Dwight A. McBride, Author at Public Seminar

Literature

Excerpt from “A Rising Tide Lifts all Boats: Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects”

“Hers is the story, if ever there was one, of a great American”

September 7, 2022 • by Dwight A. McBride

The story of Poems on Various Subjects, like the story of its author, the slave girl named after the ship that brought her across the Atlantic, is a story that should both inspire and enrage. ...

Excerpt from “A Rising Tide Lifts all Boats: Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects”

Education

Leading While Black

An introduction to the special issue, “Teaching While Black”

April 28, 2022 • by Dwight A. McBride

Indeed, the sad truth is that many of the slights, insults, and aggressions experienced by the dedicated teachers collected here (I don’t think of the casual ugliness which many of us navigate as “micro-aggressions”) are duplicated within higher education’s administrative spaces....

Activism

Statement about Kyle Rittenhouse Verdict

A letter from the president of The New School

November 22, 2021 • by Dwight A. McBride

Dear New School students and colleagues, I want to take a moment to respond to the verdict that was delivered last Friday afternoon in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, wherein Mr. Rittenhouse was found to be not guilty on all counts. I have heard from many individuals in The New School community ...

Statement about Kyle Rittenhouse Verdict

Literature

James Baldwin and the Fire This Time

Good trouble and the courage to hope

September 9, 2020 • by Justin A. Joyce and Dwight A. McBride

History, despite its wrenching pain, Cannot be unlived, but if faced With courage, need not be lived again. Maya Angelou, “On the Pulse of Morning” (1993) As a guide, as a seer, as a prophet – James Baldwin is a writer we need. As Baldwin said about Beauford Delaney, the Black painter who rose to prominence in the ...

Migration

A Victory in an Unnecessary Battle

Expelling international students was not an option

July 16, 2020 • by Dwight A. McBride

Tuesday’s court hearing on the July 6 ICE guidance took all of ten minutes. That was the time it took for the U.S. Government’s counsel to inform the judge that ICE would not be moving forward with a new rule that would have expelled international students from the U.S. this ...

Education

Responding to New ICE Guideline for Higher Education

A letter from the president and the provost of The New School

July 7, 2020 • by Dwight A. McBride and Tim Marshall

Students from around the globe are a vital part of this academic community and we are unwavering in our commitment to those from outside the U.S. who choose to learn, explore, and create at The New School. We are working closely with elected officials, the Commission on Independent Colleges & Universities in New York (CICU), and national associations to ensure that any final rule reflects these important concerns. University students are already working ...

Responding to New ICE Guideline for Higher Education

Activism

In the Face of Terror

A statement in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd

June 1, 2020 • by Dwight A. McBride

I, like so many others, am both hurt and angered by the recent deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. And as a Black American, this is also deeply personal for me. To be shown repeatedly that we have no guarantee of safety even in the course of ...

Education

Commencement

A commencement that will be historic and unforgettable in ways we could never have imagined

May 14, 2020 • by Dwight A. McBride

I love commencement. With my near-religious connection to higher education and firsthand experience of its life-changing power, I hold commencement as a sacred and ecstatic ritual. It is traditionally one of the few occasions where we academics indulge in a bit of fanfare and grandeur, bringing out our elaborate scholarly ...