About This Event
To open Season 3 of The Heart of The Culture series, we are excited to announce the rescheduled event, The Audacity of Hope Today, a conversation bringing together inspiring leaders in the struggle for justice and peace, representing three generations. Our speakers include Reverend Irene Monroe, Executive Director Saffana Anwar, and BHAC Executive Director, Dr. Kris Manjapra.
Saffana Anwar serves as Executive Director for the City of Cambridge's Office of Equity and Inclusion, Minority Business Enterprise Program, and Peace Commission. Her work focuses on advancing equity, strengthening community connections, and creating opportunities for meaningful civic engagement.
Working at the intersection of local government and community, Saffana brings residents, community organizations, faith leaders, businesses, and municipal partners to foster dialogue, build relationships across differences, and address shared community needs. Her work also extends beyond Cambridge through the city's Sister Cities relationships, which create opportunities for cultural exchange, dialogue, and learning across communities globally.
Saffana believes that building more just and peaceful communities begins with creating spaces where people feel they belong, have a voice, and see themselves as part of shaping a shared future.
Kris Manjapra works at the intersection of global history and the critical study of race and colonialism. His research connects the Caribbean and Indian Ocean worlds. His books include a comparative study of global emancipation processes and the implications for reparations movements today: Black Ghost of Empire: The Long Death of Slavery and the Failure of Emancipation (Scribner and Penguin, 2022), shortlisted for the 2022 New England Book Award and the 2023 British Academy Book Prize. His previous book, Colonialism in Global Perspective (Cambridge, 2020), contributes to the emerging field of global race, colonialism, and diaspora studies. Age of Entanglement: German and Indian Intellectual across Empire (Harvard, 2014) won the 2019 International Merck-Tagore Prize. Professor Manjapra is a general editor of The Cambridge History of Colonialism and Decolonization. He is the founder of a site-based nonprofit, Black History in Action, dedicated to the restoration and reactivation of a Black cultural heritage center in Cambridge, MA. Professor Manjapra directs the Arts & Humanities Social Action Lab at Northeastern University. Professor Manjapra is a Guggenheim Fellow, and has held fellowships at the Radcliffe Institute and the Berlin Academy of Advanced Study.
Rev. Irene Monroe (she, her, hers) can be heard on the podcast and standing Boston Public Radio segment ALL REV’D UP on GBH. As feminist lesbian public theologian, ordained minister, and syndicated religion columnist, Monroe’s columns appear locally and nationally in the U.K and Canada. Her papers are at Harvard University at the Schlesinger Library and Radcliffe College’s Research Library on the History of Women in America.
Monroe states, "As a religion columnist I try to inform the public of the role religion plays in discrimination against LGBTQ+ people. Because homophobia is both a hatred of the “other ” and it’s usually acted upon ‘in the name of religion,” by reporting religion in the news I aim to highlight how religious intolerance not only shatters the goal of American democracy, but also aids in perpetuating various forms of oppression such as racism, sexism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.”
Monroe is a founder and now member emeritus of several national LGBTQ+ black and religious organizations, and as an activist, she has received numerous awards.
About This Event
To open Season 3 of The Heart of The Culture series, we are excited to announce the rescheduled event, The Audacity of Hope Today, a conversation bringing together inspiring leaders in the struggle for justice and peace, representing three generations. Our speakers include Reverend Irene Monroe, Executive Director Saffana Anwar, and BHAC Executive Director, Dr. Kris Manjapra.
Saffana Anwar serves as Executive Director for the City of Cambridge's Office of Equity and Inclusion, Minority Business Enterprise Program, and Peace Commission. Her work focuses on advancing equity, strengthening community connections, and creating opportunities for meaningful civic engagement.
Working at the intersection of local government and community, Saffana brings residents, community organizations, faith leaders, businesses, and municipal partners to foster dialogue, build relationships across differences, and address shared community needs. Her work also extends beyond Cambridge through the city's Sister Cities relationships, which create opportunities for cultural exchange, dialogue, and learning across communities globally.
Saffana believes that building more just and peaceful communities begins with creating spaces where people feel they belong, have a voice, and see themselves as part of shaping a shared future.
Kris Manjapra works at the intersection of global history and the critical study of race and colonialism. His research connects the Caribbean and Indian Ocean worlds. His books include a comparative study of global emancipation processes and the implications for reparations movements today: Black Ghost of Empire: The Long Death of Slavery and the Failure of Emancipation (Scribner and Penguin, 2022), shortlisted for the 2022 New England Book Award and the 2023 British Academy Book Prize. His previous book, Colonialism in Global Perspective (Cambridge, 2020), contributes to the emerging field of global race, colonialism, and diaspora studies. Age of Entanglement: German and Indian Intellectual across Empire (Harvard, 2014) won the 2019 International Merck-Tagore Prize. Professor Manjapra is a general editor of The Cambridge History of Colonialism and Decolonization. He is the founder of a site-based nonprofit, Black History in Action, dedicated to the restoration and reactivation of a Black cultural heritage center in Cambridge, MA. Professor Manjapra directs the Arts & Humanities Social Action Lab at Northeastern University. Professor Manjapra is a Guggenheim Fellow, and has held fellowships at the Radcliffe Institute and the Berlin Academy of Advanced Study.
Rev. Irene Monroe (she, her, hers) can be heard on the podcast and standing Boston Public Radio segment ALL REV’D UP on GBH. As feminist lesbian public theologian, ordained minister, and syndicated religion columnist, Monroe’s columns appear locally and nationally in the U.K and Canada. Her papers are at Harvard University at the Schlesinger Library and Radcliffe College’s Research Library on the History of Women in America.
Monroe states, "As a religion columnist I try to inform the public of the role religion plays in discrimination against LGBTQ+ people. Because homophobia is both a hatred of the “other ” and it’s usually acted upon ‘in the name of religion,” by reporting religion in the news I aim to highlight how religious intolerance not only shatters the goal of American democracy, but also aids in perpetuating various forms of oppression such as racism, sexism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.”
Monroe is a founder and now member emeritus of several national LGBTQ+ black and religious organizations, and as an activist, she has received numerous awards.