Pendle Hill First Monday Series: Vincent Harding, former distinguished visiting faculty member at Swarthmore 1985-86, Honorary Degree Swarthmore 1987, speaks on “Loved into Life: An Autobiographical Reflection”
May 5, 2014
7:30-9:00 pm
The Barn at Pendle Hill
338 Plush Mill Road, Wallingford, PA
Free and open to the public; no reservations required.
Dr. Harding will be introduced by Professor Keith Reeves, Swarthmore College, Department of Political Science.
Join activist-teacher-historian Vincent Harding in an evening of dialogue and exchange about what it means to be loved into life — how the call to love one another speaks to our deepest humanity and draws us forth to stand against injustice and all that diminishes our world community. Vincent Harding has returned to Pendle Hill to work on his memoirs after a lifetime of teaching and activism. He invites you to join him as he shares reflections on how he has been loved into life — and to share your stories of how you have responded to love’s call.
A native of New York City, Vincent Harding holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago. Harding and his late wife, Rosemarie Freeney Harding, worked as full-time teachers, activists, encouragers, and negotiators in the Southern Freedom Movement in the 60’s and were Friends and co-workers with such leaders as Martin Luther King Jr., Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer. (Harding provided the initial draft for King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech at Riverside Church in New York City.) He chaired the History and Sociology Department at Spelman College in Atlanta for several years, and in 1968 became the director of the Martin Luther King Memorial Center and chair of the nationally televised CBS Black Heritage series. Harding was one of the organizers and the first director of the Institute of the Black World, founded in Atlanta in 1969. After holding several research positions and visiting professorships (including two years on the staff of Pendle Hill), he served as professor of religion and social transformation at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver for nearly a quarter of a century and is now professor emeritus and a trustee at Iliff.
For more information, contact John Meyer at 610-566-4507 ext. 129.
Sinan Antoon, associate professor at the Gallatin School of New York University and fellow of the university’s Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, has authored The Poetics of the Obscene: Ibn al-Hajjaj and Sukhf and many essays on the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish. His translation of Mahmoud Darwish’s last prose book, In the Presence of Absence, was published by Archipelago Books in 2011 and won the 2012 National Translation Award given by the American Literary Translators Association. Antoon is also a poet and a novelist. He has published two collections of poetry in Arabic and one collection in English titled The Baghdad Blues. His novels include I`jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody and The Corpse Washer, nominated for the 2014 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. His essays and creative writing have appeared in major Arab and international journals and publications, including The Nation, Middle East Report, Banipal, Journal of Palestine Studies, World Literature Today, Ploughshares, Washington Square Journal, and the New York Times. He is co-founder/co-editor of Jadaliyya.
David Kennedy ‘80