Humanities New York is pleased to host its fourth annual “History and the American Imagination,” an evening with poet and prison reform advocate Reginald Dwayne Betts and Nicole R. Fleetwood, Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University.

Betts and Fleetwood will discuss the history of incarceration and state violence in the United States and how that history is remembered and represented in American life today. The conversation will address incarceration’s impact on individuals as well as their families and communities, highlighting the process of societal reentry and its depiction in the public sphere. The evening will conclude with an audience question and answer session.

The choice of speakers has been inspired by HNY’s Post-Incarceration Humanities Partnership (PIHP) program which supports organizations in New York State that serve individuals who have previously been incarcerated and their families.

History and the American Imagination is free and open to the public with registration. Participants who cannot join in-person will be able to livestream this event. Proof of vaccination is required for all in-person attendees. The speakers will be available to sign copies of their books after the event; books will not be sold in-person and can be purchased in advance (links below).

About the speakers

Reginald Dwayne Betts is the author of A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison (2009) and three collections of poetry: Shahid Reads His Own Palm (2010), Bastards of the Reagan Era (2011) and Felon (2019).

Click here to purchase Felon (2019).

Nicole R. Fleetwood is the author of Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration (2020), On Racial Icons: Blackness and the Public Imagination (2015), and Troubling Vision: Performance, Visuality, and Blackness (2011).

Click here to purchase Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration (2020).