All events are free and open to the public.

Great Michigan Read Event, Angeline Boulley, Author of Firekeeper's Daughter 

When: Thursday, September 26, 2024, 1:30-3:30 p.m.
Where: Banquet Room B, Oakland Center, Oakland University - and via Zoom. 

Mike Kenny, OU Graduate and Attorney, "Pursuing Truth: Free Speech, Scholarship, and Jury Trials"

When: Tuesday, October 15, 2024, 7:00-8:15 p.m.
Where: Banquet Room A, Oakland Center, Oakland University - and via Zoom.

Book Arts Talk and Workshop Featuring Erin K. Schmidt, 2023 Kresge Artist Fellow

This event is made possible by the Judd Family Endowed Fund.

When: Tuesday, October 29, 12:00-1:00 p.m.
Where: Oakland University, Art Gallery - and via Zoom. 

Bookmaking Workshop

This event is made possible by the Judd Family Endowed Fund.

When: Friday, November 1, 2024, 9:00 a.m-12:00 p.m.
Where: Department of Art and Art History Studio (specific studio TBD), Wilson Hall, First Floor, Oakland University

Dr. Rhonda Williams, Coleman A. Young Foundation Endowed Chair of African American Studies, Wayne State University, "What Does a Well Society Look Like?

This event is made possible by the Judd Family Endowed Fund.

When: TBD
Where: TBD

Pat Roan Judd, OU Graduate, Performing Artist, and Humanities Benefactor, "Folklorist and Puppeteer Pat Roan Judd Tells Stories of Wise and Courageous Women"

When: Thursday, March 6, 2025, 7:00-8:15 p.m.
Where: Gold Rooms, Oakland Center, Oakland University - and via Zoom.

Kellan Dunlap, OU Graduate and Vocalist, with Lyndsi Maus, Pianist, Joined By Composer Victor Cui, "Even the Trees Weep"

In response to the fatal violence at Oxford High School in November 2021, this program features an original song cycle for tenor voice and piano that delves into the tragic issue of school shootings. Kellan Dunlap won a prestigious Presser Foundation award to develop this program.

When: Wednesday, March 19, 2025, 7:00-8:30 p.m.
Where: Varner Recital Hall, Oakland University - and via Online (Format to be determined).

Daniel Clark, Director
Daniel is a historian whose research involves oral history, interviewing people about their experiences. He is the author of Like Night and Day: Unionization in a Southern Mill Town (University of North Carolina Press, 1997), Disruption in Detroit: Detroit Autoworkers and
the Elusive Postwar Boom (University of Illinois Press, 2018), and Listening to Workers: Oral Histories of Metro-Detroit Autoworkers in the 1950s (University of Illinois Press, forthcoming). He also enjoys raising vegetables in a community garden and running on trails.

Kimmie Parker, Associate Director
Kimmie is an artist, professor, graphic designer, and writer. Her practice oscillates between the practical and the theoretical, the intellectual and the emotional, the Apollonian and the Dionysian—with endless curiosity as the common thread.

Meaghan Barry is an associate professor of graphic design and the chair of the Department of Art and Art History at Oakland University. She is a partner and creative director at Unsold Studio, an award-winning Detroit-based branding firm. Barry's work focuses on design as an economic driver for communities, with an emphasis on branding for small businesses and nonprofits.

Emily Spunaugle is a humanities librarian at Oakland University. She partners primarily with professors and students in the Department of English, Film Studies and Production, and the Honors College. She also works to make the OU library's collections in these areas more familiar, visible, and accessible.

Jessica Payette is associate professor of Musicology at Oakland University. Her scholarly interests address opera in Austria, fin-de-siècle Vienna and the emergence of Expressionistic music and choreographic music.

Graham Cassano is an associate professor of sociology at Oakland University. He is an accomplished scholar, musician, and photographer, and he is the founder of the Pontiac Oral History Project. He has recently earned an MFA in Photography from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, and his co-edited (with Teressa Benz) book, titled Urban Emergency (Mis) Management and the Crisis of Neoliberalism: Flint, MI, in Context, was published in 2021.

Mike Doan is a Canadian-born father, activist, and philosopher. He joined the James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership in 2016 while working with Detroit Independent Freedom Schools and Detroiters Resisting Emergency Management. He is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Oakland University.

Kathleen Pfeiffer is Professor of English and Creative Writing and she teaches courses in American and African American literature, biography, and memoir. Her creative nonfiction was awarded the Kresge Artist Fellowship in 2012, and  her memoir Ink won the Michigan Writers Chapbook Contest in 2018. Kathy also runs Oak Tree Book Arts, a bookmaking studio specializing in classical bookbinding techniques as well as experimental structures.

Statement of Solidarity and Commitment to Anti-Racism

The Center for Public Humanities acknowledges the pain and loss that Black and brown citizens disproportionately endure due to racist violence and police brutality. The activism in response to the murder of George Floyd and other Black Americans has been precipitated by the ongoing systematic manifestation of anti-Black violence. The Center commits to a steadfast position of anti-racism to support our students, staff, faculty, and community members. We support journalists and all citizens who exercise their freedom of speech to expose and oppose institutional racism to build a more just society. We continue to seek and support conversations across campus and the region to strengthen our position against racism in all its forms.

Land Acknowledgment

Niinwe nmiigwechendaanaa maanda aki.
Maanda Oakland University teg.
Pane gwanda Ojibwek, Odawak miinawa Bodwe’aadamiinhak.
Giibidaawok maanpii.

We acknowledge that the land on which Oakland University stands is the ancestral land of the Ojibwa, Ottawa, and the Potawatomi Nations.

A land acknowledgment offers a way to open a dialog. We at the Center for Public Humanities see this acknowledgment only as a beginning—we recognize that the arts and humanities have been practiced in Southeast Michigan long before the arrival of Europeans. As we learn how best to serve residents of the Tri-County Area, we pledge to be a positive voice to celebrate past achievements and amplify present and future contributions by Indigenous and Native American artists and humanists in this region.

We extend our sincere gratitude to Kenny Pheasant of the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians for translating the land acknowledgment into Anishinaabemowin.

Past Events

All events are free and open to the public.

2023-2024

• Kidada Williams, I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction

Professor Kidada Williams from Wayne State University will speak about her recently published book, I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction. This is a gripping, emotion-packed account of the early post-Civil War years, known as Reconstruction, from the vantage point of Black Americans attempting to give meaning to their freedom. Consider purchasing a copy through local bookstore Pages Bookshop.
This event is made possible by The Judd Family Endowed Fund.

When: Tuesday, September 26, 2023, 7:00 p.m.
Where: 242 Kresge Library (The Nyberg Room), Oakland University - and via Zoom. 

• Rose Hackman

Rose Hackman, a British journalist based in Detroit, will speak about her recently published book, Emotional Labor: The Invisible Work Shaping Our Lives and How to Claim Our Power. Emotional labor is essential to our society and economy, but it's so often invisible. In this groundbreaking, journalistic deep dive, Rose Hackman shares the stories of hundreds of women, tracing the history of this kind of work and exposing common manifestations of the phenomenon. But Hackman doesn't simply diagnose a problem - she empowers us to combat this insidious force and forge pathways for radical evolution, justice, and change.

When: Thursday, November 2, 2023, 7:00 p.m.
Where: 242 Kresge Library (The Nyberg Room), Oakland University - and via Zoom.

• Spreading the Word: Revisiting Dr. Johnetta Brazzell and the Pontiac Oral History Archive

The Pontiac Oral History Archive was created as a result of Dr. Brazzell's interviews in the 1970s with elderly African American residents of Pontiac, Michigan. This event will highlight important new work emerging from this oral history collection, including excerpts from podcasts based on the recordings, comments from living relatives of those interviewed decades ago, and a digital tour of the Pontiac Oral History Archive, publicizing its availability for community use.

When: Thursday, January 25, 2024, at 12 p.m.
Where: 242 Kresge Library (The Nyberg Room), Oakland University - and via Zoom. 

• Deirdre Mask, The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power

In this wide-ranging and remarkable book, Deirdre Mask explores the fate of streets named after Martin Luther King, Jr., the wayfinding means of ancient Romans, and how Nazis haunt the streets of modern Germany. She also reveals what not having an address means for millions of people around the world, whether it’s in the slums of Kolkata or the parks of London. Filled with fascinating people and histories, The Address Book illuminates the often hidden stories behind street addresses and their power to decide who counts, who doesn’t – and why. 

Deirdre Mask is a writer, lawyer and "sometime academic," having taught at Harvard and the London School of Economics. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Economist, Lit Hub, The Harvard Law Review, The New Hibernia Review, The Dublin Review, and Irish Pages. Originally from North Carolina, she now resides in London with her husband and daughters.

When: Thursday, February 8, 2024, at 12 p.m.
Where: Zoom.

• Women Rapping Revolution

Detroit, Michigan has long been recognized as a center of musical innovation and social change. Rebekah Farrugia and Kellie D. Hay draw on seven years of fieldwork to illuminate the important role that women have played in mobilizing a grassroots response to political and social pressures at the heart of Detroit’s ongoing renewal and development project. Focusing on the Foundation, a women-centered hip hop collective, Women Rapping Revolution argues that the hip hop underground is a crucial site where Black women shape subjectivity and claim self-care as a principle of community organizing. Through interviews and sustained critical engagement with artists and activists, this study also articulates the substantial role of cultural production in social, racial, and economic justice efforts.

When: Thursday, March 28, 2024, 7:00 p.m.
Where: Oakland Center, Founders Ballroom A, Oakland University - and via Zoom.

2019-2020

• The Flawed Victory of Women's Suffrage

  September 8th, 7:00 PM. ONLINE.

  OU history professor Karen Miller examines what women's suffrage accomplished, and what it failed to achieve.

  Supported by the Department of Women and Gender Studies and the Center for Civic Engagement.

• Creativity and Community during Covid-19: A Look at Chinese Social Media

  October 12th, 5:30 PM. ONLINE.

  Bowdoin College Associate Professor Belinda Kong shows how ordinary people in China use social media to create community amidst Covid-19.

  Generously funded by Student Affairs & Diversity.

• Great Michigan Read Book Club: What the Eyes Don't See

  November 18th, 2:00 PM. ONLINE.

  Join us for an online book club to discuss Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha's What The Eyes Don't See, a powerful first-hand account of the Flint water crisis. Facilitated by Professors Adolfo Campoy-Cubillo, Mark Navin, and Michael Doan. Space is limited! Please register by September 28th.

  This project is funded by Michigan Humanities, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

January 18, 2020 (Saturday)
Webinar: Envisioning the Public Humanities at OU

• Dr. Susan Smulyan, Professor in the Department of American Studies at Brown University and the Director of the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage, offered an engaging keynote talk. Dr. Smulyan offered different definitions of "public humanities" and shared case studies from Brown University. Guest speaker and OU alumna Kara Noto offered an account of her experience in the MA program in Public Humanities at Brown. Though initially planned as a luncheon, this event was rescheduled as a webinar to accommodate for inclement weather.

October 17, 2019 (Thursday)
Toni Morrison Film Screening

• Coinciding with National Arts and Humanities Month, the Center screened the acclaimed 2019 documentary, Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am to pay homage to the Nobel laureate writer and tireless advocate of the humanities. Kresge Fellow and poet Nandi Comer introduced the film and premiered her poem, "In Praise of More Important Things: For Toni Morrison."

Recent Press

Hill, Katelyn. "Snow Can't Stop the Public Humanities." The Oakland Post, January 22, 2020.

"New Oakland University Center for Public Humanities the First in Michigan." Oakland University News, October 7, 2019.