2025 Benjamin Franklin Distinguished Lectures

Benjamin Franklin Distinguished Lectures

The 2025 lectures “On Seeing the Stain of Slavery: An Art History of Titian’s Poesie (1550) and the Maryland Portraits of Justus Engelhardt Kühn (1710),” will be delivered on October 20-23 by Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw at the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Carey Law School.

Dr. Shaw is the James and Nan Wagner Farquhar Professor in the History of Art and the Inaugural Faculty Director of the Arthur Ross Gallery, University of Pennsylvania.

All lectures will be held at Penn Carey Law School. Please enter the Law School at 3501 Sansom Street. Photo ID is required for entry to the Law School. The lectures on Monday and Tuesday will be followed by a reception at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies. All are invited to attend the two receptions.

The Benjamin Franklin Distinguished Lectures, established thanks to the generosity of the Estate of Margy Ellin Meyerson, are delivered annually by an eminent scholar of early American studies. Each set of lectures will be published in an edition by Penn Press.

(Photo credit: Eric Sucar)

Info: Dr. Shaw will present the first of three lectures, "On Seeing and Un-Seeing Slavery, or Learning to Reckon with the Black Spots in Early Modern Art," at 5:15pm at Penn Carey Law. The lecture will be followed by a reception from 6:15 to 7:00pm at the McNeil Center. The McNeil Center is just a half-block walk from Penn Carey Law.

Info: Dr. Shaw will present the second of three lectures, "Slavery, Staffage, and Selfhood in the Maryland Portraits of Justus Engelhardt Kühn (1710)," at 5:15pm at Penn Carey Law. The lecture will be followed by a reception from 6:15 to 7:00pm at the McNeil Center. The McNeil Center is just a half-block walk from Penn Carey Law.

Info: Dr. Shaw will present the final of three lectures, "Slavery, Sex, and Skin in Titian’s Poesie (1550)."

Host or Publisher McNeil Center for Early American Studies