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PUBLIC LECTURES

Matiangai Sirleaf portrait

I take seriously the words of Angela Davis – that
‘You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world.
And you have to do it
all the time.’ I have tried
to do that in my work.

- MATIANGAI SIRLEAF

Below are a collection of videos
showcasing my most recent public lectures.

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University of Maryland, Francis King Carey School of Law, November 16, 2023. 

The Maryland Carey Law community celebrated my investiture as the Nathan Patz Professor of Law at the law school. Following an introduction from Guy-Uriel E. Charles, the Charles J. Ogletree Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, I delivered a lecture titled Hierarchy and International Law. This talk discusses my work in the interconnected areas of – international criminal law, transitional justice, global health, national security, racial justice, and human rights.

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Boston College, Center for Human Rights and International Justice, Webinar on March 27, 2023. The talk explores the following: Does the genealogy of human rights matter? Why is the history in this field important and potentially controversial. Who do the different histories center? Who do they leave out? 

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"You are an incredible professor, scholar, and mentor. I loved every minute of working with you because you made me into a better researcher, writer, and critical thinker. Your research asks the tough questions and insists on accountability. Working closely with you demystified legal academia." 

- Research Assistant

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“Thank you for being such an incredible professor - pushing my thinking, making me a better scholar and thinker. Thank you for your book. I'm a first-gen Native American, and I have never, EVER heard my voices and my ancestors' voices resound so loudly in the academic arena. I am so grateful that you helped me feel belonging and that there was room at the table for me.”

— Research Assistant

The 44th annual conference, “Practicing Health as a Human Right" took place on February 24, 2023 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

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I was the 12th Victor J. Schoenback Keynote Speaker at The UNC Minority Health Conference, the largest and longest-running student-led health conference in the country.

University of Cambridge, UK, LCIL International Law Seminar Series, March 12, 2021. This talk uses the novel coronavirus pandemic as an entry point to explore the intersections between race and global health. 

Professor Sirleaf's talk made me think about global health/tropical medicine in a new light. I had never considered the implications of the term 'tropical medicine' and how it inherently creates an othering to the people and disease that fall under that term. I had never considered that the term 'tropical medicine' was used to create a divide between the Global North and Global South and that it really works to make the areas a placed to be 'fixed' and more 'hospitable'. So often we only think about the medicine and disease prevalences and treatments without really considering their context in a greater system of colonialism and power. 

- Student

Baraza at University of Florida Center for African Studies on September 11, 2020, this lecture entitled, "Africa, COVID-19, and Responsibility", considers the potential impact of COVID-19 across the continent, focusing on the challenges and opportunities the pandemic presents.

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