On April 8, 2025, Drs. Mona Narain and Sarah Ruffing Robbins (TCU English) with Barbara McCaskill (UGA), participated as featured speakers in a Smithsonian Webinar on the poet Phillis Wheatley (Peters). The event, titled “Historically Speaking: 'The Feast of Genius and the Play of Art': The Legacies and Communities of Phillis Wheatley Peters,” was sponsored by the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) of the Smithsonian. McCaskill, Narain, and Robbins were joined by archivists, curators, and program coordinators of NMAAHC to highlight the museum’s newly acquired artifacts related to Phillis Wheatley Peters. The scholars’ presentations examined biographies, additional poetic publications, and the numerous cultural legacies related to Wheatley, such as those generated among Black communities, in order to highlight her global cultural influence.
The 1773 publication most closely associated with Wheatley —Poems on Various Subjects—celebrated its 250th anniversary in 2023. A multi-event series of programs in 2023 entitled The Genius of Phillis Wheatley Peters honored the 1773 milestone of Wheatley’s book and developed resources for studying and teaching about the poet. Co-directors of that initiative—McCaskill, with Narain and Robbins—are now at work with other scholars on a project-related volume of essays to be published by Edinburgh University Press.
To watch the program in full, visit the Smithsonian's webpage here.
