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What is the fabric of our society, a tool of imperialism and a decades-long research topic? According to Director of Ohio Valley Center for Collaborative Arts and Assistant Professor of Instruction and Art History Sam Dodd, it’s a brick.
The Lemont Block, a four-story historic brick building on the corner of Maine Street and Pleasant Street that has been an iconic part of the Brunswick skyline for over 150 years, is about to have a new chapter added to its storied history.
When Associate Professor of Theater Abigail Killeen first heard about the opportunity to act in an episode of the Smithsonian’s “America’s Hidden Stories,” she did not realize that she was auditioning for a starring role. Earlier this month—almost a year after that audition—she made her debut as Elizabeth Van Lew, a Union spy who fought for the abolition of slavery during the Civil War.
In response to the January 6 attack on the Capitol, the College hosted the first of a series of virtual conversations on the current state of our democracy on Thursday. The webinar featured Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University Timothy Snyder and was moderated by Associate Professor of History Page Herrlinger.
On Friday afternoon, less than 24 hours before the results of the U.S. presidential election were announced by major news outlets , four history professors—Geoffrey Canada Associate Professor of Africana Studies and History Brian Purnell, Professor of History Dallas Denery, Associate Professor of History Meghan Roberts and Associate Professor of History and Environmental Studies Matthew Klingle—gathered for the fourth panel in the department’s fall semester programming on the New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project, titled “The 1619 Project and Making Sense of the 2020 Election.” The panel began with a discussion about the legacy of Black women in American politics, with Roberts quoting from Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University Martha Jones’s 2020 book, “Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All.” Roberts noted that Stacey Abrams has devoted herself to political organizing in Georgia since her loss in the state’s 2018 gubernatorial race.
This fall marks a new chapter of athletics at Bowdoin. First years are restricted from practicing with their upperclassmen teammates, and all athletes are required to wear face masks, even as their sweat soaks the fabric.
Though life looked different at the College in 1930—all-male with fraternities on the rise—athletics were, just as they are now, a central part of the Bowdoin experience. Roughly 560 students were enrolled at the start of the 1930-31 academic year, and many played more than one sport, leaving some teams, such as football, with a lack of players for off-season training.
Football, cross country, track, baseball, tennis and ice hockey. In 1920, almost all of these Bowdoin athletic teams were funded by a committee outside the College’s budget—the Bowdoin Athletic Association (BAA)—without direct support from the College.
This afternoon, Professor of History Patrick Rael and Geoffrey Canada Associate Professor of Africana Studies and History Brian Purnell will kick off a four part discussion series inspired by the New York Times Magazine’s “The 1619 Project.” The series, sponsored by the history department, was inspired by the social and political movements that swept across the United States after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police officers in May.
Even a cursory glance around campus reveals the ways in which the College has changed since its founding. Buildings, in a range of architectural styles across various time periods, reflect not only the College’s evolution, but also the changes in its leadership.
Pete Seeger stood on the stage of Pickard Theater in front of a single microphone. He picked the strings of his signature long-neck banjo and whistled a gentle harmony, his foot tapping out the beat. After a minute, he stopped playing and began to explain the history of the long-neck banjo and the folk music he played on it.
When you “take financial resources and human beings and juxtapose them such that they produce an added value in human beings,” what do you get? A college, according to former Bowdoin President Robert H. Edwards.
Hanging on Associate Professor of History Sarah McMahon’s wall, tucked between letters from family members and images of the Maine landscape, hangs a quote from former President of the College Robert Edwards: “These colleges, this one in particular, grew until 1970.
College presidents are a special kind of celebrity. They’re probably not the kind you’d stop to take a picture with, but whether or not we realize it, many of Bowdoin’s presidents’ names are ubiquitous on campus.
Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination was a fresh wound in American public memory, and white institutions across the country were beginning to confront major gaps in their course offerings and their woefully homogenous student bodies.
“How do you get students in this age to talk about controversial materials and controversial issues?” asked Khalid El-Hakim, the curator of the Black History 101 Mobile Museum. At the heart of the touring museum is this question, which El-Hakim tackles using artifacts in an educational setting.
