Welcome
Welcome to the Tadler Center for the Humanities. My name is Charlotte Gordon. I am a Distinguished Professor of Humanities and the author of six books.
Founded in 2018, the Tadler supports interdisciplinary work in the humanities through fellowships, programming, and special projects. In everything we do, we seek to represent a diverse range of voices and perspectives.
We hope to see you at one of this semester's upcoming events.
"I am struck by the impact that bringing in famous thinkers, performers, and authors has on our community—and how it can change our culture."
Charlotte Gordon
Distinguished Professor of Humanities
In Video
Introducing the Tadler Center for the Humanities & the Endicott Center for Civic Participation
What does it mean to be a thoughtful human and an active citizen in today's complex world?
At Endicott College, those answers live in two vital centers. Together, the Tadler Center for the Humanities and the Endicott Center for Civic Participation do more than prepare students for careers—they help shape a generation of thoughtful problem-solvers, empathetic neighbors, and engaged citizens.
At Endicott College, those answers live in two vital centers. Together, the Tadler Center for the Humanities and the Endicott Center for Civic Participation do more than prepare students for careers—they help shape a generation of thoughtful problem-solvers, empathetic neighbors, and engaged citizens.
Upcoming Events at The Tadler Center for the Humanities
Fall 2026
Salem Witchcraft Trials Reenactment
September 15, 2026
5-6 p.m.
Rose Theater
Reserve tickets
Step into 1692 with Cry Innocent: The People vs. Bridget Bishop, an immersive, interactive trial reenactment produced by History Alive! Serve on the Puritan jury, question the witnesses, and decide the fate of Salem’s first accused witch.
A History of Refusal: Black Resistance from Slavery to the Present
October 8, 2026
2-3:15 p.m.
Center for Belonging
Tickets Coming Soon
Professor Carter Jackson's talk examines how Black resistance to white supremacy is often reduced to a simple binary, between Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 's nonviolence and Malcolm X’s “by any means necessary.” However, Carter Jackson urges us to move past this false choice, offering an unflinching examination of the breadth of Black responses to white oppression, particularly those pioneered by Black women. From the Abolitionist Movement to the Long Freedom Struggle to Black Lives Matter, Black people have employed a myriad of ways to combat white supremacy. She contends that the dismissal of “Black violence” as an illegitimate form of resistance is itself a manifestation of white supremacy, a distraction from the insidious, unrelenting violence of structural racism. From work stoppages and property destruction to armed revolt―force has played a pivotal part in securing freedom and justice for Black people since the days of the American and Haitian Revolutions. But violence is only one tool among many. Carter Jackson examines other, no less vital tactics that have shaped the Black struggle, from the restorative power of finding joy in the face of suffering to the quiet strength of simply walking away. This talk will present new history, affirm known history, and challenge our assumptions about what makes a movement effective.
Kellie Carter Jackson is the Michael and Denise Kellen ’68 Associate Professor at Wellesley College and Chair of the Africana Studies Department. Carter Jackson is the award winning author of We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance (Seal Press). We Refuse was listed as one of the best books of 2024 by eight different publications and organizations. We Refuse won the Massachusetts Book Award for the Best Nonfiction book, the Letitia Woods Brown Book Prize for the Best Book on Black Women’s History, and the Darlene Clark Hine Prize. It was also shortlisted for the Stowe Prize for Literary Activism. She is also the author of the award-winning book, Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence, which won the SHEAR James H. Broussard Best First Book Prize. Force and Freedom was also a finalist for the Frederick Douglass Book Prize, a finalist for the Museum of African American History Stone Book Prize, and listed among 13 books to read on African American History by the Washington Post. Her essays have been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, NPR, and other outlets. She has also been interviewed for her expertise on Netflix, Apple TV, Good Morning America, CBS Mornings, MSNBC, PBS, Vox, CNN, the BBC, the History Channel, Al Jazeera, Slate, and a host of documentaries.
Lastly, Carter Jackson loves a good podcast! She is the co-host of the podcast, “This Day ( A History Show)” with Jody Avirgan and Niki Hemmer. She currently resides in the suburbs of Boston with her husband and three children.
At the Threshold of Liberty: Slavery: Women, Slavery and Shifting Identities with Tamika Nunley
October 20, 2026
2-3:15 p.m.; 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Klebanoff Auditorium
Tickets Coming Soon
Tamika Nunley is Research Professor of History at Duke University. Along with articles, essays, and reviews, she is the author of At the Threshold of Liberty: Women, Slavery, and Shifting Identities in Washington, D.C. which received the Letitia Woods Brown Memorial Book Award, the Pauli Murray Book Prize, and the Mary Kelley Book Prize. Her article, “Thrice Condemned’: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Practice of Leniency in Antebellum Courts,” received the Letitia Woods Brown prize for best article in African American Women’s History and the Anne Braden Prize for best article in Southern Women’s History. Nunley recently released her new book, The Demands of Justice: Enslaved Women, Capital Crime and Clemency in Early Virginia with the University of North Carolina Press. Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, NewsOne, Smithsonian Magazine, Ms. Magazine, and Fortune Magazine. In 2023, the Librarian of Congress named her the Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in Ethics and American history.
The Personal and the Political: A Conversation about Writing with M. Gessen
November 5, 2026
5 p.m.
Cleary Lecture Hall
Tickets Coming Soon
Join Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist M. Gessen and memoirist Brittany Perham for a conversation about writing, politics, and resistance in a polarized America.
One of our most trenchant observers of democracy, M. Gessen is the author of eleven books, including the National Book Award-winning The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia and The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. A Pulitzer Prize-winning Opinion writer at The New York Times, they have covered political subjects including Russia, L.G.B.T. rights, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and the rise of autocracy among others. They are currently at work on a biography of Hannah Arendt.
Brittany Perham’s memoir, Executrix (University of Georgia Press), won the 2025 AWP Sue William Silverman Prize for Creative Nonfiction. She is also the author of Double Portrait (W.W. Norton), which won the Barnard Women Poets Prize and was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award; The Curiosities (Free Verse Editions); and, with Kim Addonizio, the collaborative word/art project The Night Could Go in Either Direction (SHP). Her writing has received support from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Hemingway House, the James Merrill House Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, the Wallace Stegner Fellowship Program, and Yaddo. She is an associate professor atEndicott College.
The Underground Railroad with Brittany Walls-Miles
November 12, 2026
2-3:30 p.m.
Center for Belonging
Co Sponsor: Center for Belonging
Tickets Coming Soon
Brittany Walls-Miles is a 5th-generation descendant of John and Jane Walls, freedom seekers whose interracial love story defied the odds. Their remarkable journey laid the foundation for the John Freeman Walls Historic Site and Underground Railroad Museum, where Brittany now serves as Co-Curator and Executive Fundraising Coordinator. Raised in this legacy—and deeply shaped by her family’s close relationship with civil rights icon Mrs. Rosa Parks—Brittany brings history to life through story, connection, and lived experience.
“Pieces of Me” invites students to reflect on the narratives—personal, historical, and inherited—that shape identity and belonging. Drawing from her family’s legacy of the Underground Railroad and her family memoir The Road That Led to Somewhere, Brittany explores how stories of freedom and resilience live on through us.
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About
Enriching the intellectual life of the college and community through the arts & humanities.
Founded in 2018, Endicott’s Tadler Center for the Humanities promotes the arts and humanities at the college and community level by:- fostering public awareness and understanding of the humanities through program offerings that engage audiences at local, national, and international levels;
- supporting the core values of the humanities - including aesthetic exploration, intellectual inquiry, and historical understanding - through interdisciplinary research and teaching initiatives; and
- encouraging dialogue, creativity, and inquiry through the support of bold and innovative work by artists, writers, scholars, and students in the humanities.
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Funding
The Tadler Center supports Endicott faculty in all phases of their careers by providing funding for research, creative and interdisciplinary projects, guest speakers, innovative programming and an annual fellowship.
Tadler Fellowship
This award provides full time faculty members with a course release and research funding on a case by case basis. Proposals should reflect the Tadler Center’s core commitment to creativity, excellence, and inclusivity, as well as an active, innovative engagement with the humanities' at the college and in the broader community. We are particularly interested in projects that support our core values of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.
Tadler Center for the Humanities Course Releases
The Tadler Center for the Humanities will grant 1-2 course releases a year, based on the merit of the applications. The Tadler welcomes proposals from faculty who are working on long term projects, such as book length manuscripts.For more details on how to apply, please contact Charlotte Gordon at cgordon@endicott.edu.
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Fellowship Winners
Sara Johnson Allen, Professor of Communication, and Elizabeth Winthrop, Associate Professor of English, have won this year's Tadler Fellowships.
Sara's current project is an exploration of cultural and political history, centering on her 17th century home in Ipswich, Massachusetts. She will work with local historians and archaeologists to uncover the history of the people who lived in her house over the last three centuries and thematically connect the story of the past residents with those living in the house since 2010: Sara's own family.
Elizabeth Winthrop is using her fellowship to continue work on a novel which explores the ramifications of American foreign policy in the middle east, the rise and appeal of ISIS, and the aftermath of the group’s fall in 2019. The novel specifically tells the story of one of the many young western women who has traveled to Syria to join ISIS, and the fate of the child she has after the group has been defeated.
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Past Events
2026
April 16; Roy Wood Jr.
Roy Wood Jr. is a comedian, an Emmy-nominated documentary producer for the PBS documentary The Neutral Ground, and for 8 years served as a correspondent on Comedy Central’s Emmy-winning The Daily Show (2015-23). In the spring of 2023, Wood Jr. guest hosted The Daily Show and headlined the White House Correspondents’ Dinner to its highest ratings since 2017.February 19; Lessons from the Dugout: Sports, Journalism, and the Game of Life
Join longtime sports journalist and Endicott professor Ken Davidoff and Mark Herlihy, Dean of Social Sciences, Communication, and Humanities, for a lively discussion of Davidoff's new book, 101 Lessons from the Dugout: What Baseball and Softball Can Teach Us about the Game of Life (Bloomsbury).February 18, 2026; Carla Kaplan
Carla Kaplan is an award-winning Professor and writer who holds the Stanton W. and Elisabeth K. Davis Distinguished Professorship in American Literature at Northeastern University.2025
November 16-21; Ken Burns’ The American Revolution
The Tadler Center for the Humanities and Historic Beverly are proud to present a special FREE community screening of Ken Burns’ highly anticipated, 12-hour, 6-part documentary The American Revolution; hosted by The Cabot.November 13; Behind the Curtain: How Movie Magic Happens with Patrick Houlihan & John Houlihan
Learn how movie magic happens, with brothers Patrick Houlihan & John Houlihan, Senior Vice Presidents at 20th Century Studios.October 15; Ethics and Aesthetics of A.I. presents Jonathan Fardy
Jonathan Fardy is Associate Professor of Art History and Chair of the Department of Art at Idaho State University. His research investigates the aesthetic strategies that underwrite the constitution and argumentative structure of theories of art and politics from the 1960s to the present.October 9; Writing Memoir, Writing History with Martha S. Jones
Professor Martha S. Jones, the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor, Professor of History, and a Professor at the SNF Agora Institute at The Johns Hopkins University, will talk about her new book The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir.October 1; Play as Community Care with Gloucester School Resource Officers
This 90-minute symposium explores two unique extracurricular programs, SRO_Gaming and Youth Anglers, created by Gloucester's School Resource Officers.September 25; The Underground Railroad with Brittany Walls-Miles
Brittany Walls-Miles is a 5th-generation descendant of John and Jane Walls, freedom seekers whose interracial love story defied the odds.April 8; Danielle Allen
Danielle Allen is a seasoned leader, public policy and public affairs expert, national voice on pandemic response, and distinguished academic and author.February 27; Laugh it Out III: A Comedy Show. Seriously.
Join award-winning comedian Bethany Van Delft as she hosts a night of stand up comedy.2024
Writer-in-Residence Program
In the Fall 2024 semester the Tadler Center will pilot our Writer-in-Residence program with local artist and storyteller Phoebe Potts. This new program will have both local and far-reaching impact–from nurturing the work of our talented student writers and enriching campus and community life to raising national awareness for Endicott’s growing creative writing program.October 9; Bad News Makes Good Stories: A Presentation of the Tadler's Writer-in-Residence
Join Phoebe Potts for a masterclass in storytelling as she takes apart one of her true life stories.October 3; Balla Kouyaté and Mike Block Band with special student collaboration
The culminating event of a two day residency with Endicott College and the Rockport Public, global Silk-Road ensemble musicians Balla Kouyaté and Mike Block will perform with their six piece band in the tradition of West African Djeli and modern fusion music.April 11; Stephanie Land: Exploring Resilience in Pursuit of Dreams
Author Stephanie Land is coming to Endicott to talk about her new memoir, ClassMarch 28; Brittany Perham
Poet Brittany Perham will read from her award winning book, Double PortraitMarch 6; Finding Her Beat: Film & Discussion
A film screening of Finding Her BeatFebruary 13; January O'Neil
Poet January O'Neil will read from her new book, Glitter Road2023
April 20; Kiese Laymon
MacArthur Fellow and award-winning author of the groundbreaking essay collection How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America and the genre-defying novel Long Division, will be speaking about his work, including his beststelling memoir, Heavy: An American Memoir.April 4; Carolyn Cooke
AuthorMarch 28; January O'Neil & Alexandra Marvar
Emmett TillFebruary 8; Phoebe Potts: Too fat for China
Comic storyteller and professional Jew, as she tries, fails and eventually succeeds to adopt a baby.2022
October 12; Laugh it Out III: Comedy, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Bethany Van Delft hosts a comedian showcase about issues of race, queerness, and inclusionSeptember 29; Fish Tales, by the Gloucester Writers Center
students and professors tell their own personal stories on the theme "Song"September 23; Fernande Tohme
economics and philosophySeptember23; Julian Aguon and Joanna Kreilick, President of the Union of Concerned Scientists
speaks on the themes of climate change and environmental justiceSeptember 12; Young Vo
discusses new book, The 5 Things I've Learned So FarMay 11; Elizabeth Matelski awarded Tadler Fellowship
April 21; Imani Perry
discusses new book, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a NationApril 12; Alex Gino
Part of Endicott’s inaugural PRIDE celebration, reads from new book, MelissaMarch 30; Christine Schutt
gives public reading of extracts from Pure Hollywood (2018) and visited Elizabeth Winthrop’s classesMarch 1; January Gill O’Neil and Alexandra Marvar
Emmett Till2021
April 15; Nancy Sherman
speaks on her new book Stoic Wisdom: Ancient Lessons for Modern Resilience2020
October 6; Kate Bolick
discusses her new book SpinsterFebruary 18; Christine Schutt
gives public reading of extracts from Pure Hollywood (2018) and visited Elizabeth Winthrop’s classes2019
October 15; Phil DeLoria
delivered a lecture on "The American Indian in American Popular Culture”February 28; Jill Lepore
staff writer for The New Yorker and Harvard historian, discussed "The Rise and Fall of the Fact"2018
November 8; Charlotte Gordon
Tadler Center inaugural event/lecture on Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft & Mary ShelleyOctober 9; Kate Bolick
discussed Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own
A “Life-Changing” Gift to the Humanities
The Tadler Center for the Humanities recently received an anonymous $250,000 gift, which is helping Charlotte Gordon, Distinguished Professor of the Humanities and Tadler Center Director, to bring luminaries like Stephanie Land to campus while fortifying a place for the arts at Endicott.