Public Engagement

Much of my work happens outside the seminar room. I bring writers, filmmakers, and scholars to Williams whose work meets my own subject where it still lives — in memory, in argument, and in public.

Lit Speech Night — the first at Williams, which I founded and hosted, November 2025. Student teams gave speeches on resistance in Bronfman Auditorium, judged by faculty and staff from Theatre Department and the Davis Center. Covered in Williams Today.

Hosted Ines Johnson-Spain for a screening of Becoming Black, with a seminar visit and Q&A, 2025.

Rainer Hauswirth, Director of the Goethe-Institut Boston — "The Power of Cultural Exchange in Troubled Times," co-organized with Christophe Koné, 2025.

In conversation with Prof. Raven Maragh-Lloyd — "Cancel Culture and the Limits of Digital Resistance," 2025.

Hosted Mo Asumang for screening and discussion of The Aryans and the Mo:Lab Workshop "Conversations with Polarized Societies," co-hosted with the Davis Center, 2024.

Hosted Prof. Lynne Tatlock for a lecture on women's writing at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, 2024.

Hosted Prof. Peter Höyng, Emory University for a public reading and student translation workshop, 2024.

Hosted Kavena Hambira for screening and discussion of Nuh-mi-bee-uhn: Germany's Forgotten Genocide in South West Africa, with a five-week otjikaiva exhibition in Hollander Hall, co-sponsored across the College, 2023.

German-Austrian Film Festival — our annual departmental festival, to whose selection and programming I contribute, 2023 to the present.

Public Speaking

Before I brought speech to Williams, I spent years in it. I served as President of WUSTL Speaks and as an Area Director for Toastmasters International, supervising four clubs, and I have coached and judged speakers at every level from first-time undergraduates to seasoned members. Lit Speech Night grew out of that work.