Professor Povitz's Courses

I was doing an exchange semester at Middlebury through the AVIC program when I met Prof. Povitz as I was taking her class, The Histories of U.S. Radicalism. Through the course, I was introduced to some major works of Black feminist writers, and Prof. Povitz guided me in framing research questions and connecting it to my work in other classes. This class proved to be the seed for my current PhD studies, as I study the aesthetics Dalit-Black solidarity in the twentieth century at the Comparative Literaure program at Northwestern University. Prof. Povitz insisted on creating a warm and welcoming space for her students, where we were repeatedly encouraged to (un)learn and grow together. She makes the classroom a space for deliberate discussion and thought, where we are constantly provoked to think about our complicity and role in creating a world we want to live and build together. It would truly be a loss for the Middlebury community to lose Prof. Povitz, as her incomparable scholarship and thoughtful critique is at the helm of new critical inquiry in history. Prof. Povitz is an academic mentor, and above all, a beacon of light who has the capacity to transform the experience of Middlebury as a space for intellectual learning and personal growth for her students. It is imperative for a private liberal arts college such as Middlebury to keep Prof. Povitz as a voice of concern, critique, and care in the institution.

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