2019 Paul R. Jones Annual Lecture will be delivered by Dr.
Mabel O. Wilson at 5:30 pm on Monday, March 11 in Memorial Hall 127. Her talk is titled “Notes on a Virginia Statehouse: Architecture and Race in Jefferson’s America.”
Mabel O. Wilson is the Nancy and George E. Rupp Professor in Architecture and also a professor in African American and African Diasporic Studies at Columbia University, where she is also a co-director of Global Africa Lab and the Associate Director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies (IRAAS). She has authored Begin with the Past: Building the National Museum of African American History and Culture (2016) and Negro Building: African Americans in the World of Fairs and Museums (2012). With her practice Studio &, she is a collaborator in the architectural team currently developing designs for the Memorial to Enslaved African American Laborers at the University of Virginia. Her work has been featured at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Architekturmuseum der TU München, Storefront for Art and Architecture, Art Institute of Chicago, Istanbul Design Biennale, Wexner Center for the Arts, and the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum’s Triennial. She’s a founding member of Who Builds Your Architecture? (WBYA?) a collective that advocates for fair labor practices on building sites worldwide.
The Paul R. Jones Annual Lecture honors the late Mr. Jones and his gift of African American art to the University in 2001. Since its arrival on campus, UD has supported a wide range of research and curricular programming using African American art as the seminal point of departure. The Annual Lecture also brings attention to African American and African diasporic programming, and showcases an individual whose contributions to the field are exemplary, interdisciplinary, and inspiring. Previous Paul R. Jones Lecturers hosted by UD include Gloria Wade Gayles, Richard Long, Rick Powell, Alison Saar, Keith Morrison, David Driskell, Mel Edwards and Jayne Cortez, Sonya Clark, Thomas Allen Harris, Ty Jones, and Fo Wilson.
This includes American art and culture in dialogue with Africa and its diaspora. The Paul R. Jones Distinguished Lecturer at the University of Delaware is an annual event sponsored by the Paul R. Jones Initiative (PRJI) and affiliated departments in the College of Arts and Sciences, including the Interdisciplinary Humanities Research Center (IHRC) and Africana Studies.