First Person // January 2026

To my dear subscribers—

I am writing to you in the aftermath of the snowpocalypse in Massachusetts with my quarterly update on the progress of my primary creative writing project: my memoir.

I am reimagining the framing of my Substack at this time and will expand upon this in my next general newsletter which will drop in February. In the meantime, I’ll merely mention that I’ve renamed this segment “First Person: On Autobiographical Writing” to give myself greater room to explore what is distinctive (and valuable) about narrating events—historical and otherwise—in the first person as someone who also produces historical scholarship.

A highlight of my fall semester that recently concluded was attending Harvard’s W. E. B. DuBois Medal Ceremony which is presented annually to individuals in recognition of their contributions to African and African American culture and the life of the mind. This year’s honorees included filmmaker Spike Lee and ballerina Misty Copeland—the first Black principal dancer with the nation’s top ballet company, American Ballet Theater. I was a serious ballet student pursuing a professional dance career before college and remember the personal impact of seeing her on the cover of dance magazines as a kid given the racism endemic to the ballet world. Similarly, I’ll never forget watching Spike Lee’s epic biopic on Malcolm X for the first time, nor his satirical masterpiece Bamboozled.

When I think about these two giants of Black expressive culture, I see individuals who—through their life journeys and creations—have effectively crafted stories that others have proceeded to live inside of, thereby enlarging others’ sense of the world in which we have lived and what may yet be possible through their participation. Attending this event prompted me to think about the urgency of educational leadership that helps learners grasp (and shape) the narrative dimensions of their interior and exterior lives, particularly amid the AI-fueled march to render human experience and thought redundant. I’ve spent quite a lot of time thinking about what these developments mean for my future as a scholar and educator, and how my perspectives on these matters ought to inform my body of work.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kaitlin Smith is a scholar, transformational educator, and consultant completing a Ph.D at Harvard in History of Science and African American Studies. She helps students, organizations, and everyday people transform through humanistic inquiry and introspection.