANTS NEVER TELL YOU”
Essays/Public Work:
- The Guardian: “The ungrateful refugee: ‘We have no debt to repay’”
- Los Angeles Times: “Op-Ed: For a refugee in the U.S., the sharpest sting is the everyday shame of being foreign”
- The New York Times: “After London Attack, Living Between Cultures”
- The Guardian: “Accepting charity is an ugly business’: my return to the refugee camps, 30 years on”
- The Guardian: “Yearning for the end of the world”
- The Guardian: “I wouldn’t be the refugee, I’d be the girl who kicked ass’: how taekwondo made me”
Interviews:
- Los Angeles Review of Books: “Picking Children’s Pockets: An Interview with Dina Nayeri”
- Nylon: “Interview: Dina Nayeri Doesn’t Want to Miss Anyone’s Pain”
- Rebel Book Club: “Interview with Dina Nayeri: Author of the Ungrateful Refugee” (video)
- Image: “It Is Your Duty to Answer Us: An Interview with the Author of The Ungrateful Refugee”
- Guernica: “Dina Nayeri: The Craft of Writing the Truth about Refugees”
Excerpt:
Bryce Pinkham
Fear Into Fuel: A Gentleman’s Guide to Stage Fright and Other Scary Things like Climate Change
November 3, 2021
7:00 p.m. • Virtual Event
Interviews:
- BUILD Series: “Jefferson Mays & Bryce Pinkham on “A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder” (video)
- CBS New York: “Interview: Star Of ‘A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” (video)
- Broadway World: “BWW Interview: Catching Up with HOLIDAY INN Star and Humanitarian Bryce Pinkham”
- Broadway World: “BWW Interview: Lisa O’Hare and Bryce Pinkham Share Why It’s ‘Loverly’ to Reunite for MY FAIR LADY”
Performances:
- 2014 Tony Awards: “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder -- I’ve Decided to Marry You”
- Chicago Tribune: “Bryce Pinkham sings “On The Street Where You Live”
Charity:
Samuel Moyn
Humane: How the US Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War
November 10, 2021
7:00 p.m. • Virtual Event
Reviews:
- The New York Times: "The False and Dangerous Promise of Humane Wars"
- Boston Review: "Slouching Toward Humanity"
- The New Republic: "The Case Against Humane War"
- Kirkus: “Humane: How The US Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War”
- Curtis Brown: “Humane War: Global Control and the Making of a Moral Crisis”
Op-Eds/Public Work:
- Plough: “Tolstoy’s Case Against Humane War”
- The New York Times: “Why the War on Terror May Never End”
- The New York Times: “How the Human Rights Movement Failed”
- The New York Times: “What Kind of Fear Is Stopping Joe Biden?”
- The New York Review: “The Trouble with Comparisons”
Interviews:
- The Lawfare Podcast: “Samuel Moyn on ‘How Warfare Became Both More Humane and Harder to End”
- Unregistered Podcast: “Unregistered 115: Samuel Moyn” (video)
- Jacobin: “We Can’t Settle for Human Rights”
- Yale Law School: “Q&A with Professor Samuel Moyn on Supreme Court Reform”
- The Chronicle of Higher Education: “The Review: Fascism and a Chat with Samuel Moyn”
- Dissent: “Know Your Enemy: Know Your Frenemies, with Samuel Moyn” (audio)
Robin Wall Kimmerer
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
December 1, 2021
7:00 p.m. • Virtual Event
Reviews:
- Kirkus: “Braiding Sweetgrass”
- Colorado State University Center for Literary Publishing: “Book Reviews: Braiding Sweetgrass Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants”
- The New York Times: “Timing, Patience and Wisdom Are the Secrets to Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Success”
- Brevity Magazine: “A Review of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass”
- Star Tribune: “REVIEW: ‘Braiding Sweetgrass,’ by Robin Wall Kimmerer”
- Forbes: “Forbes All-Star Book Club: Kit Crawford Reviews 'Braiding Sweetgrass’”
Interviews:
- The Guardian: “Robin Wall Kimmerer: ‘People can’t understand the world as a gift unless someone shows them how’”
- The Guardian: “Robin Wall Kimmerer: ‘Mosses are a model of how we might live’”
- The On Being Podcast: “Robin Wall Kimmerer: The Intelligence of Plants” (audio & transcript)
- Natural History Institute: “Reciprocal Healing: Interview with Robin Wall Kimmerer, Ph.D.”
- The Believer: “An Interview with Robin Wall Kimmerer”
- The Sun Magazine: “Two Ways Of Knowing: Robin Wall Kimmerer On Scientific Knowledge And Native American View Of The Natural World”
Op-Eds/Excerpts:
- Emergence Magazine: “Skywoman Falling”
- Emergence Magazine: “Corn Tastes Better On The Honor System” (multimedia)
- Emergence Magazine: “The Serviceberry: An Economy of Abundance”
- Gratefulness: “Returning the Gift”
- Literary Hub: “Robin Wall Kimmerer: ‘Greed Does Not Have to Define Our Relationship to Land’”
Kelly Brown Douglas
Resurrection Hope in a Time of Crucifying Black Death
February 2, 2022
7:00 p.m. • Virtual Event
Interviews:
- Union Theological Seminary: Resurrection Hope Book Launch with Dean Kelly Brown Douglas
- Seizing Freedom: Interview: Kelly Brown Douglas
- Thrive Global: Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas of ‘Union Theological Seminary’: ‘If we want enough food to eat, then we should not withhold that from another’
- Truthout: Black Womanist Theology Offers Hope in the Face of White Supremacy
- Kings College London: AKC Conversation with Kelly Brown Douglas
- Faith & Leadership: Kelly Brown Douglas: After the election, faith leaders must fill the vacuum of moral leadership
Public Work:
- The Hill: Can we heal the moral injury of our nation?
- The Baltimore Sun: Confronting America’s disease: white racism
- The Christian Century: How do we know Black lives matter to God?
- Sojourners: A Christian Call for Reparations
- Episcopal Divinity School at Union: Just Conversations with Kelly Brown Douglas
Eli Saslow
Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist
February 23, 2022
7:00 p.m. • Virtual Event
Reviews:
- The New York Times: Renouncing Hate: What Happens When a White Nationalist Repents
- The Washington Post: A white supremacist’s path to enlightenment on race and tolerance
- Kirkus: Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist
Interviews:
- Vice: The White Nationalist Heir Who Rejected His Dad’s Vile Bigotry
- The Oregonian: Eli Saslow on “Voices from the Pandemic” and the connections between antivaxxers and white supremacy: Beat Check podcast
- Tablet: After the Storm
- Longform: Eli Saslow
- The Daily Show: Eli Saslow & Derek Black – Leaving the KKK and White Supremacy
- NPR: ‘Rising Out Of Hatred’: Former White Nationalist On Unlearning His Beliefs
Articles:
- The Washington Post: Voices from the Pandemic
- The Washington Post: The white flight of Derek Black
- The Washington Post: “Are you alone now?”: After raid, immigrant families are separated in the American heartland
- The Washington Post: The Battle for 1042 Cutler Street
Claudia Rankine
Citizen: An American Lyric
March 2, 2022
7:00 p.m. • Virtual Event
Reviews:
- Los Angeles Review of Books: Reconsidering Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric. A Symposium, Part I
- The New York Times: Claudia Rankine’s ‘Citizen’
- The Guardian: Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine review-the ugly truth of racism
- The New Yorker: Color Codes
- NPR: Book Review: ‘Citizen: An American Lyric’
- The New Yorker: Claudia Rankine’s Quest for Racial Dialogue
Interviews:
- The White Review: Interview With Claudia Rankine
- TriQuarterly: An Interview with Claudia Rankine
- The Guardian: Claudia Rankine: ‘Blackness in the white imagination has nothing to do with black people’
- The Guardian: Claudia Rankine: ‘why I’m spending $625,000 to study whiteness’
- The Guardian: Claudia Rankine: ‘By white privilege I mean the ability to stay alive’
Public Work /Op-Eds:
- The New York Times: I Wanted to Know What White Men Thought About Their White Privilege. So I Asked.
- The New York Times: The Condition of Black Life Is One of Mourning
Videos:
- Situations by john lucas & claudia rankine on Vimeo
- Detroit Public TV: Claudia Rankine on Citizen: An American Lyric- 2015 L.A. Times Festival of Books
- International Festival of Arts & Ideas: Claudia Rankine: How Art Teaches a Poet to See
Excerpt:
Ruja Benjamin
Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code
March 24, 2022
7:00 p.m. • Gasson Hall, Room 100
Reviews:
- The Nation: The Ghost in the Machine
- New Media & Society: Race after technology: Abolitionist tools for the New Jim Code
- Black Perspectives: Race After Technology
- AI and Faith: Book Review: Race After Technology Interrogates the Tech World About Structural Racism
Interviews/Talks:
- The Guardian: Ruha Benjamin: ‘We definitely can’t wait for Silicon Valley to become more diverse’
- WNYC: “Defunding the Police Could Lead to More Surveillance”
- UC Berkeley: Ruha Benjamin on ‘The New Jim Code? Race, Carceral Technoscience, and Liberatory Imagination
- Business Today: Discrimination in the Digits: A Conversation with Ruha Benjamin, Author of “Race After Technology”
- Princeton University: Benjamin’s ‘Race After Technology’ speaks to a growing concern among many of tech bias
- Computer Weekly: Interview: Ruha Benjamin, author, Race After Technology
- NCWIT: “Race to the Future? Reimagining The Default Settings Of Technology And Society” With Ruha Benjamin
Articles/Public Work:
- Science: Assessing risk, automating racism
- Medium: The Shiny, High-Tech Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
- Kalfou: Prophets and Profits of Racial Science
- Boston Review: Black AfterLives Matter
Kevin Barry
Writing the West: The Influence of Place, Dialect, and Hauntedness in the Fiction of Kevin Barry
April 6, 2022
7:00 p.m. • Gasson Hall, Room 100
Reviews:
- NPR: Take A Dark Ride On The ‘Night Boat To Tangier’
- The New York Times: Two Lifetime Crooks Wait for a Missing Daughter, with Shades of Beckett
- The Guardian: Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry review – darkly comic voyage into the abyss
- NPR: There’s Not A Single Note Off In ‘That Old Country Music’
- The New York Times: Kevin Barry’s Stories of Yearning Swing between Pathos and Humor
- The Washington Post: Kevin Barry’s ‘That Old Country Music’ Examines the Brutal Bliss of Romantic Love
- The Guardian: That Old Country Music by Kevin Barry review – wild, witty stories
Interviews:
- The Believer: An Interview with Kevin Barry
- Los Angeles Review of Books: Tiptoeing Toward the Very Edge of Believability: An Interview with Kevin Barry
- The Millions: I’m A Stained-Glass Guy: The Millions Interview Kevin Barry
- The Paris Review: Failing the Driving Test with Kevin Barry
- The Guardian: Kevin Barry: ‘I want to get that thread of menace’
- The Times Literary Supplement: Twenty Questions with Kevin Barry
- Hot Press: Interview: Kevin Barry on Writing, That Old Country Music, and The West
Excerpts:
- The Irish Times: Pure Winter: A Christmas Story by Kevin Barry
- Electric Lit: Mom’s Ex-Fiancé Makes a Bad Boyfriend (from That Old Country Music)
- Excerpt from Dark Lies the Island
- Literary Hub: A Cruelty (from Dark Lies the Island)
- Harper’s Magazine: No. 13 Baby (from Night Boat to Tangier)
Ada Limón
Poetry Days Presents: Ada Limón: The Carrying
April 20, 2022
7PM • Gasson Hall, Room 100
Reviews:
- Los Angeles Review: Review: The Carrying by Ada Limón
- Pank Magazine: [Review] The Carrying by Ada Limón
- The Guardian: The Carrying by Ada Limón review - from the heart, unvarnished
- Chicago Review of Books: ‘The Carrying’ Is Ada Limón’s Most Personal Poetry Yet
- The Adroit Journal: On The Environmental Gaze & Writing Big: A Review of Ada Limón’s ‘The Carrying’
Interviews:
- Columbia Journal: The Word Process: An Interview with Ada Limón
- Guernica: Ada Limón: Connected to the Universe
- Literary Hub: Ada Limón on Kanye West, Womanhood, Truth in Poetry, and More
- The Adroit Journal: A Conversation with Ada Limón
- NPR: Ada Limon On Poetry Collection, ‘The Carrying’
- Cleaver Magazine: A Conversation with Ada Limon author of THE CARRYING published by Milkweed Editions
- The Creative Independent : On being a gateway drug for poetry
- Bomb Magazine: Trust Poetry: Ada Limón Interviewed by Lauren LeBlanc
Selected Writings:
- The New York Times: Poem: PREY
- The New Yorker: “Overpass”
- Poets.org: “The Carrying”
- Poetry Foundation: Ada Limón
Videos:
Martin Parr
Photobiography
May 1, 2022
2PM | Devlin Hall, Room 008
Interviews:
- It’s Nice That: “All you see is lazy photography everywhere”: Martin Parr in conversation with It’s Nice That
- studio international: Martin Parr – Interview: ‘Britain is eternally fascinating … full of contradictions … Photographing it is a form of therapy’
- The Architectural Review: Interview with Martin Parr
- CR Fashion Book: Photography Legend Martin Parr Muses on Life in Interesting Times
- The Guardian: ‘I didn’t really watch any tennis’: how Martin Parr captured the Grand Slam’s real champions
- Sleek: Martin Parr: “My real goal is to photograph the British summertime, and that isn’t going to happen this summer”
- Evening Standard: Martin Parr: ‘I never get tired of photographing people, it’s the most interesting subject’
Selected Work:
Videos/Talks:
- Wex Photo Video: In Conversation | with Martin Parr
- Tate Talks: The Photobook: A History | Tate Talks
- Tate: Martin Parr – ‘Photography is a Form of Therapy’ | Tate Shots
- Science Museum: Martin Parr in conversation