Saturday, September 20, 2025
Daily Schedule Overview
All events are in Foster Auditorium in Paterno Library unless otherwise noted. Panels will be recorded and available online.
*** Check for updates as such will be provided ***
| 11:00 – 11:30 am | Coffee, Mann Assembly Room |
| 11:30 am – 1:00 pm | Panel 1 – Harper’s Canon: Short Fiction, Radical Poetics, and Oratory |
| 1:00 – 2:00 pm |
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| 2:15 – 4:00 pm | Keynote Panel |
| 4:15 – 4:45 pm | Presentation: Harper Read-a-thon |
| 5:00 – 6:15 pm | Panel 2 – Harper and Black Feminism |
| 6:30 – 8:00 pm | Reception for Presenters and Invited Guests: Honoring Frances Smith Foster, Nittany Lion Inn |
Table of Contents
11:30 am – 1:00 pm Panel 1 – Harper’s Canon: Short Fiction, Radical Poetics, and Oratory
Poetry reading of “Verses for Frances” by Angel Dye, based on Harper’s “Songs for the People”
- Melissa J. Lingle-Martin, “The ‘earnest’ and ‘restless eye of Agitation’ and Monumental Vision in Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s ‘The Triumph of Freedom–A Dream’”
- J.P. Sloan, “Bitter Shrieks of the Dispossessed: Black Noise and the Activist Poetics of Frances E.W. Harper’s ‘The Slave Mother’”
- Leslie K. Dunlap, “‘Poetic Justice: Frances Harper’s Warning to White Women”
Moderator: Katie Painter
2:15 pm – 4:00 pm Keynote Panel
- Martha S. Jones, “Orphaned: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper and Baltimore’s ‘Colored’ Orphan Asylum”
- Eric Gardner, “Frances Ellen Watkins, Ohio, and the Importance of the Local”
- Sherita L. Johnson, “Panoramic Travel with Frances Harper: Archival Recovery of the Reconstruction Years”
Moderator: P. Gabrielle Foreman
4:15 pm – 4:45 pm Presentation: Harper Read-a-thon by Denise Burgher and Jacqueline Barrios
5:00 pm – 6:15 pm Panel 2 – Harper and Black Feminism
Poetry reading of “On Dandelion” by Britny Cordera based on Harper’s “Dandelions”
- Sabrina Evans, “A Conversazione of Their Own: Placing Frances E.W. Harper in Community with Fellow Black Women Organizers”
- Nazera Sadiq Wright, “Frances E. W. Harper and the Mercantile Library of Philadelphia”
- Cora Anthony, “Where Credit is Due: Black Women Writers Cite Frances Harper, 1880-1900”
- Marlas Yvonne Whitley, “Frances Harper’s Black Feminist Reconfigurations”
Moderator: Denise Burgher
6:30 – 8:00pm Reception for Presenters and Invited Guests: Honoring Frances Smith Foster, Nittany Lion Inn
Poetry readings by:
- Frances Smith Foster
- ““Songs for My People” by Swiss McCall based on Harper’s “Songs for the People”
- Presentation of Transcribe Harper by Eunice Toh
- Original work of a typewriter poem(s) created throughout the night by Britny Cordera
Schedule updated 9/07/25.
Guest of Honor
Frances Smith Foster
Frances Smith Foster is the foremost Harper scholar. Foster’s work reintroduced Frances E.W. Harper to contemporary generations of readers with her critical biography and collection of Harper’s work, A Brighter Coming Day and Foster’s cutting edge scholarship on Harper and other Black women writers defined a generation. Foster is a pre-eminent American researcher and emeritus Professor of African-American studies and women’s history. She is the Charles Howard Candler Professor Emeritus of English and Women’s Studies at Emory University.
Presenter Biographies
Cora Anthony, PhD Candidate, English University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Jacqueline Barrios is an Assistant Professor in the Graduate Interdisciplinary Program of Social, Cultural & Critical Theory (SCCT) and the Asian Pacific American Studies Minor (APAS).
Denise Burgher is the Senior team leader for curriculum and community engagement at the Colored Conventions Project, where she co-directs Douglass Day with Jim Casey at the Center for Black Digital Research at Penn State.
Britny Cordera is a poet, nonfiction writer, and journalist who investigates the intersections between the environment and culture.
Leslie K. Dunlap is a Professor of History and Women’s and Gender Studies at Willamette University.
Angel C. Dye is a poet, researcher, and Assistant Professor of African American Literature at Southern Illinois University – Edwardsville.
Sabrina Evans is an Assistant Professor of English at Howard University.
P. Gabrielle Foreman co-directs the Center for Black Digital Research/#DigBlk at Penn State University and is the Colored Convention Project’s founding faculty director.
Eric Gardner is a Professor of English at Saginaw Valley State University.
Sherita L. Johnson is the Director of the College of Liberal Arts’ Africana Research Center (ARC) and an Associate Professor of English at Penn State.
Martha S. Jones is the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor, Professor of History, and a Professor at the SNF Agora Institute at The Johns Hopkins University.
Melissa J. Lingle-Martin is an Assistant Professor of English at George Mason University Korea.
Swiss McCall is a writer and professor from Maplewood, NJ. She is currently working on cultivating and expanding her artistic scope into the genres of fiction and creative non-fiction.
John (J.P.) Sloan is currently a PhD candidate in the English Department at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.
Eunice Toh, #DigBlk Research Associate, PhD in English and African American and Diaspora Studies from Penn State.
Marlas Yvonne Whitley is a Doctoral Student in English at New York University.
Nazera Sadiq Wright is an Associate Professor of English and African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky.
Supported by:
Generosity of
individual donors
#Harper200 Organizing Committee:
Lauren Barnes, Jacqueline Barrios, Denise Burgher, Sergio Carmona, Lauren Cooper, Samantha de Vera, Rachel Fernandes, Gabrielle Foreman, Sherita L. Johnson, Brandi Locke, Lynnette Young Overby, Courtney Murray Ross, Gabby Sutherland, Eunice Toh, and Takina Walker.
Additional Collaborators and Partners:
Jim Casey, Chanel Edwards, Eden Mekonen, Janel Moore-Almond, Amber Rance, Jormailin Valdés Pareras, Carol Rudisell, and Curtis Small.
Additional Contributors:
Kenisha Brown, Hunter Reed, Tahfiq Williams,
and members of the Center for Black Digital Research/#DigBlk throughout the years.