As part of the Reparative Histories of Art and Architecture Mellon Foundation grant programming, this colloquium is part of thereading group series in advance of the Mellon-sponsored visit by Dr. Nicole Fleetwood on November 6, 2025. Kirk Savage and Lydia Davis will lead the discussion of selected portions of Fleetwood's landmark text Marking Time: Art in the Age of Incarceration (2020), available online at https://pitt.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01PITT_INST/e8h8hp/alma99104003849506236 (ULS login required).

For the discussion, participants are encouraged to read the first 60 pages of Marking Time, which includes the Preface, "A Note on Method", the Introduction, and Chapter 1 "Carceral Aesthetics: Penal Space, Time, and Matter". While reading, participants are encouraged to think about the following questions as a starting point for discussion:

• How does Fleetwood’s role as an activist for prison abolition shape her inquiry and impact her scholarship? What can we learn from this entanglement of activism and scholarship?
• How does (or doesn’t) Fleetwood position prison art within the concerns of art history? In her analysis, how does prison art connect to or depart from the art of other marginalized communities?
• How does Fleetwood define/explain the value of art made by prisoners? In what ways does this notion of value challenge or trouble more standard notions of artistic value?

Related Event: Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, a lecture by Dr. Nicole Fleetwood (NYU) at 4 PM on Thursday, November 6, 2025