Washington College’s Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience has launched a new series of free virtual events every Thursday, bringing best-selling authors, respected journalists, renowned scholars, talented performers, and a variety of other guests to a wide audience during Washington College’s spring semester.
“Thursdays with the Starr Center” will be eclectic, conversational, and informal. Events will occur Thursdays at 5 p.m., unless otherwise noted. In addition to original events, the series will also feature the events of campus partners like the Black Studies Program at Washington College.
“These weekly events will capture the energy and diversity of the Washington College community,” said Goodheart. “You can come join a lively discussion on history and politics — or just quietly eavesdrop while you’re starting to fix dinner. We hope you’ll return for a regular date with us each Thursday.”
On March 4 at 5 p.m., the Starr Center invites participants to virtually sit down with Starr Center Director Adam Goodheart and acclaimed biographer Neal Gabler, a former Patrick Henry History Fellow at the Starr Center. Gabler will discuss his new book, Catching the Wind: Edward Kennedy and the Liberal Hour. A gripping book of human drama and political history, Catching the Wind does not portray Kennedy as he is so often viewed in popular culture: a reckless hedonist who rode his father’s fortune and his brothers’ coattails to a Senate seat at the age of thirty. Instead, Gabler shows a man racked by and driven by insecurity, a man so doubtful of himself that he sinned in order to be redeemed.
Later in the month, Starr is co-sponsoring two events – March 11 and March 18 at 5 p.m. – with the Black Studies Program at Washington College. March 11 will bring virtual discussions on “Leading While Black,” as alumna Joyell Arvella ’10 fuses her experience of race and gender equity facilitation and reproductive justice in order to disrupt misogynoir and unlearn global narratives that perpetuate colorism, rape culture, and reproductive harm. On March 18, Bucknell University’s Spanish and Africana Studies Professor Nick R. Jones analyzes “black speech” in Spanish theater from the 1500’s through the 1700’s to show how black Africans and their descendants were rendered legible in performative literary texts in the remote event “Speaking While Black.”
April 1 brings political author, journalist, television host, and 2020 election sensation Steve Kornacki virtually to the Starr Center. Kornacki will talk about the 1990’s historical roots of our present-day politics from his book The Red and the Blue, as well as how our current tribalism mentality came to be. In addition to gaining fame recently as NBC’s electoral map guru who barely took a break during election night coverage, Kornacki’s articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Boston Globe, and Daily Beast, among others.
For more information about the “Thursdays with the Starr Center” event series, including registration and access, please visit https://www.washcoll.edu/learn-by-doing/starr.
About the Starr Center
Washington College’s Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience explores the American experience in all its diversity and complexity, seeks creative approaches to illuminating the past, and inspires thoughtful conversation informed by history. Through educational programs, scholarship and public outreach, and a special focus on written history, the Starr Center seeks to bridge the divide between the academic world and the public at large.
About Washington College
Founded in 1782, Washington College is the tenth oldest college in the nation and the first chartered under the new Republic. It enrolls approximately 1,450 undergraduates from more than 35 states and a dozen nations. With an emphasis on hands-on, experiential learning in the arts and sciences, and more than 40 multidisciplinary areas of study, the College is home to nationally recognized academic centers in the environment, history, and writing. Learn more at washcoll.edu.
In academic writing, the asterisk symbol is one that tells us to pause and look further, revealing essential context and subtext. The Asterisk Initiative literally makes history visible by placing asterisk-shaped markers on campus landmarks that have deeper stories to tell, including the George Washington statue, William Smith Hall, Hynson-Ringgold House, and Thomas E. Morris Hall (formerly Harford Hall), among others.
“This program makes Washington College unique, since I don’t know of any other small liberal arts college that offers anything similar,” said Adam Goodheart, the Starr Center’s Hodson Trust-Griswold Director. “Over the past decade, Explore America has flourished to the point that last summer, we were able to award almost 30 internships, at 23 partner institutions, to students from a wide range of majors. We’re grateful for The Hodson Trust’s generosity, which will fund at least five internships when fully vested and builds a foundation for the program to thrive and grow.”
In honor of the Mexican holiday “Dia de los Muertos” or Day of the Dead, the Washington College World Languages and Cultures Department is hosting a concert by local artists Fredy Granillo and Sergio Cillo and showcasing student work on this tradition that’s been completed in Spanish classes.