Events

Flowing: Human Migrations and Human Values

The Tanner Lectures on Human Values Festival at Rutgers University-Newark

RSVP: http://bit.ly/TannerFest

On April 24 and 25, Rutgers University-Newark (RU-N) will host “Flowing: Human Migrations and Human Values,” a week-long festival of art and ideas in celebration of the Tanner Lecture on Human Values. The first day will feature the public conversation “African-American Movements & Migration Narratives” between Columbia University professor Farah Jasmine Griffin and novelist Ayana Mathis.  On the second day, pioneering and celebrated journalist Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration will deliver the keynote Tanner Lecture. 

Our two-day festival explores migrations within and to the United States, both historical and contemporary, as repositories of ideas and experiences that we might harness and point toward brighter, more just futures. It begins on the evening of Wednesday, April 24, with a public conversation by a writer and a scholar of migration narratives. Ayana Mathis, author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, and Columbia University’s Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of Who Set You Flowin’: The African American Migration Narrative, will discuss the artistic life and impact of the Great Migration in American life. This will be followed by a public reception.  

On Thursday, April 25, a discussion panel comprised of five RU-N students will share individual and familial stories of migration and explore common themes and legacies of those experiences. The panel will be followed by Isabel Wilkerson’s keynote Tanner Lecture on Human Values.

Over these two days, our entire campus will be activated by our theme and feature a photography exhibition on Louis Armstrong’s migratory music curated by Shine Portrait Studio and the Institute of Jazz Studies; the Oral History Jukebox by New Arts Justice in Express Newark; and a multiseries video installation from Newest Americans.   

Week of April 22-26 at Express Newark

“Historiphone feat. the Krueger-Scott Oral History Project” by Monument Lab & New Arts

“We Played Dances: An Intimate Portrait of Louis Armstrong” by Nick Kline and Anthony Alvarez

“For My Immigrants,” “WE CAME AND STAYED: Ras Baraka & Coyt Jones,” “GlassBook Project” Video Installations

Wednesday, April 24 at Express Newark

2:30 – 3:50 p.m.  RU-N Student Panel: Sharing stories of migration and immigration

4:00 – 5:00 p.m.  Reception

5:00 p.m. “African-American Movements & Migration Narratives”  A conversation with Ayanna Mathis and Farah Jasmine Griffin moderated by Salamishah Tillet

Followed by book signing

Thursday, April 25 at 15 Washington Street, Great Hall

4:30 - 5:00 p.m. Jazz Reception featuring The Alexis Moorast

5:00 p.m. Tanner Lecture on Human Values: “The Power of a Single Decision,” Isabel Wilkerson (“The Warmth of Other Suns”)

Followed by book signing

Saturday, April 27 at 2 Gateway Center

5:00 p.m. "I STOOD AT THE BORDER, Im/Migrant Voices & Stories Retold" BFA Student Exhibition: Graphic Design, Arts, Culture, Media Department -- Chantal Fischzang and Rebecca Jampol (Exhibition closes on May 11, 2019)