Academics
April 7-11. Please see the course registration web page for schedule.

Academics | Alumni Hall, 2nd floor
This exhibition, curated by 10 students in the Fall 2024 semester of MUSE 300: Museum Curating, features the themes of textiles and weaving. Showcasing works from the Longyear Museum of Anthropology’s basket and world textile collections, this exhibition explores the incredible amount of labor and skill that goes into creating woven art. The exhibition takes a comparative view of textiles from around the world, introducing the community significance of different designs and individual stylistic choices. The exhibition discusses how fiber art forms have changed as local and global markets develop, as well as the role that clothing can play in displays of nationalism and politics. Ultimately, Unraveled aims to inspire viewers to consider the benefits of hand-crafted works and foster an appreciation for the people behind the woven things we use and love each and every day.The exhibition features several new acquisitions, including three new works acquired from the Jalabil Maya women’s weaving collective during their artist residency last fall. It also features pieces on loan from our student curators, highlighting the significance of weaving and textile arts in their lives.Student Curators:Leila Bekaert ‘25 Oscar Brown ‘26 Kegan Foley ‘26 Emma Herwig ‘25 Bri Liddell ‘25 Gloria Liu ‘26 Meg McClenahan ‘25 Anna Miksis ‘25 Blanca Rivas ‘25 Aleksia Taci ‘25 Professor/Curator: Rebecca Mendelsohn

Academics | Picker Art Gallery, Dana Arts Center, 2nd floor
A Thought Is A Thread: Contemporary Artists Reworking Textile TraditionsMetaphors using the language of textiles are part of everyday idiomatic English: we follow threads on social media; storytellers weave tales or spin fantastic yarns; friend groups might be close-knit and and we might tie ourselves in knots trying to navigate complex situations. The history of textiles is intimately tied to the development of human societies. Weaving is at the same time one of the earliest human technological advancements, the foundation upon which modern industrial nations were built, and the basis for the computing revolution.A Thought Is A Thread brings together works by leading artists who investigate what textiles can still reveal about people and their relationships to each other, to themselves, and to language, land, and the future. Artworks by Faig Ahmed, Sanford Biggers, Diedrick Brackens, Melissa Cody, Suzanne Husky, Joy Ray, and Jordan Nassar present intertwining narratives that both cherish and complicate the web of meanings that emerge when traditional textile arts are given contemporary expression.Debuting at our opening, Picker Art Gallery welcomes members of the Colgate community to partake in Yarnival, a collaborative art experience. Yarnival will be on view and available for participation during the exhibition run of A Thought is a Thread, through May 18, 2025, in the upper atrium of the Dana Arts Center. Please stay tuned to our social media channels and website for more details on how to participate.A Thought Is A Thread is partially supported by funding from The Friends of Picker Art Gallery.

Academics | Lawrence Hall, 105, The Robert Ho Lecture Room
Join us for a lecture from Kieran Setiya, Peter de Florez Professor and Philsophy Department Head at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Despite its conventional association with philosophy, the question of life’s meaning is often dismissed as nonsense by contemporary philosophers—or replaced with questions about meaningful lives—and for most earlier philosophers, the question doesn’t arise. In this talk, I’ll use the surprisingly recent origins of “the meaning of life” to explain what it could be. Drawing on a Romantic tradition in which the human future stands in for eschatology, I’ll argue that life could have a secular meaning, one that depends on progress towards justice, and thus depends on us.Sponsored by The Elias J. and Rosa Lee Nemir Audi Lecture Fund.

Academics | Lawrence Hall, 020
The era of refugees and migrants, encompassing most of the 20th and 21st centuries, is characterized by displaced and transient human masses. They come crowded in boats, trains, trucks, cars, on foot, or even swimming through bodies of water. Some travel alone, while others travel with their families, or in groups. This is an experience few would have chosen, but due to forces beyond their control—poverty, repression, war—they have become migrants, refugees, or exiles. Through the lens of contemporary Mexican theater, the journeys these migrants engage as they search for a better life are presented in plays written by Mexican dramatists such as Hugo Salcedo, Victor Hugo Rascón Banda, Angel Norzagaray, or Manuel Talavera Trejo. Their plays depict thousands of anonymous actors in heroic, treacherous, and tragic Journeys across some of the most unwelcoming topography between Mexico and the United States.Presentation open to all.Speaker: Iani del Rosario Moreno (Associate Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies, Suffolk University) Co-sponsored by: Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, Division of Arts and Humanities, Department of Theater, the W. M. Keck Center for Language Study, and Africana and Latin American Studies

Academics
April 7-11. Please see the course registration web page for schedule.