Teach-In on Timely Topics

Beard Room, Piano Row 202

During this poetry craft talk and workshop, learn about poets who reach back to their poetic ancestors for guidance and reach forward to tend to their communities, committing to their responsibility as future ancestors. This session will look closely at how particular poets have evolved and make time for generative writing and reflection on how we consider ourselves as poetic descendants and future poetic ancestors. Attendees will leave the workshop with a draft of a poem, created through a series of short prompts, to take with them into the world and beyond.

Presenter

Livia Meneghin, Affiliated Faculty, Writing, Literature & Publishing

Bill Bordy Theater, 216 Tremont 

Panelists from the Emerson Prison Initiative (EPI), New Beginnings Reentry Services and Ritual4Return (R4R) discuss their work deepening arts-based reentry in Boston. R4R is a semester-long program in which returning citizens co-create homecoming rites of passage to mark the transition from incarceration to freedom. The project is anchored by a belief that bringing communities together to hold stories of pain and harm with intention, accountability, and care is how we begin to heal. R4R endeavors to rewrite the archive by remaking the narrative fabric of our communities in relation to harm, accountability, and justice by helping us all do the essential work of being and staying in relationship.

Panelists

• Lizzy Cooper Davis, R4R Boston Director and Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director 
• Charles Rosario, EPI Program Coordinator and R4R Core Partner and Co-Facilitator 
• Stacey Borden, Founder and Executive Director, New Beginnings Reentry Services, and R4R Core Partner and Co-Facilitator 
• Cara Moyer-Duncan, Acting Director, Emerson Prison Initiative and Associate Professor

Paramount 329 (Studio 6)

Beginning March 5, ArtsEmerson will present Dead As A Dodo, a new show created by Wakka Wakka, a critically acclaimed non-profit visual theatre company based in New York City and Oslo, Norway. This show is a musical odyssey which uses puppetry along with other stunning visual elements to explore themes of death, friendship, and transformation. 

Join a workshop with ArtsEmerson to engage in an exploration of grief via artistic methods (puppetry, devising, etc.) as well as discussion about how the artists think about ideas like memory, archiving, and the role of art-making in democracy.

Presenters

• Joye Prince, Engagement Programs Coordinator, ArtsEmerson
• Susan Chinsen, Associate Director of Programming, ArtsEmerson
• Gwendolyn Warnock, Co-Artistic Director, Wakka Wakka

Paramount Center, Robert J. Orchard Stage, 559 Washington St.

Zoom Webinar Registration

The theme of Public Knowledge, Memory, and Legacy provides an opportunity to grapple with how archiving, documentation, and preservation sustain democratic life and institutional memory, particularly in complex moments like those we're facing now in higher education, and in arts and public discourse broadly. Dr. Amber Lee, Assistant Professor in Writing, Literature and Publishing, moderates a panel discussion with keynote guests Roosevelt Montás, and Michael J. Bobbitt, President & CEO of OPERA America.

Presenters

Dr. Amber Lee, Assistant Professor, Writing, Literature and Publishing, Emerson College

Dr. Amber Lee is Assistant Professor in Emerson’s WLP department. Her forthcoming book from the University of Alabama Press investigates the contours of memory’s maddening, intoxicating ability to move through, with, and shape our world. In addition to her scholarly work in rhetorical memory, Dr. Lee earned her PhD in Rhetoric and Composition from the University of South Carolina, where she specialized in rhetorical theory and rhetorical memory studies, and her MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College where she served as the editor of Emerson’s graduate literary journal, Redivider. She was previously Assistant Director of First-Year Composition at the University of South Carolina and edited the textbook The Carolina Rhetoric (2018). Dr. Lee currently teaches writing, research, and a themed “banned books” class at Emerson College.

Michael J. Bobbitt, President & CEO, OPERA America

Michael J. Bobbitt joined OPERA America as president and CEO in January 2026. Bobbitt is a nationally recognized arts executive, producer, and artist whose career bridges public policy, organizational transformation, and creative practice. Before coming to OPERA America, he served as executive director of the Mass Cultural Council in Boston from 2021. As Massachusetts’ highest-ranking public official for arts and culture, he led strategy, operations, and cross-sector partnerships for a $29.7B creative economy. Learn more about Michael Bobbitt.

Roosevelt Montás, John and Margaret Bard Professor in Liberal Education and Civic Life at Bard College

Roosevelt Montás is the John and Margaret Bard Professor in Liberal Education and Civic Life at Bard College. Montás was born in the Dominican Republic and immigrated to New York as a teenager, where he attended public schools in Queens, New York. His book Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation (Princeton University Press, 2021) reflects on his experiences as a student and then a teacher at Columbia University, explaining how a liberal education transformed his life and why Great Books have the power to speak to people of all backgrounds. Learn more about Roosevelt Montás.

Zoom Webinar Registration

In this session, representatives from various ProArts institutions will examine the topic of truth. We will explore how truth is accessed and identified, how to process evidence, how to preserve and protect truth through libraries and archives, and how AI and emerging technologies impact our understanding of truth. We will also explore the generational divide in how news and truth are accessed. These themes will be explored through a diverse set of lenses, and will center on the intersection of art, history, and politics in 2026.

Presenter

Zoë Wyner, Executive Director of ProArts Consortium

HIVE, Tufte PPC Entrance

A digital storytelling workshop through the lens of Caribbean women in diaspora tradition and beyond. Here we position storytelling as both cultural preservation and community capacity building. Centered on the legacy of Elma Lewis, the work connects the missions of the Elma Lewis Center (ELC) and Community, Culture, and Belonging (CCB) division to amplify community voices, safeguard cultural memory, and nurture creative expression across generations.

This initiative offers a living microphone for stories that have historically lived in oral tradition, literary memory, and artistic practice. Digital storytelling becomes the bridge linking elders to youth, archives to lived experience, and memory to momentum. Rather than treating archives as static repositories, this session activates them, transforming history into participatory, accessible, and shared knowledge.

Presenters

• Winelle Felix, Associate Director, Programming and Digital Storytelling, Elma Lewis Center
• Crystal Gómez, Program Manager, HIVE