Join the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University and ArtsThursday as we celebrate the release of Reflections in Black: A Reframing, the 25th anniversary edition of Dr. Deborah Willis’ internationally acclaimed publication Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present. The book signing will include a discussion with Dr. Sarah Lewis.
Originally published in 2000, Reflections in Black published by Liveright, was the first single-volume work to collect the images of leading African American photographers—from the daguerreotype to the digital age. Through its sheer power and inherent beauty, Deborah Willis’s groundbreaking assemblage of photographs of African American life from 1840 to the present triumphantly celebrated family, endurance, and spirituality over the last two centuries as it upended stereotypes and rewrote American history. Aware that so much has changed since 2000, Willis—a world-renowned photographer, curator, and author—has now created a breathtaking twenty-fifth anniversary edition, juxtaposing hundreds of images that appeared in the original edition with 130 new ones.
Every Thursday evening, a Harvard arts institution or organization will open its doors to the Harvard community and the wider public for free performances, exhibitions, lectures and other events as part of a presidential initiative that promotes access to the arts at Harvard. ArtsThursdays is a university-wide initiative sponsored by Harvard University Committee on the Arts (HUCA).
Deborah Willis, Ph.D is a photographer, curator, and historian of photography. As an artist, author, and curator, her art and research focuses on cultural histories envisioning the Black body, women, and gender. She has received MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships and is the University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.
Sarah Lewis is the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities and Associate Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University and the founder of Vision & Justice. She has authored and edited over 60 publications including The Unseen Truth, winner of the American Book Award; the bestseller, The Rise; the award-winning volumes, Carrie Mae Weems and “Vision & Justice”; as well as Coreen Simpson and Race Stories. Lewis was named to the 2026 TIME List, The Closers, in recognition of her work toward greater equality in the United States. She has organized landmark convenings, founded a Vision & Justice Book Series, and curated exhibitions, including If Emmett Till Lived: Freedom on American Ground, opening at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago in September 2026. Her writing has been published in the New Yorker, The New York Times, Artforum, and the New York Review of Books, and her work has been the subject of profiles from Vogue to The Boston Globe to The New York Times. Lewis is the recipient of an honorary degree from Pratt Institute, along with the Walter Channing Cabot Fellowship at Harvard University, the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, the Arthur Danto/ASA Prize from the American Philosophical Association, the Freedom Scholar Award from the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, and the Infinity Award for Critical Writing and Research from the International Center of Photography.
LOCATION:Hiphop Archive & Research Institute at the Hutchins Center STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20260402T213000Z DTEND:20260402T233000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR