John Ryle, Legrand Ramsey Professor of Anthropology, in conversation with Peter Rosenblum, Professor of International Law and Human Rights
Olin Humanities, Room 203  5:30 pm – 7:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
The international human rights movement is in crisis, with a decline in support from major powers, and key institutions such as the International Criminal Court in disarray. In Sweden, however, the government has mounted a large-scale war crimes trial – now in its third year – the most extensive trial in Swedish history. Two directors of Lundin Oil, once the country’s largest energy company, stand accused of complicity in crimes committed during oil exploration in Sudan: in the words of a headline in Bloomberg News, "Oil Billionaire Ian Lundin Risks Jail”.

In bringing the Lundin directors to trial the Swedish government is projecting a principle of universal jurisdiction that dates back to the Nuremberg trials and before – the idea that no one anywhere should be beyond the reach of the law. The prosecutions at Nuremberg of executives of German companies that used slave labor in the 1939-45 World War were limited, but it has been argued that the new wave of corporate prosecutions under national law – of which the Lundin trial is the leading example – are an indication of a possible future for the pursuit of human rights. The directors of Lundin Oil are accused of aiding Sudan government forces in a campaign of violent displacement during the 1983-2005 civil war in Sudan (the conflict that led to the independence of South Sudan in 2011). The prosecution alleges that Lundin requested security from the government of Sudan in the knowledge that this would involve forcible displacement, and that they allowed airstrips built by Lundin to be used by Sudan government helicopter gunships to attack villages and kill or expel their inhabitants. But the two Lundin executives deny the charges, asserting that the company operated lawfully.

As an anthropologist and human rights researcher with experience in the Sudanese oil zone, John Ryle was called to testify in the trial (one of more than ninety witnesses, including thirty from South Sudan), spending a day under examination on the witness stand in the District Court in Stockholm. He will discuss his experience of participation in the trial, the nature of the communities that live in the oil zone, and their indigenous legal systems, the distinction between restorative and retributive justice, and connections to the current crises in Sudan and South Sudan, and the realities of research in war zones, where often, in the phrase of the late US senator Hiram Johnson, truth is the first casualty.

  Classroom 102  2:00 pm – 3:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
A founding principle of the Baghdad Modern Art Group, istilham al-turath “encouraged innovation through Iraq’s unique history and heritage and also presented a means of counteracting Europe’s dominance over modernism,” as scholar Tiffany Floyd has written. Discussing case studies from the exhibition as well as geographically expanding the reach of istilham al-turath, the panel investigates how artists negotiated modernism and nationalism in relation to tradition, influence, inspiration, and transformation. 

Held in conjunction with the exhibition All Manner of Experiments: Legacies of the Baghdad Modern Art Group, this panel will feature scholars and curators who will speak to one of the central concepts of the Baghdad Modern Art Group: istilham al-turath. 
Organized by Lara Fresko Madra featuring Saleem Al Bahloly, Alma Chaouachi, Clare Davies, and Anneka Lenssen.

This is a 90-minute panel with four 15-minute presentations and a Q&A. 

All Manner of Experiments: Legacies of the Baghdad Modern Art Group is curated by Nada Shabout, Regents Professor at the University of North Texas and Visiting Professor and Investigator at NYU Abu Dhabi, with Tiffany Floyd, Lecturer of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of North Texas. The exhibition is organized at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, by Lauren Cornell, Artistic Director, with exhibition design by Ian Sullivan, Director of Exhibitions. Zuhra Amini (CCS Bard ’25) and Truth Murray-Cole (CCS Bard ‘26) contributed curatorial research and editorial support to the project.

  Jazz at Bard and the László Z. Bitó Conservatory of Music Present
Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space  4:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Free and open to the public.
Artist Talk with Eri Yamamoto: 4:00–5:00 PM, Blum N211
Concert: 7:30 PM, László Z. Bitó Conservatory Performance Space
Featuring: Eri Yamamoto, piano; William Parker, bass; Ikuo Takeuchi, drums.

Eri Yamamoto has firmly established herself as one of Jazz’s most original and compelling pianists and composers. Her artistry has been lauded by Jazz legends and critics alike. This special concert is dedicated to the memory of Richard Gordon, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Bard College and a consummate Jazz pianist. His enduring contributions to both academia and the arts will be honored through this musical tribute. The series is generously supported by Bard Jazz Studies, the Bitó Conservatory of Music, and private donations in his memory.

Download: Eri-Yamamoto-Poster-1.pdf

A Talk by Peter Vale, Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard Weatherhead Center for International Affairs
Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium  5:00 pm – 6:30 pm EST/GMT-5
In mid-May each year, following the annual sorghum harvest, the heads of the Bayeke and Basanga of the southern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), known as Katanga, declare: tuye tukadie mukuba, “let’s go eat the copper.” But what does it mean to “eat” copper? This talk traces the evolution of this unique idea during the precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial periods. In drawing together copper artifacts, oral accounts, colonial ethnographies, historical images, and postcolonial propaganda, this talk suggests that the “eating” of copper represents the deep material and conceptual tie between agriculture and mining in Central African environmental systems.

Indigenous miners consistently re-imagined modes of human engagement with the earth and its resources to foster new economic and ecological potentials. The historical persistence of this notion of “eating copper” underscores the profound cultural and economic attachments that have shaped Congolese communities’ relationships to extraction in a locale that has become the epicenter for global decarbonization and inequality initiatives.

Peter Vale is a historian of Africa, specializing in environmental systems, political economy, and empire to decolonization. He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley and is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. His present book project, The Copper Eaters: Inventing Capitalism in Central Africa, asks why, despite persistent economic decline and devastating ecological consequences, Congolese (DRC) workers, residents, and officials have maintained such a deep attachment to a copper mining industry dominated by extractive, foreign capital. Drawing on community bulletins in Kiswahili, Kisanga, and French; interviews with miners and executives; and archives across seven countries, he traces the layering of social institutions, environmental knowledge, and political interests that have shaped Congolese expectations towards mineral extraction. He is also working on developing a second research project, tentatively titled Pan-African Skies, which will offer the first transnational history of African airlines.

A Talk by Folarin Ajibade, Assistant Professor of History, Florida State University
Hegeman 204  5:00 pm – 6:30 pm EST/GMT-5
This talk traces the sociocultural and political significance of urban gambling in Nigeria from the colonial to the contemporary period, exploring a critical moment of transition in Nigeria's history between the 1960s and the 1980s. Ajibade argues that during the first two decades of Nigeria's independence, popular gambling came to embody contentions in Nigerian civil society over the nature of the relationship between the Nigerian state and its urban masses. 

Folarin Ajibade is a historian of everyday life, with a regional focus on West Africa. He is broadly interested in the mundane and daily activities that urban Africans partake in, and engages with these activities as consequential and revelatory rather than as trivial pursuits. He received his PhD in African and African Diaspora History from New York University (NYU) in 2024, where he began working on his current manuscript, which is a history of the politics and profits of commercial gambling in urban Nigeria from the 1880s onward. Part of this work has been published in the Journal of African History.

A Talk By Elizabeth Ann Fretwell, Assistant Professor of African History, Old Dominion University
Olin Humanities, Room 102  1:00 pm – 2:30 pm EST/GMT-5
This talk traces the development of artisanal tailoring in mid-twentieth century Bénin, West Africa to show how everyday tailors served as important cultural and technological innovators. Drawing on evidence from apprenticeship, oral history, and archives, it explores the entanglement of materials, craft knowledge, and sartorial meaning in the creation of popular and enduring Béninois men’s styles. In doing so, it demonstrates how tailors helped fashion identities through clothes-making, giving form and expression to the political and social challenges of modernity, urbanization, and decolonization.

Elizabeth Ann Fretwell is Assistant Professor of African History at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA. She has also taught at Reed College in Portland, Oregon and at the University of Chicago where she received her PhD. Her research on material culture, technology, gender, and labor in French-speaking western Africa has appeared in Radical Historical Review, History and Technology, and Journal of Urban History. Her first book, Tailoring Identities: Craft, Technology, and Style in Bénin, is forthcoming with Indiana University Press.