2026
Our Broken Memories: On History-Making Popular Culture, and the Politics of Forgetting In Puerto Rico
Fall 2026
Speaker: Jorell Meléndez-Badillo, Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Professor Meléndez-Badillo’s presentation explored the ways that history has always been a contested space in Puerto Rico’s political cultures, from the publication of foundational history texts to the present. • Co-sponsored by the UVM History Department and Program in Spanish.
Affirming the Anti-Racist, Abolitionist Possibilities of Korean Adoptee AntiAdoption Self-Expressions
Spring 2026
Speaker: Seugmi Laura Cho, Assistant Professor of Social Work at the University of Vermont
In conversation with recent adult Korean adoptee rights activism in South Korea, Professor Cho’s paper presentation centered the relational possibilities of adoptee solidarity with vulnerable families and communities.
Unfamiliar Ground: Centering the Geography of Early Black New Englanders
Spring 2026
Speaker: Nicole Maskiell, Associate Professor of African and African American Studies at Dartmouth College
Professor Maskiell’s presentation focused on the movements of Black people across rivers, trails, and borderlands, to illustrate how the Northeast was shaped by the struggles, mobility, and aspirations of African-descended people in the colonial and Revolutionary eras.
2025
Fron Salsa’s Nuyorican Meaning to Bad Bunny’s NUEVAYol
Fall 2025
Speaker: Marison Negron, Associate Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Boston
Professor Negrón’s presentation focused on salsa’s emergence among New York’s poor and working-class Puerto Rican communities in the mid-late 1960s. She concluded with a reflection on Bad Bunny’s de-colonial politics and the relationship between music, culture, and politics in his Puerto Rico residency.
No Blank Slates: Radical Transformations and the Settler Colonial Imaginary
Fall 2025
Speaker: E. Ornelas, Assistant Professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies at Darthmouth College
Professor E.’s presentation shared about her studies in community-based, abolitionist-informed responses to gendered, racialized, and colonial violence in Black feminist and Indigenous feminist speculative fiction.
In collaboration with the UVM Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies (GSWS) program.
2024
Even Jesus Got His Crown in a Crowd: Exploring Liberation Theology in Black Lives Matter Protest Music
Spring 2024
Speaker: Shionta Alle, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Darthmouth College
Professor Alle’s presentation focused on how the Black church operated as the institutional center of the Civil Rights Movement, yet scholars have debated to what extent Christian theologies continue to politically motivate Black communities amid the present and ongoing Black Lives Matter Movement.
2023
Viewing Diné History Through an Archaeological Lens: A Discussion of Diné Presence in the American Southwest, pre-AD 1500—present
Fall 2023
Speaker: Wade Campbell, Assistant Professor of Anthropology & Archeology at Boston University
Professor Campbell’s research examines the relationships between Diné communities and other local groups in the U.S. Southwest from the 17th century to the present day, including the Pueblos, Spanish, and Americans.
Indigenous Relationships and Colonial Constraints: The Impact on Tribal Enrollment in Dating, Marriage, and Family Building
Spring 2023
Speaker: Danielle Lucero, Assistant Professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies at Dartmouth College
Professor Lucero’s research seeks to investigate the relationships between tribal enrollment, Pueblo women's experiences with reproductive and social labor, and exploring the connections between identity, belonging, place, and tribal membership.
Co-sponsored by UVM’s Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies (GSWS) Program, and Global and Regional Studies (GRS) Program.
Beyond the Pale
Spring 2023
Speaker: Maritza Loida Pérez, Afro-Mundo
Maritza is interested in borders and boundaries, in contested territories and negated identities, in hushed narratives, and in whitewashed histories that erase and/or demonize Blackness as a means of exploitation, marginalization and dispossession.
In collaboration with UVM’s Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies (GSWS) Program.
2022
New Trend, Old Racism: How Korean Popular Culture Perpetuates the American Racial Hierarchy and Anti-Blackness
Fall 2022
Speaker: Jinwon Kim, Assistant Professor of Sociology at CUNY NYCCT
In 2020, Korea’s entertainment industry burst into the U.S. market. Professor Kim’s presentation was based on critical medial analysis and in-depth interviews to examine how K-pop industry and Korean media have reinforced U.S. racial hierarchy and anti-Blackness.
Brown Transfigurations: The Wound That Makes the Man
Spring 2022
Speaker: Francisco G. Galarte, Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Arizona
Professor Galarte’s research focuses on Chicanx & Latinx Studies, transgender studies, and queer theory. His presentation focused on how Chicanx and Latinx trans masculinities are constituted relationally.
Co-sponsored by UVM’s Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies Program (GSWS) and the Department of Romance Languages and Cultures (RLC).