Please join Sarah Ruffing Robbins, Mona Narain (TCU) and Barbara Mccaskill (UGA) on Tuesday, April 8, beginning at 3:00 Eastern, 2:00 Central, and noon Pacific. The series of presentations and discussion, sponsored by the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) of the Smithsonian, will spotlight the museum’s recently acquired collection of materials linked to poet Phillis Wheatley (Peters). McCaskill, Narain, and Robbins will be featured speakers for the April 8 online event, where they will be joined by archivists, curators, and program coordinators of NMAAHC. You will have a chance to see Wheatley Peters artifacts as part of the presentation. A Q & A will follow the presentations.
The 1773 publication most closely associated with Wheatley (Peters)/PWP—Poems on Various Subjects—celebrated its 250th anniversary in 2023. This April 2025 event’s examination of many of the museum’s new artifacts will underscore PWP’s cultural importance as reaching far beyond that signature volume of poetry through biographies, additional poetic publications, and numerous cultural legacies—especially those generated among Black communities. A multi-event series of programs in 2023 entitled The Genius of Phillis Wheatley Peters honored the 1773 milestone of Wheatley’s book and other contexts for studying and teaching about PWP. Co-directors of that initiative—McCaskill, with Narain and Robbins—are now at work with other scholars on a project-related volume of essays to be published by Edinburgh University Press.
For more information and registration for this free event, visit the NMAAHC website here: