Kathleen Powers Conti ’11 returning to give lecture at Randolph

Kathleen Powers Conti ’11 will return to the College next week to discuss the architectural history of slavery at a Virginia plantation.  

Now an assistant professor of history at Florida State University, Conti will examine Berkeley Plantation, showing that while historic preservation conserved many of the buildings, it also obscured the lives of hundreds of enslaved people who lived, worked, and died there. 

Her lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be held at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 2, in Leggett 537. 

Conti majored in history before earning her master’s in Russian and East European studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and another master’s in historic preservation from the University of Texas at Austin. 

While pursuing her doctorate at UT Austin, she also worked as a senior architectural historian for a consulting firm. 

She joined FSU’s faculty in 2022, and this summer, earned the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation Roy E. Graham Award for Excellence in Historic Preservation Education. 

Conti will speak to several classes and join history and museum and heritage studies students for dinner while on campus.