Prof. Manisha Sinha recently published a piece in Ms. Magazine on the abolitionist origins of American feminism, discussing the intersection of the abolitionism and women’s rights movements during the nineteenth century.

Read the piece here.

On Wednesday, April 8, the UConn Department of Earth Sciences, the Environmental Sciences Program, the Honors Program, the Humanities Institute, the Institute of the Environment and Energy, and the Office of Sustainability will host a special viewing of the new Ken Burns-produced documentary “Henry David Thoreau.” The viewing is open to all and will be followed by a discussion with producer Susan Shumaker, UConn Department of History Draper Professor Emeritus Robert Gross, and Department of Earth Sciences professor Robert Thorson, who served as experts for the documentary.

“The documentary repositions Thoreau, not as one of the dead white men of the old canon that we are shedding as we move forward, but reactivating him as a sensitive and self-aware scientist-writer,” Thorson says. “There’s no question that Thoreau lies at the foundation of two big ideas in America. One, through ‘Walden,’ is the root of the philosophical ascetic strand of the environmental movement, which is why Rachel Carson kept a copy on her nightstand for devotional reading.  The other, through ‘Civil Disobedience,’ is the root of nonviolent resistance to an unjust government. This essay, written about his night in jail, informed the approaches of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, who both read it when they were in jail. Many others were also inspired by it, from Leo Tolstoy to Emma Goldman, and many more.”

Please visit UConn Today‘s full article “Rebooting Thoreau for Modern Times: New PBS Documentary Features UConn Expertise.”

Please join the Library Company of Philadelphia on April 17th for a conversation with Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens and Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson, moderated by Dr. Jim Downs.

Since its inauguration, the Program in African American History has expanded its efforts to collect, preserve, and interpret Black women’s experiences across centuries, continents, and legal statuses. This event honors the tremendous strides Deirdre Cooper Owens led on this journey, in her legacy as a former Director of the Program, and through her lasting impact in the field of Black women’s history.

The event will be held Friday, April 17th, 2026 at 5:30 PM at the Library Company in Philadelphia. For more information and to register for tickets, please visit The Library Company’s site.

The article, written by Ananya Roy for Jewish Currents, contextualizes the current immigration “enforcement” crisis among historical moments that shaped laws now serving as the backdrop for the criminalization of racialized migrant communities. One of the key moments which demonstrates the article’s emphasis on communities creating their own networks and momentum towards freedom rather than states or cities fostering and protecting this freedom as its own mission, is of course that of the Abolition Movement and the Underground Railroad. Sinha’s article “The Abolitionist Underground” is cited amongst other scholarly work evidencing how governments respond to freedom movements rather than being the agents enabling and protecting residents as many are taught to understand historical narratives around individual freedoms being codified.

Read Fugitive Sanctuaries by Ananya Roy

Read The Abolitionist Underground by Manisha Sinha

On November 5, 2025, Professor Brendan Kane presented a research seminar titled “Teaching, learning and researching Early Modern Gaelic in a digital age: Léamh.org and the practice of collaborative digital humanities.” The event was hosted at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, a college in the west of Scotland. The talk discussed ongoing efforts to teach people Early Modern Irish and Classical Gaelic, using the innovative Léamh.org, a web tool that uses games and other methods to assist users in learning grammar and reading digitized manuscripts. 

You can watch a recording of the talk here