Join The Driskell Center on February 6th, 2026 for the opening of its spring exhibition, America Will Be! All Driskell Center events are free and open to the public.
On view at The Driskell Center gallery from February 9 through May 8, the exhibition will open with a public reception on February 6, from 5 to 7 p.m.
Serena Dokuaa Oduro is a poet and AI policy expert focused on using both mediums to empower the public.
Serena Dokuaa Oduro is a poet and AI policy expert focused on using both mediums to empower the public. Her poetry can be found in the book Fake AI by Meatspace Press and in No, Dear Mag, where she guest edited the November 2024 issue “Artifice”. She is a Ragdale HUMAN Residency Fellow and was a 2025 DISCO research network affiliate, both in support of her developing collection, To AI a Butterfly, which uses poetry to dig beneath the language of policy, computer science, and journalism to reveal the ideological and spiritual reckonings needed to build a just AI ecosystem. Serena is the Policy Manager at Data & Society Research Institute, where she leads the organization’s state-level policy engagement. Serena has given multiple presentations and talks about her policy and independent work on AI and Black feminism, including at ACM FAccT, Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center, UC Berkeley, Africa Law Tech Festival, and Credo AI’s Responsible AI Summit, where she was featured in their AI-conic Minds series. Her work has appeared in academic journals and news media, including Internet Policy Review, Cell Press' Patterns, and Politico.
1. April 29, 2026
Workshop: The Academy is Political: How Researchers Can Engage with Policy 10:00 am - 12:00 pm (BCaT Lab)
2. April 30, 2026
Lunch & Learn "What Use is an Algorithm to Lady Liberty?" A Luncheon on How the Creative Arts Can Empower Researchers" 12:00 - 1:30 PM
Optional Dinner 6:00 pm (BCaT Lab)
3. May 1, 2026
Book Read 1:00 PM (BCaT Lab)
Reception 2:00 - 3:00 PM
Serena Dokuaa Oduro will read from her in-development poetry collection, To AI a Butterfly. To AI, a Butterfly uses poetry to dig beneath the language of policy, computer science, and journalism, revealing the ideological and spiritual reckonings needed to build a just AI ecosystem and world.
Arts for All | Language House | School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Monday, May 4, 2026 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm 0107 St. Mary’s Hall, International Film Lounge
Join us for an international movie night at the Language House! The students of the Arabic cluster will be showing "Assal Eswed" on May 4 at 6pm in 0107 St. Mary's Hall, in Arabic with English subtitles. After spending 20 years in the United States, Masry returns to Egypt with a romanticized image of his homeland. However, he quickly encounters the everyday realities that challenge his expectations. Through humorous and heartfelt moments, Assal Eswed explores themes of identity, belonging, cultural perception, and what it truly means to call a place “home.” The film offers a light yet meaningful reflection on navigating between two worlds. All are welcome!
Arabic | College of Arts and Humanities | School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Tuesday, May 5, 2026 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm
St. Mary's Hall, St. Mary's Multipurpose Room
The Arabic Program and the Language House at the University of Maryland, College Park, are delighted to invite you to a celebration of Nile Nightshade: An Egyptian Culinary History of the Tomato, the award-winning new book by Dr. Anny Gaul, Assistant Professor of Arabic Studies at UMD. Winner of the Best Culinary History Book at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2025 and shortlisted for the Nach Waxman Prize for Food & Drink Scholarship, Nile Nightshade traces how the tomato — a fruit indigenous to the Americas — became Egypt's top horticultural crop and an emblem of national identity.
Nile Nightshade has been celebrated in the Wall Street Journal, the Times Literary Supplement, Foreign Policy, Al-Masry Al-Youm, and beyond. Alicia Kennedy, food writer and author of No Meat Required and On Eating, calls it "a master class in food history — deftly and accessibly navigating a complex political, culinary, and linguistic story through a now-common vegetable."
