with Bill Campbell

Author Bill Campbell will discuss his graphic novel, THE DAY THE KLAN CAME TO TOWN, which is the story of when 30,000 Klansmen descended on Carnegie, PA, in 1923 to teach the immigrants a "lesson."

"Now readers have this emotionally charged record of how hatred born in America forced a community of immigrants and marginalized people to rally and model the best version of their nation’s ideals." — Publishers Weekly

Bill Campbell is the author of Sunshine Patriots; My Booty Novel; Pop Culture: Politics, Puns, “Poohbutt” from a Liberal Stay-at-Home Dad; Koontown Killing Kaper; and Baaaad Muthaz. Along with Edward Austin Hall, he coedited the groundbreaking anthology, Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond. He has also coedited Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany; APB: Artists against Police Brutality (for which he won a Glyph Pioneer/Lifetime Achievement Award); and Future Fiction: New Dimensions of International Fantasy and Science Fiction. His latest anthology is a two-volume collection with over one hundred science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories from around the world, Sunspot Jungle: The Ever Expanding Universe of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Campbell lives in Washington, DC, where he spends his time with his family and helms Rosarium Publishing.

with Shanti Gamper-Rabindran

How can America get back to an energy transition that's good for the economy and the environment? That's the question at the heart of this dissection of the Trump administration's energy policy. The policy was ardently pro-fossil fuel and ferociously anti-regulation, implemented by manipulating science and economic analysis, putting oil and gas insiders at the helm of environmental agencies, and hacking away at democratic norms that once enjoyed bipartisan support. The impacts on the nation's health, economy, and environment were dire. But the damage can be reversed. Gamper-Rabindran discusses how ordinary Americans, civil society groups, environmental professionals, and politicians at every level all have parts to play in making sure the needed energy transition leaves no one behind.

Shanti Gamper-Rabindran is an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh, with a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an M.Sc. in Environmental Management and BA in Jurisprudence, both from Oxford University where she was a Rhodes scholar. She served as the August-Wilhelm Scheer Visiting Professor at the Technical University of Munich. She is the editor of The Shale Dilemma: A Global Perspective on Fracking and Shale Development (2018), which received critical acclaim.

with the cast of Shit-faced Shakespeare®

After performing A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Byham Theater on Friday, March 25, cast members from Shit-faced Shakespeare® will discuss the process of engaging with the work of Shakespeare and telling his stories while drunk on stage.

Shit-faced Shakespeare® has delighted audiences the world over since 2010 with their high-brow mix of classical Elizabethan drama and no-holds-barred drunken antics.

Featuring a rotating cast of the finest classically trained actors, the choicest cuts of Shakespearian classics and more inebriated antics that you can imagine, Shit-faced Shakespeare® is the unique theatrical experience that has left audiences roaring in the aisles the world over.

with Kathleen George

Kathleen George lives in Pittsburgh where she is a professor of theatre and writing at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the author of the acclaimed novels TAKEN, FALLEN, AFTERIMAGE, THE ODDS (nominated for an Edgar(R) award for best novel by the Mystery Writers of America), HIDEOUT, SIMPLE, and A MEASURE OF BLOOD (2014). All seven of these titles are part of her procedural thrillers set in Pittsburgh. Also in 2014 the University of Pittsburgh Press released THE JOHNSTOWN GIRLS, her non-series novel about the Johnstown Flood, and in 2018 a novel about Lena Horne and jazz titled THE BLUES WALKED IN. Kathy is the editor of PITTSBURGH NOIR, a collection of short fiction, the author of her own short story collection THE MAN IN THE BUICK, and of scholarly theatrical books and articles.

In this appearance at the Pittsburgh Humanities Festival, George will share the questions she asks herself about what makes a story worth working on for years. How did she get from writing short fiction to directing plays to writing mysteries to writing other novels? She hopes to provide some answers.

with Sophia McClennen

The climate crisis is far too urgent, one would think, to joke about. But recent research dispels those worries and actually indicates that the reverse is true. Comedic activism, or laughtivism, has been shown to be extremely effective at drawing attention to the climate crisis, encouraging engagement, and leading to change. This talk explains how and why this is true and gives a range of examples of successful climate "laughtivism."

with Josephine Caminos Oría

Imagine a delicious and pleasant meal shared with friends, family, even coworkers. Dessert is finished. Rumpled napkins are placed on the table. Now comes coffee, perhaps cordials, and more coffee. All the while, the conversation rolls on, the stories, the memories ( painful and pleasant), the jokes. This is sobremesa—when chatter and laughter, memories of past lives, past loves, are served up as a final course, rounding out the meal, nourishing families, individuals and culture.

Sobremesa is a cornerstone of Argentine culture and slow living lifestyle. Yet it is among the handful of Spanish terms that have no equivalent in the English language. Why does one language lack a word for something another language names? Sobremesa: A Memoir of Food and Love in Thirteen Courses aims to answer this question, positing that often words and concepts specific to place, language and cultural heritage, tell us the most about what we are missing out on.

Gather around the table with C-level career woman turned foodpreneur, as she discusses her coming-of-age adventure, where she travels to her family’s homeland of Argentina in search of belonging—to family, to country, to a love, and ultimately, to oneself—along with the time honored tradition of sobremesa, and how it helped her not only transcend love and loss, but reconcile her dual, and sometimes dueling, Argentine and American cultures.

Pittsburgh's First Lady of Drag, Kierra Darshell, in conversation with LGBTQ activist Richard Parsakian

Kierra Darshell celebrates a distinguished career that has lasted three decades. As Pittsburgh’s First Lady of Drag, Ms. Darshell has served as a leader, role model, and innovator in the local drag community, and mentor for drag performers. In 1993, she created the Miss Tri-State All-Star Pageant, an annual drag competition that entertained local audiences and nurtured drag performers for 25 years. Ms. Darshell hosts monthly Sunday Drag Brunch, Outrageous Bingo, and has performed at numerous community and corporate events. Among her many career highlights, she was the opening act for Patti Labelle at the 2011 Pittsburgh Pride Fest, she has graced the covers of numerous magazines, and was the first drag queen featured in The Icons of Pittsburgh annual magazine.

LGBTQ activist Richard Parsakian, owner of Eons Fashion Antique, has been friends with Darshell for over 30 years. This conversation will focus on their friendship, how Darshell has navigated being a Black queen in Pittsburgh, and how her many projects have elevated the art of drag at a time before RuPaul made it mainstream.

with Thomas Agnew (Co-Founder of Boom Concepts), Shaunda McDill (Program Officer for the Heinz Endowments), and Majestic Lane (Chief Equity Officer, Allegheny Conference on Community Development

Last year, The Heinz Endowments in partnership with the POISE Foundation launched Pittsburgh’s Cultural Treasures. The southwestern Pennsylvania program is part of America’s Cultural Treasures, a national initiative by the Ford Foundation to boost support to arts groups and cultural organizations representing communities of color across the U.S. The Heinz Endowments is among 10 regional foundation partners in seven cities selected by Ford to join the initiative, providing each region with $5 million in funds to develop regional Cultural Treasures programs. The Endowments is matching funding with an additional $5 million, creating Pittsburgh’s Cultural Treasures to expand support for cultural organizations in southwestern Pennsylvania. The first cycle of grants totaling $5.4 million were recently awarded to arts and culture organizations identified as leaders in producing work that centers and seeks to advance the people and culture of Black communities in southwestern Pennsylvania. The unrestricted grants ranged from $150,000 to $1 million. Phases II and III of the four-year initiative are currently being designed.

Join Thomas Agnew, Majestic Lane, and Shaunda McDill as they discuss the initiative and its implications in the field.

Max "GEMS" Gonzales and Shane Pilster in conversation, moderated by Chris McGinnis

Shane Pilster and Max Gonzales will discuss how their love for public art, education, and community propelled them from graffiti writers to full-time muralists. Both have made Pittsburgh their home, working with numerous organizations throughout the region.

Pilster founded the Graffiti Art Program at Rivers of Steel at Carrie Furnaces, is a founding member of HCUAP (Hemispheric Conversations: Urban Art Project), and has worked with a litany of organizations including Hip-Hop on LOCK, The Westmoreland Diversity Coalition, Community Forge, The YMCA, and Propel Schools.

Gonzales, as a queer-identifying, Chicano artist from the South West Side of Chicago, has worked with the Carnegie Library system, 1Hood, Boom Concepts, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, and a variety of other organizations and institutions educating the public about art—specifically graffiti art. Both Pilster and Gonzales bring a unique perspective to Pittsburgh with a strong interest in serving minority communities and voices.

The conversation will be moderated by Chris McGinnis, the Rivers of Steel Arts Director & Chief Curator.

Shane Pilster: @outafterdark
Max Gonzales: @goodboygems
Chris McGinnis: @productivemachine

2022 Public Open Call winner

Growing up with a disability can be an isolating experience. There is often a subconscious pressure to be like everyone else, but there is also an innate understanding that you are, in fact, different. Heather Tomko will talk about how she personally experienced this as a disabled woman, an identity she is now proud to claim. Tomko will discuss how she went from downplaying her disability, to accepting it, and even going beyond that to embracing it. These attitudinal shifts resulted in opening up her world, and connecting with the disability community empowered her to fully embrace her identity, disability and all.

Heather Tomko is the Outreach Coordinator at the University of Pittsburgh's National Center on Family Support and blogger at The Heather Report. She was Ms. Wheelchair USA 2018, and spent her reign advocating for accessibility as a priority rather than an afterthought.

Past Open Call winners include:

2020: Boaz Frankel – Offline Curiosity in an Online World
2019: Len Caric – The New Normal: A conversation on the trauma of a school lock downs
2018: Jessie Sage – Phone Sex, Anti Sex Work Feminism, and Masculine Socialization
2017: PJ Gaynard – The Philosphy of Decision Making; Bergita Bugarija – Dive into the Migrant Journey; David Bennett – Behind Bach

Blake Gopnik, author of the only comprehensive biography of Andy Warhol, will be speaking about research for his book and his most striking discoveries about Pittsburgh's celebrated son. Gopnik will be in conversation with Alex J. Taylor, Assistant Professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh, and author of Forms of Persuasion: Art and Corporate Image in the 1960s.

Warhol, Gopnik's comprehensive biography of the Pop artist, was published by Ecco at HarperCollins in 2020. Gopnik has been the staff art critic at the Globe and Mail, the Washington Post and Newsweek and is a regular contributor to the New York Times. Gopnik obtained a PhD in art history from Oxford University.

A youth panel featuring the Pittsburgh-based organization Black, Young, and Educated

From the participants:

"We have power. Blackness is a powerful thing. Take a look at pop culture. You can see our influence pop culture. Hip- Hop, R&B, Jazz, Blues, Reggae, Dancehall, Afrobeats... yeah that was us. Black People have been one of the leading innovators, but get no true recognition for our time, pain, or love until it is too late. We have led movements to push America to have further equality, but still get the short end of the stick. We Got Power is about telling our story from our own perspective."