ENGAGED LISTENING PROJECT

#1 New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds discusses his collaborative work on the book Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, a reimagining of Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning, “remixed” for a Young Adult audience. Reynolds also reflects on his efforts as an author and activist to inspire social change.

Updated to Virtual. Register here: https://bit.ly/eWestervelt-21 Eric Westervelt is a San Francisco-based correspondent for NPR’s National Desk. He has reported on major events for the network from wars and revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa to historic wildfires and terrorist attacks in the U.S.

His visit to Vermont is connected to a fall conference on climate change sponsored by the Vermont Humanities Council, and supported by the Engaged Listening Project (go/elp).

The Engaged Listening Project (go/elp) and Vermont Humanities Council welcome Elizabeth Yeampierre as part of VHC’s First Wednesdays Speaker Series.

Puerto Rican climate justice leader Elizabeth Yeampierre has helped pass climate legislation at all levels, including New York’s progressive Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. In this talk she describes how intergenerational BIPOC activists are changing the landscape of national climate priorities by speaking up for themselves and their neighborhoods.

The classical Sanskrit epic Mahabharata continues to lead a vivid and contentious life in modern Indian discourse. This talk will explore the troubling story of Ekalavya, an ambitious archer from the Nishada forest community. We will examine how his tale is told in the epic, and how modern observers retell his story from various perspectives, including upper-class, Dalit, and Nishada ones.

Sydnie Mosely and company share their experiences and methodologies in dismantling racism and sexism. Middlebury alumna Jessica Lee ‘13 will join additional company members in sharing their reflections. Free, open to all experience levels. A virtual event sponsored by the Dance Program and the Engaged Listening Project. Please pre-register on the Dance Program website to receive the Zoom link.

Online extremism and internet hate speech show no signs of abating, and have been linked with violent atrocities across the country and around the world. In this talk, two experts on internet speech issues address the following questions: What is the best way to deal with hate speech on the internet? What role should governments, social media companies, and others play in curbing internet hate speech? What other options are there for addressing online extremism?

Prints are a unique medium in that, through the repeated printing of a plate or block, prints index their own histories. Most of the prints that we have today from plates made in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were likely pulled by hands not belonging to the artists who engraved, etched, and cut the plates themselves. Many, in fact, were printed posthumously, sometimes with interventions being made to the plates before reprintings by later artists and printers.

Bryan Terrell Clark is an accomplished actor and singer/songwriter who has performed in hugely successful Broadway shows and a wide range of popular television programming for various networks. Bryan recently appeared as George Washington in the record-breaking Broadway box-office smash hit “Hamilton.” He is the co-founder of inDEFINED, an online apparel brand raises money for various charities and philanthropic organizations and supports arts education for at-risk youth.

Alison Bechdel is Cartoonist Laureate for the State of Vermont. Her self-syndicated Dykes to Watch Out For (1983 to 2008) became a countercultural institution. Her 2006 book Fun Home was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle award and has been adapted into a Tony-Award-winning Broadway musical. Her talk at Middlebury will follow the speaker format of the Engaged Listening Project and is part of the Vermont Humanities Council’s “First Wednesdays” lecture series. Her talk discusses what makes comics such a powerful medium for addressing and upending oppression.

A talk by Robert Atkinson, Founder and President of Information Technology and Innovation Foundation