Updates
As Brown 2026 events accelerate in February 2026, we want to use our monthly update as an opportunity to highlight programming of wide interest to the campus community. As always, we are sponsoring events that showcase the breadth of the American experience, as well as those that ask challenging questions about popular memory of the Revolution and that consider the role of the research university in a democratic society.
On Thurs. Feb. 26th at 6:30pm in Friedman Hall room 102, the History Department hosts Professor M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska for a talk titled The Historian and the Historian-ish. Rymsza-Pawlowska is a historian at American University who will talk about popular historical practice and its d.i.y.-ethos in American society today. If you’re interested in the democratization of historical interpretation and how audiences actually encounter the past in physical form, Rymsza-Pawlowska is also offering a participatory workshop at the JNBC on Fri. Feb. 27th at 10am.
Friday offers several other exciting programs. The Center for Middle East Studies and the John Hay Library are hosting a symposium titled “American-Islamic Exchanges in the Long 19th Century” beginning at 9am and connected to a fascinating exhibition on display in the library's gallery space. Then, at 5pm, don’t miss Cross Talk on Labor in partnership with Discovery through Dialogue at the JCB. Cross Talks are a series of moderated conversations in which faculty from across the university explain their approaches to a subject or issue. This event will feature a literary scholar, a sociologist, a computer scientist, and a public health researcher in conversation about how we study work as a central element of human experience.