Program

REP/MAD-AAG conference program overview

Following is what to expect with conference activities and events at the Hotel Indigo Downtown and the nearby Maryland Center for History and Culture (MCHC). (Virtual participants will want to be aware of what will be available online.)

Wednesday, October 20:

• Participants in the NSF-funded Workshop on Promoting Geography at HBCUs, PBIs, HSIs, and other MSIs will assemble at Morgan State University for the day. For those staying at the Hotel Indigo Downtown, transportation will leave at 8:30am in the morning and return you to the Indigo by 5:30pm.
• Organizers will be in Zelda’s Parlor on the 1st floor of the Hotel Indigo starting about 2pm for registration check-in and meeting colleagues as they arrive. NSF Workshop participants can check in during the workshop.
• There will be an in-person only REP and MAD reception about 5:30pm until 7:00pm on the 9th floor of the Indigo, where organizers will welcome you to Baltimore with the assistance of spoken-word poet Unique Robinson and outline the program. We will end in time for you to seek out one of the numerous restaurants within a few blocks of the hotel.

Thursday and Friday, October 21st -22nd:

• Paper and Panel Sessions will start at 8:30am Eastern, with four sessions in succession on Thursday and three on Friday in three rooms in the Indigo and one at the MCHC. All sessions will provide Zoom streaming for presenters and audiences. Boxed lunches will be available at 12:30pm each day at the Maryland Center for History and Culture (MCHC).
• Thursday evening is open, but for those interested, there will be a book talk at Red Emma’s Bookstore Coffeehouse (David Harvey’s favorite Baltimore bookstore—see https://redemmas.org), within walking distance a few blocks north of the Indigo. University of Baltimore Law Professor Gilda Daniels will discuss the new edition of her book, Uncounted: The Crisis of Voter Suppression in America (NYU, October 2021).
• Our REP/MAD Friday Plenary and Reception begins at 4pm in the France Auditorium at the MCHC. The Plenary will be streamed for virtual attendees and will include brief remarks by University of Baltimore President Kurt Schmoke and a spoken-word poem by University of Baltimore Ethics Lecturer Ron Williams. The highlight will be a presentation by writer, critic, and University of Baltimore writing lecturer D Watkins (https://d-watkins.com). In-person attendees will receive a copy of D’s latest book, We Speak for Ourselves: How Woke Culture Prohibits Progress (Atria, 2020). The plenary will be followed by a catered reception that will end at 7:30pm.

Saturday, October 23rd: Saturday will include a number of in-person REP and MAD events and activities:

• MAD-AAG’s annual GeoBowl will take place at the Indigo Hotel from 9am to 11am.
• Author Lawrence Lanahan, with several of the people he interviewed for his book, The Lines Between Us: Two Families and a Quest to Cross Baltimore’s Racial Divide (The New Press, 2019), will lead a discussion of structural racism and housing issues in Baltimore at the Indigo from 9am to 11am.
• Everyone is invited to participate in self-guided or small group walking tours of Baltimore’s Pennsylvania Avenue in West Baltimore, where Billie Holiday and Cab Calloway, among others entertained, and Thurgood Marshall and Ta-Nehisi Coates grew up. Expect to find Pennsylvania Avenue merchants to welcome you into their stores and for Food Justice workers to share information with you at the Avenue Market, where you can get coffee at the Avenue Bakery. West Baltimore residents will be curious about why you are there, and you should engage them in conversation. Just don’t buy anything on the street….
• Other opportunities for learning more about race, ethnicity, and place in Baltimore will also be available depending on weather.

Mural : Healing Ourselves, Our Community, Our World, Impact Fund Project Mural, collaboration between artist Megan Lewis, art teacher Mrs. Porter and 40 Vivien T. Thomas Medical Arts Academy students. Location: Vivien T. Thomas Medical Arts Academy, Baltimore.