Forum Online
New work & commentary
Our guest writers — scholars, poets, essayists, novelists, students, educators — engage with the programming at the Forum and contribute to timely topics and conversations.
In Gratitude: Bits of Borno
By Samuel Fury Childs Daly
Nigerian photojournalist Fati Abubakar has made it her goal to document how lives lived under the sign of conflict are not fully determined by it. Samuel Fury Childs Daly remembers her 2017 campus visit.
In Gratitude: The Artist as Researcher
By Caitlin Margaret Kelly
In our Gratitude Journal, Power Plant Gallery director Caitlin Margaret Kelly looks back on “The Artist As Researcher,” a conversation from 2017.
The FSP@PPG lunchtime event featured Julia Gartrell, Howard Craft, M.C. Taylor, and Aya Shabu.
Statement on Black Lives Matter
We at the Forum for Scholars and Publics stand in solidarity with those protesting the deaths of George Floyd in Minnesota, Breonna Taylor in Kentucky, Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, Adama Traoré in France, and so many others.
Read our full statement in support of protesters demanding justice for those killed by police.
In Gratitude: On Photography and Social Advocacy
By Margaret "Lou" Brown
The room was bubbling with emotion. Anger. Fear. Frustration. Anxiety. The images were often hard to look at, but we knew they were made with purpose. Lou Brown remembers “Photography and Social Advocacy,” a program from 2016.
In Gratitude: A Conversation with SNCC Veterans
By Margaret (Lou) Brown
In this contribution to our Gratitude Journal, Lou Brown reflects on “The Struggle Continues: A Dialogue with SNCC Veterans,” a program at the Forum from September 2016.
The discussion featured Maria Varela, Charles Cobb, and Judy Richardson in an exploration of the enduring lessons of their SNCC experiences.
A Note on Our New Website
By Forum staff
May 2020 will see the launch of a new website for the Forum for Scholars and Publics. Developed in close collaboration with the award-winning design agency Kompleks Creative, our new website updates our logo, streamlines our event calendar, and showcases our digital work and community projects.
Bold layouts and pops of Caribbean color reflect the vibrant energy that our guest speakers, partners and organizers, and participants bring into our spaces. Photos and retrospectives tell the story of the Forum at Duke as well — how we got started, who we’ve had the pleasure of meeting along the way, what we’ve accomplished, and what’s on the horizon.
Photography as Choreography: Confessions for a Son
By Cydney Livingston
In November 2019, nationally acclaimed photographer McNair Evans spoke with Duke undergraduates about his beginnings as a student of cultural anthropology and his career as a visual artist. The conversation centered around one of his most famous projects, Confessions for a Son.
Evans’ project was a quest to understand his late father, his family’s narrative and himself following the death of his father. When he discovered that the family business was millions of dollars in debt, Evans relied on the tool he most frequently turns to for understanding and insight: photography.
The Anthropology of “Porkopolis”
By Cydney Livingston
As America’s pork industry is continually pushed to ever greater production, so are the human beings who labor to breed, care for, and slaughter these animals.
Alex Blanchette, cultural anthropologist and lecturer in anthropology and environmental studies at Tufts University, is a scholar of pork production. In a talk hosted by the Ethnography Workshop at Duke on November 4th, Blanchette said there is an intimate relationship between pig and person. The quality of the factory farm worker’s life is tied to that of the porcine species.
check us out
on social media