Night of Ideas

Schedule

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AM

9:00 Ends at: 9:00 pm

Exhibition Tour

Columbus

Galleries

Explore the work of Naeem Mohaiemen, Ximena Garrido-Lecca, and Hew Locke with Wex educators.

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PM

2:30 Ends at: 4:15 pm

Film/Video Theater

Screening

Columbus

Register

Screening of La Chinoise (Jean-Luc Godard)

Enjoy a special francophone edition of our series 101 Films You Need to See Before Graduation featuring Godard’s La Chinoise. A colorful and under-seen staple of the French New Wave, this pop-art masterpiece both channels and parodies the revolutionary energies of 1960s Paris.

Buy tickets here

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PM

4:00 Ends at: 7:00 pm

Heirloom Café

Activation

Columbus

Wex Community Studio

Drop in to make wearable garlands and crowns made from crepe-paper flowers, collage with magazine cutouts, or create a painting.

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PM

5:00 Ends at: 6:15 pm

Film/Video Theater

Talk

Columbus

Flash Talk Presentations: “Talking to Strangers: The Circulation of Democratic Ideas in the Eighteenth Century Press”

Elizabeth Andrews Bond, Pranav Jani, Margaret Ellen Newell, Christopher McKnight Nichols, Sahar Tarighi, Winston C. Thompson

This talk series explores the evolving meanings of democracy, citizenship, and freedom across history and the present. Drawing on perspectives from revolution, race, gender, empire, education, and counter-archives, it examines how democratic ideals are imagined, contested, lost, and reshaped, while highlighting practices and values that challenge dominant narratives and point toward more just and participatory futures.

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PM

6:00 Ends at: 7:00 pm

Gallery Reading Room

Concert, Food

Columbus

Jazz Lounge

Join Ohio State School of Music students and area coordinator for Jazz Studies Mike Smith for an evening of music from Miles Davis and his Parisian connections.

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PM

6:00

Lower Lobby

Food

Columbus

Reception

Enjoy light bites from La Chatelaine French Bakery & Bistro and a cash bar while you continue the conversation and socialize with the community. Check in with volunteers from Ohio State’s Department of French and Italian to practice your French speaking throughout the evening.

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PM

7:00

Film/Video Theater

Talk

Columbus

Remarks and Keynote Presentation: “Out of the Ashes: Building a New American Democracy”

Hasan Kwame Jeffries

At a moment when democratic institutions are failing at home and under strain worldwide, Hasan Kwame Jeffries keynote confronts the collapse of American democracy as both a warning and an opening. Drawing on three pivotal moments in US history—the revolution, the Reconstruction era, and the civil rights era—Jeffries shows that democracy has only moved forward when those most excluded from power forced the nation to change. Accordingly, he calls on those who believe in freedom to seize this moment to boldly imagine and build a more resilient, inclusive democracy equal to the crises of our time.

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PM

8:30

Lower Lobby

Food

Columbus

Reception

Enjoy sweet bites from La Chatelaine French Bakery & Bistro and a cash bar and expand on the evening’s conversations.

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