In the latest edition of Humanitas, a column focused on the arts and humanities at Yale, an art exhibition inspired by Black traditions of hair braiding, a new addition to Yale’s offerings in Native American and Indigenous studies, prestigious honors for three Yale faculty, and a Yale-run art space opens its doors to New Haven artists.
For more, please visit an archive of all arts and humanities coverage at Yale News.
Art and community, braided together
When Nontsikelelo Mutiti was a graduate student at the Yale School of Art, she found herself yearning for spaces with “a palpable presence” of other Africans. A native of Zimbabwe, Mutiti began taking the train to Harlem, where, in Le Petit Sénégal, she discovered welcome reminders of home: hair-braiding salons bustling with activity and conversation.
“It was as if the salons that I knew from back home had just been airlifted and placed in Harlem,” said Mutiti, a designer and visual artist who is now an assistant professor and director of graduate studies in graphic design at the School of Art. “Harlem became this very important space for me because it was so wonderful to be in that space with that West African community.”
The aesthetics of hair braiding and its significance in Black culture, especially as it relates to the sense of social binding around salons, were the inspiration for Mutiti’s graphic art exhibition currently on display at Yale’s Schwarzman Center. Titled “Rusununguko,” a Shona word connoting both freedom and unity, the exhibition is in the third-floor gallery in the center’s domed apex.
The installation’s lyrical design is composed from thick black braids, with graceful curls at their ends, that cover the walls of the circular gallery in vine-like fashion. Some of the braids hang loosely on their own, while others twist around each other to form neat knots that resemble bows.
Mutiti incorporated the architecture of the space into the design — a nod, she said, to the building’s historic elements — by wrapping braids around light fixtures, looping them behind the staircase handrail, climbing them up doorframes, and running them down onto the floor.
“I love the cylindrical nature of the space,” she said. “It’s a phenomenal space. It’s quite rare to be in a space that’s in the round. And a dome, a sphere made me think of the head itself.”
The braids were created from adhesive vinyl laid out on 40-inch-wide panels that were installed in strips on the walls. The installation will remain in place through June of next year.
Mutiti said she hopes the exhibition will make visitors want to linger, “to take a pause and just be mesmerized or curious or fascinated or interested. And I hope the work makes people look at the building anew. We’re so used to the beauty of this campus that we sometimes take things for granted in our environment.”
New certificate in Native American and Indigenous Studies
Yale undergraduates interested in strengthening their understanding of Indigenous cultures, histories, literature, and languages will now have a focused way to do so: beginning next year, they can begin working toward a new interdisciplinary certificate in Native American and Indigenous Studies.
Approved by the Yale College Faculty in May, the certificate joins the dozen or so other interdisciplinary certificates available to Yale College students. It was proposed by a steering committee consisting of Tarren Andrews, an assistant professor of Ethnicity, Race and Migration; Ned Blackhawk, the Howard R. Lamar Professor of History; Claire Bowern, a professor of linguistics; Hi’ilei Hobart, an assistant professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies; Lloyd Sy, an assistant professor in English; and Tisa Wenger, a professor of American religious history at Yale Divinity School.
The new program builds on the previous addition of a Cherokee language course (which made Yale the first Ivy League institution to offer a North American Indigenous language for credit), and the appointments of Andrews and Hobart, both Indigenous studies faculty.
“It’s been wonderful to increase the visibility of Indigenous studies content in the Yale College curriculum, and the certificate makes it possible for students to get recognition for the work they do across the multiple departments that offer Indigenous classes,” said Bowern, who is coordinating the certificate with Blackhawk.
The certificate will be added to the Yale College curriculum beginning in 2026. Students who enroll must complete five approved courses on Indigenous topics drawn from at least three of five areas: language and culture; literature and arts; environment and politics; history, society, and law; and science and education.
In addition, they must participate in at least three Indigenous community events, which will be listed on the certificate website, and submit a written summary of each event.
Students will also be encouraged to complete a capstone project, ideally by drawing on Yale’s cultural heritage collections or working with an Indigenous community, although that will not be a requirement.
Alice Kaplan awarded Grand Medal from French Academy
Alice Kaplan, Sterling Professor of French, has been awarded the 2025 Grand Médaille de la Francophonie from the Académie Française, France’s national academy for the French language. The venerable Academy, located on the Quai de Conti in Paris, has met since the 17th century to preserve, enrich, and set standards for the French language.
The Grande Médaille de la Francophonie (also known as the Vermeil Medal) has been awarded annually since 1986 to recognize “the work of a French-speaking person who, on an international scale, has made an eminent contribution to the maintenance and illustration of the French language.” Previous winners include the Algerian writer Assia Djebar, the Belgian singer Stromae, and, in 2024, Yale’s Edwin Duval, professor emeritus of French.
Kaplan is a specialist of 20th-century France. She works at the intersection of literature and history, blending archival research with textual analysis. She has published numerous books and articles in both French and English, including “Baya: Ou le gran vernissage” (2024), which earned her a special mention from the jury of the 2024 Mémoire Prix Littéraire Fetkann. At Yale, she founded and directed the Yale Translation Initiative at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies from 2018–2024.
“It’s a special honor to be recognized as Francophone, as one of the many millions of people outside metropolitan France who call the language their own,” Kaplan said of the award.
Two Yale faculty named Radcliffe fellows
The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University — also known as Harvard Radcliffe Institute — has selected two Yale faculty for its 26th class of fellows: Monica C. Bell, whose work focuses on the law and sociology of policing, inequality, and violence, and Sam Huber, whose work focuses on 20th-century American literature and feminist theory.
The year-long Radcliffe fellowships bring together leading scholars in the humanities, sciences, social sciences, and arts, along with writers, journalists, playwrights, and other distinguished professionals, “to intensely pursue ambitious projects in the unique environment of the institute.” This year, Radcliffe received 1,677 applications for roughly 50 fellowship slots.
Monica Bell is a professor of law at Yale Law School and an associate professor of sociology in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS). As a Drew Gilpin Faust Fellow at Radcliffe, she will complete a book manuscript that uses images, research notes, and personal vignettes in conjunction with empirical poems created from coded interview transcripts. The project will provide insights on how “Black women living in race-class subjugated neighborhoods survive and find hope under intense and arbitrary state authority.”
Sam Huber, the 2025-2026 Marilyn Beaudry-Corbett Schlesinger Fellow at Radcliffe, is a lecturer in English at Yale and a senior editor at The Yale Review. They will work on the first biography of Kate Millett‚ whose book Sexual Politics (1970) became a feminist classic.
Connecting to New Haven through the arts
The Yale School of Art is accepting proposals for programming at a new community art space in New Haven’s Whitney-Audubon arts district. Named for its street address, 63 Audubon is an 850-square-foot gallery intended to showcase the work of local artists.
Kymberly Pinder, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Dean of the School of Art, has made it a priority to find ways for the school to engage more intentionally with the New Haven community since her appointment in 2021, and 63 Audubon is the latest iteration of that, said Benjamin Weathers, the school’s gallery and exhibitions manager.
Managed by the School of Art in collaboration with the Yale School of Management, the exhibition space has so far hosted two shows featuring works by local artists, the last of which closed at the end of June. The schools are collaborating with an array of community organizations on the space, including the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, Arts Council of Greater New Haven, Creative Arts Workshop, and many others.
For students from the School of Management, the space will offer experiential learning in operating an exhibition space.
The plan is for Yale to do a “handful” of programming events throughout the year, and otherwise make the space available free of charge for other entities to use for their own programming, Weathers said.
“One of the biggest hurdles for artists is the lack of exhibition spaces, especially in New Haven,” he said. “So just having a space where you can express your vision is really crucial.”
The networking that takes place during opening receptions for new exhibits is also critical for artists trying to raise the visibility of their work, he added.
Aside from art exhibits, the space may also be used for workshops, lectures, or musical performances. Proposals for potential projects at the gallery may be submitted via a link on the 63 Audubon website.
Lisa Prevost, Michaela Herrmann, and Andrea Thompson Peed contributed to this column.
