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BOOK LAUNCH — Arijana Lekić-Fridrih: All Art is a Political Statement

On Wednesday, December 4, from 12-1:20pm, the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (CREES) will host a talk with Croatian artist Arijana Lekić-Fridrih, the subject of Rebekah Modrak’s new single-essay book: Arijana Lekić-Fridrih: All Art is a Political Statement (Disobedience Press, 2024).

The essay introduces audiences to the work of Lekić-Fridrih and, in particular, to her Silent Mass, a performance resisting the “Be Manly” movement, a series of mass prayer events held in Croatian public squares by a battalion of men who pray for the abolition of women’s rights, for women’s “chastity,” and for men’s “masculine authority.” Arijana Lekić-Fridrih: All Art is a Political Statement links the erosion of women’s rights across intercontinental boundaries and offers Lekić-Fridrih’s video interviews and public performances as a guide for activism and collective action against retrograde restrictions on the freedom of women.

During the event, Lekić-Fridrih will be in conversation with Rebekah Modrak and and writer and professor Brian Willems (University of Split). The event will take place in Room 555 Weiser Hall, University of Michign.


The event is co-sponsored by the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia, and the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design.

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The Public Philosophy Journal Presents the Radical Humility Forum

The Public Philosophy Journal (PPJ) at Michigan State University will offer the Radical Humility: Forum on Wednesday, April 6 from 3-5pm. The event centers around a series of reflections about the book Radical Humility: Essays on Ordinary Acts (Belt Publishing 2021), a collection of articles that explores the salience of humility within our current social and cultural contexts, and examines the ways in which humility can affect social and institutional change. The collection is edited by Rebekah Modrak and the Jamie Vander Broek.

Inspired by the ideas found in Radical Humility, a group of artists, activists, and authors have come together to write responses to the book, which will be published by the Public Philosophy Journal. The Radical Humility Forum is a space for the responders to have a dialogue about those pieces and the ideas on radical humility contained within.

In addition to Modrak and Vander Broek, participants include:

  • Ruth Nicole Brown, the Inaugural Chairperson of the Department of African American and African Studies at Michigan State University.
  • Nimot Ogunfemi is a doctoral student in Counseling Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.
  • Dr. Beronda Montgomery, a writer, science communicator and currently a Michigan State University Foundation Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics.
  • Todd Shaw has been on faculty since 2003 and has appointments both in UofSC’s Department of Political Science and the African American Studies Program.
  • Morgan Shipley (Ph.D.) is the Inaugural Foglio Endowed Chair of Spirituality and Associate Chair of Religious Studies at Michigan State University.
  • Paulina Camacho Valencia is an artist, educator, and scholar. She is a member of the Chicago ACT Collective, a group of friends committed to building political artistic collaborations in multiple communities through artmaking.
  • Gretel Van Wieren is Professor of Religious Studies and affiliated faculty in Philosophy at Michigan State University where her research and teaching explore the spiritual and moral dimensions of people’s relationships to land.

The Public Philosophy Journal seeks to engage in philosophy with the public by creating an inclusive space in which community voices are recognized, heard, and supported as vital to the practices of public philosophy.