We encourage you to attend one of the following educational sessions in order to complete one of your CESP reflections. Any of the sessions on this list can be counted toward the Collaboration and Community Building Reflection. If you think an event would fit for a different reflection please email [email protected].
Perceived Threats: Postcolonial Futures of Policing (Part of the (In)Justice Series and UMN Conversations at Northrop)
Wednesday, February 5 | 3:30pm-5:00pm | In-person Northrop Best Buy Theater/or Livestream
Why are police equipped and trained to treat citizens like enemies of war? Julian Go (University of Chicago), with William P. Jones (University of Minnesota), complicates our global conversation on the colonial roots of policing and its futures. Discussing what he calls the “imperial boomerang,” Go pinpoints how the mindset of imperial expansion and domination abroad permanently changed how police treat citizens at home. Militarized policing mirrors the tools and technologies of colonial policing abroad—but its logic also mirrors a response to perceived racialized threats from minority and immigrant populations, fear of revolution, and rebellion in the streets. The panelists will explore the imperial connections and deep subconscious assumptions that inform contemporary trends, all with an eye towards what it will take to demilitarize policing.
More info and register here
Menstrual Equity: At Home and Abroad
Thursday, February 13 | 5:00pm-7:00pm | Humphrey School of Public Affairs Room 30
In the US, 1 in 3 adults struggle and 1 in 4 teens struggles to afford menstrual products. In India, 1 in 4 in teens and 1 in 2 adults do not have access to any or clean menstrual products. Join us for a screening of the 2018-Oscar-winning documentary Period. End of Sentence, which highlights the stigma around menstruation and the consequences of a lack of access to sanitary products. The screening will be followed by a moderated Q&A about the fight for menstrual equity with Master’s in Public Health student, Kara Cowell, and Aashraya Seth, a Fulbright Humphrey International Fellow and founder of Impact91 and Happy Periods, national non-profits working on menstrual equity in India.
More info and register here
Bending Toward Justice: Gandhi’s Influence on the Civil Rights Movement (Part of the Spotlight Series & UMN Conversations at Northrop)
Thursday, February 20 |3:30pm-5:00pm | In-person Northrop Best Buy Theater/or LivestreamIn 1959, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled to India to pay homage to his hero, Mahatma Gandhi, who King referred to as “the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change.” Minneapolis-based poet, speaker, and educator Joe Davis will set the stage with an inspiring artist introduction. Then, Rose Brewer (social activist, University of Minnesota Twin Cities) and Davu Underwood Seru (musician, Givens Collection of African American Literature) will join Davis for a rich conversation, moderated by Dwight K. Lewis Jr. (UMN), about how these two leaders shaped our thinking around civil disobedience and civic engagement, and the role of art in the ongoing struggle for freedom.
More info and register here
Building an Archive for Police Reform (Part of the (In)Justice Series and UMN Conversations at Northrop)
Wednesday, March 19 | 3:30-5:00pm | In-person Northrop Best Buy Theater/or Livestream
How can the lessons learned by organizers and activists today be made accessible for generations to come? Michelle Gross (Communities United Against Police Violence) and Matthew Lassiter (History, University of Michigan), with Susanna Blumenthal (University of Minnesota Law and History), will discuss how documenting the efforts and outcomes of police reform initiatives can influence ongoing and future measures. They will explore the challenges of creating an archive that not only records the history of police reform, but also serves as a dynamic resource for future research, policymaking, and activism.
More info and register here
Towards Just Futures (Part of the (In)Justice Series and UMN Conversations at Northrop)
Wednesday, April 16 | 3:30pm-5:00pm | In-person Northrop Best Buy Theater/or Livestream
Panelists Monica C. Bell (Yale University) and Leesa Kelly (Memorialize the Movement), moderated by Michelle S. Phelps (University of Minnesota Twin Cities) will discuss how scholarship, activism, and community engagement can move us toward a more just future. Through her project Fifty Mothers, Bell transforms interviews into poetry to illuminate how Black American women living on the margins love, fear, hope, dream, ache, wonder, resist, grieve, claim their dignity, and remake their lives. At Memorialize the Movement, Kelly and her collaborators have developed a living archive that collects, preserves, and activates the plywood protest murals created during the Minneapolis uprising in 2020 to ensure the voices and experiences of the community who created them are not forgotten or erased. Together, our panelists will discuss how art ranging from poetry to street art created during protest against radicalized police violence can illuminate our path toward justice.
More info and register here