Passports: Lives in Transit conceives of passports as the ruins of a modern dream now in terminal crisis – the dream of a globalized world.

Presented by: Houghton Library

Admission: Free: No tickets required

RSVP for opening reception here

Drawing on the collections of Harvard Library, the exhibition addresses this major contemporary issue through the lens of passports, visa applications, and other documents associated with noteworthy nineteenth- and twentieth-century travelers, émigrés and refugees, including George Train, Leon Trotsky, Gertrude Neumark Rothschild, and Shirley Graham Du Bois. Also on view, items of personal significance to a Harvard student telling the story of his late mother's immigration to the U.S. and how this experienced forever marked her life, as well as a site-specific multimedia art installation of used passports purchased on e-commerce sites, further underscore the exhibition’s engagement with current geopolitics and activism.

Passports was co-curated by Rodrigo del Rio and Lucas Mertehikian, both doctoral students in Harvard University’s department of Romance Languages and Literatures.

5.00 pm: Lamont Library, Forum Room

Panel Discussion featuring

Diana Sorensen, James F. Rothenberg Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, and Professor of Comparative Literature

Jacqueline Bhabha, Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Mariano Siskind, Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of Comparative Literature

6.00 pm: Houghton Library, Edison and Newman Room

Exhibition viewing and reception