Dr. Kenvi Phillips

Johanna-Marie Fraenkel Curator for Race and Ethnicity, Harvard Radcliffeā€™s Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America

Kenvi C. Phillips, PhD is the Johanna-Marie Fraenkel Curator for Race and Ethnicity at Harvard Radcliffeā€™s Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America. There she is leading the libraryā€™s efforts to diversify the collections to be more inclusive of racial and ethnic populations across the country. Since her arrival in the fall of 2016, she has identified gaps in the collections and worked to develop relationships with financial and collection donors and led the effort to engage community members in the greater Boston Region to expand collections and programs. She consults with scholars within the Harvard community and other universities to advise the library as we expand our collecting scope and rewrite our collections development plan. She has worked with archivists and curators, both within Harvard Library and other repositories, to develop partnerships to increase access to collections about marginalized people, particularly women. Prior to the Schlesinger Library she served as the Assistant Curator of Manuscripts at the Moorland- Spingarn Research Center at Howard University. An historian, Kenvi holds a masterā€™s in public history and a doctorate in US history from Howard University.

@kenviphillips

Discussion Content

The Racial Politics of Time – TedWomen 2016 with Professor Brittany Cooper (video)

Brief intro: 

We are more readily admitting that race and racism impacts every aspect of our lives– even time. In this 2016 Tedtalk, Professor Brittany Cooper explores the concept of time and how it has been politicized and racialized to the benefit of some and detriment of others. She gives time a racial identity and owner. She challenges listeners to think about  how time, and its partner space, generates an ever-present urgency for some and an unyielding patience for others.  

Dr. Kenvi Phillips’s Discussion Questions (PDF for Print)

  1. Have you ever thought of time in a cultural sense? What is your cultural understanding of time

  2. What is your relationship with time? How has your relationship with time effected your progress in professional and social settings?

  3. How have you used time to define or describe others?

  4. What does the time/space clash in the Boston region look and feel like? 

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