Bonder speaks at Harvard’s Universities and Slavery Conference

Harvard University’s 2017 conference, “Universities and Slavery: Bound by History,” included RWU Professor of Architecture Julian Bonder as a speaker. The daylong conference explored the relationship between slavery and universities across the country and around the world, organized by Harvard faculty Sven Beckert, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, and Daniel Carpenter. The event was webcast live, and videos are available here.

The conference included a keynote address by Ta-Nehisi Coates introduced by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., which was followed by a conversation between Coates and Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust. A panel discussion on Slavery and Universities Nationally moderated by Higginbotham followed between Adam Rothman (Georgetown), James Campbell (Stanford), and Craig Steven Wilder (MIT); Poetry Readings by Vincent Brown (Harvard) and Natasha Trethewey (Emory); a session on Slavery and Harvard moderated by Annette Gordon-Reed which included Sven Beckert, Bonder (Roger Williams University), Daniel Coquillette (Boston College) and Harvard student Alexandra Rahman; and a concluding session, “Slavery and Universities Globally” moderated by Alejandro de la Fuente with Hilary Beckles (University of the West Indies), Max Price (University of Cape Town), and Christine Taubira, France’s former Minister of Justice.