Bard at Brooklyn Public Library: Going Public: The Birth and Rebirth of Erasmus Hall

The Rethinking Education Lecture Series celebrates the launch of a full-scholarship Bard College degree program at Brooklyn Public Library. The lectures will function as open houses for anyone interested in learning more and applying to the program—as well as anyone curious about the history and future of education.

Professor Craig Steven Wilder will lecture on Going Public: The Birth and Rebirth of Erasmus Hall.

In this lecture, Professor Wilder traces the origins of one of New York City's most iconic high schools back to the old Dutch slaveholding village of Flatbush to explain the multiple lives of the school and rethink the early history of public education.

Craig Steven Wilder is Senior Fellow at the Bard Prison Initiative and Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Wilder’s most recent award-winning book is Ebony & Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities, which Kirkus Reviews named one of the best nonfiction books of the year.

Professor Wilder began his career as a community organizer in the South Bronx. He has taught at Dartmouth College, Williams College, and Long Island University.