Campus Humanities Calendar
Sunday, February 15, 2026
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8:30 am - 3:00 pmChapel of St. John the Divine, 1011 S. Wright Street, Champaign, ILJoin in the fun as Urbana’s newest period instrument ensemble, directed by internationally renowned harpsichordist Charlotte Mattax Moersch explores the musical puzzles in Bach’s great masterpiece, The Musical Offering, along other gems of the Baroque.
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3:00 - 4:00 pmChapel of St. John the Divine, 1011 S. Wright Street, Champaign, IL
Join in the fun as Urbana's newest period instrument ensemble, directed by internationally renowned harpsichordist Charlotte Mattax Moersch explores the musical puzzles in Bach's great masterpiece, The Musical Offering, along other gems of the Baroque.
Tuesday, February 17, 2026
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1:00 - 2:00 pmSkeuomorph Press & BookLabWagner's talk, “'As Usual You Have Produced Yet Another Installment Worthy of Archiving': The Persistence of Obsolescence in Queer Information & Media Technologies," uses archival object case studies to call attention to how data exists within the objects of queer history...
Wednesday, February 18, 2026
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12:00 - 1:30 pm1201 W. Nevada StHappy Black History Month, Campus Community! As we observe 100 years of formal celebrations of Black history, the Department of African American Studies is hosting its Spring 2026 Colloquium Series. The series starts on Wednesday, February 18, 2026, from 12pm to 1:30pm, with a talk by Dr. Alisa Hardy (Dept. of Communication). All talks are in-person only.
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4:00 - 5:30 pmLevis Faculty Center, Room 422
This is the spring semester installment of the Latina/Latino Studies Speaker Series with Dr. Marla A. Ramírez, assistant professor of History and Chicanx/e & Latinx/e Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Ramírez will discuss her recent book Banished Citizens: A History of the Mexican American Women Who Endured Repatriation (Harvard University Press, 2025)
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6:30 pmThe Literary: 122 N Neil St, Champaign, IL 61820Spurlock Museum is proud to partner with The Literary to present this new community program. Free books will be provided to the first 13 people that sign up for participation: February 18, 2026 6:30-7:30pm - An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Thursday, February 19, 2026
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2:30 - 5:00 pmSiebel Center for Design, 1208 South Fourth Street, Champaign, Illinois 61820
STUDENTS: Connect with industry professionals and current interns in the arts and culture! Learn about the career possibilities connected with arts and culture. Talk to working professionals in museums, cultural outreach, performing arts, arts administration, public media, and related fields.
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4:30 pmIllini Union Bookstore | Author's Corner
A reading by Callie Siskel made possible by the Robert J. and Katherin Carr visiting author series. Callie Siskel is the author of Two Minds, forthcoming from W. W. Norton, and Arctic Revival, selected by Elizabeth Alexander for a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship.
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5:15 - 6:45 pmPlym Auditorium, Temple Hoyne Buell HallOn February 19, Carlos Alberto Torres, Distinguished Professor at UCLA and former director of UCLA's Latin American Center, will give a lecture celebrating the extraordinary humanitarian career of Paulo Freire, author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, in which he analyzed the analogous relationship of colonizer and colonized to that of teacher and student.
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5:15 pmPlym Auditorium, Temple Hoyne Buell Hall
Carlos Alberto Torres, Distinguished Professor at UCLA and former director of UCLA's Latin American Center, will give a lecture celebrating the extraordinary humanitarian career of Paulo Freire, author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, in which he analyzed the analogous relationship of colonizer and colonized to that of teacher and student.
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5:15 pmPlym Auditorium, Temple Hoyne Buell Hall
Carlos Alberto Torres, Distinguished Professor at UCLA and former director of UCLA's Latin American Center, will give a lecture celebrating the extraordinary humanitarian career of Paulo Freire, author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, in which he analyzed the analogous relationship of colonizer and colonized to that of teacher and student.
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5:30 - 7:30 pmKrannert Art Museum, 500 E. Peabody Dr., ChampaignJoin us for a special evening at Krannert Art Museum in partnership with Uniting Pride Center of Champaign County. This event celebrates queer art and artists with a mix of engaging experiences, including live music, guided tours, hands-on artmaking, artist demonstrations, and hors d’oeuvres. Free and open to everyone. We look forward to welcoming you!
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5:30 pmKnight Auditorium, Spurlock MuseumThis presentation examines the entangled histories of Indigenous land dispossession, the founding of the land-grant university system, and epistemicide in settler colonial institutions. This talk draws a direct line between the violent expropriation of Indigenous territories to the erasure of Indigenous peoples on campuses and in American institutions at large.
Friday, February 20, 2026
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12:00 - 1:00 pmUniversity Archives Main Library Room 146
Please join us for the University Archives' monthly Women in Science Lecture Series, Feb 20, from 12 -1 pm. Bethany Anderson, Dr. Mary Ton, and Kristen Wilson will discuss making domestic science archival materials accessible and using AI to help with OCR and Named Entity Recognition. Hear how this data will then be used to share women scientists’ stories.
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2:00 - 3:30 pmKrannert Art Museum, 500 E. Peabody Dr., ChampaignOur partners in Peru will speak about current research on Andean cultural heritage and the ongoing collaborations with Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) and Krannert Art Museum on the Fragmented Histories: Andean Art Before 1600 exhibition project. Presented in person and via Zoom. En español e inglés.
Saturday, February 21, 2026
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11:00 amSpurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana, ILJoin us for this special guided tour: Percussion instruments, especially drums, have been an almost ubiquitous part of the human experience, from war snares to the heart of a powwow to street buckets and a modern trap kit.
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1:00 pmSpurlock Museum
Join us for a guided tour exploring our university’s connection to the artifacts at the Spurlock Museum. See how the ancient and not so ancient world appears across campus in unexpected ways. We’ll discuss the land’s origins, the Alma Mater’s ties to Ancient Greece, cultural houses’ contributions, the Illinois Ambulance Unit in WWI, and more.
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4:00 - 6:00 pmKrannert Art Museum, 500 E. Peabody Dr., Champaign
Enjoy live music in the galleries and a reception to celebrate Imagination, Faith, and Desire: Early European Prints from 1475–1800 (on view through Feb 28). The evening will include brief remarks by Curator of European and American Art Maureen Warren. Harpsichordist Charlotte Mattax Moersch and the Urbana Baroque ensemble will perform on period instruments.
Monday, February 23, 2026
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11:00 am
Deep dive into the digitized Domestic Science/Home Economics archival collections. In this edit-a-thon, we'll be transcribing documents, identifying people, and translating information into Wikidata. Each session will have an introduction before working with the documents, and we'll be circulating guides ahead of the session.
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5:00 pmIllini Union Room 210
Around the turn of the twentieth century, a group of Yiddish-speaking educators, authors, and cultural leaders undertook a bold project: creating a corpus of nearly one thousand books and several periodicals, which flourished in conjunction with the secular Yiddish school systems that spanned the globe in the 1920s and 30s.
Tuesday, February 24, 2026
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3:00 - 5:00 pm223 Gregory Hall
While the second law of thermodynamics states that entropy increases over time, in some systems entropy decreases in parts of the system while increasing in others. A zebra resists or exploits the second law by shunting extra entropy into its environment. Philosopher Heather Demarest (University of Colorado, Boulder)
Thursday, February 26, 2026
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3:00 - 5:00 pmMain Library, Room 346
Dr. Elias Petrou will explore the evolution and transmission of the Greek book from East to West, beginning with an overview of the Byzantine educational system, the preservation and transmission of classical Greek knowledge through manuscripts, and how this inherited book culture was transformed through the new technology of print.
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4:00 pmLevis Faculty Center, Room 422Erin Brock Carlson’s research centers the relationships between place, technology, and power, focusing on how communities work together to address complex public problems through communication and community organizing. She uses community-based and participatory approaches in her research.
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5:30 pmKnight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory, Urbana
Chicago-based artist Oscar Joyo will discuss his vivid and colorful public murals, underscoring the purpose of art and understanding the power of art to create narratives and tell stories about the history of place, the significance of the present, and the hopes for the future. He will also share details of his local engagement with students from Stratton Elementary School
Friday, February 27, 2026
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1:30 - 3:00 pm306 Coble Hall
Join us for our HYBRID Brown Bag talk titled “Zhou Zuoren at Tiger Bridge” with Professor Jingling Chen from the East Asian Languages & Cultures Department at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Monday, March 2, 2026
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11:00 am - 1:00 pmLevis Faculty Center, Room 208, 919 W. Illinois St
Join us for talks from our recent Associates and Fellows. At 11am Yi-Cheng Wang (Food Science & Human Nutrition) discusses the development of self-powered light-based sanitizers to enhance food safety and at noon...
Tuesday, March 3, 2026
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7:30 pmLevis Faculty Center, Room 422This talk will highlight the Kinsey Institute’s founding and multi-disciplinary history, continued cultural impact, current research program, and reflect on the ways in which today’s social and political climate presents new challenges for multi-disciplinary sex research.
Wednesday, March 4, 2026
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3:30 - 5:00 pmLevis Faculty Center, Room 300The Center for the Study of Global Gender Equity and the Humanities Research Institute host the annual campus celebration of International Women's Day with “12 Women Who Changed the World: Untold Stories.”
Thursday, March 5, 2026
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All DayLevis Faculty Center 210The 24th annual Women’s and Gender History Symposium at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will take place March 5-7, 2026. This year’s theme is Gender and Labor. This year's conference will feature graduate research and keynote speakers Dr. Arunima Datta and Dr. Eric McDuffie.
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6:00 - 7:30 pmKrannert Art Museum, 500 E. Peabody Dr., Champaign
SPEAK stands for Song, Poetry, Art, and Knowledge. It is an open-mic public performance space at Krannert Art Museum curated by local artist, Shaya Robinson, featuring guest performers and welcoming all to the mic. *Parking nearby is free after 5 pm and on weekends.*
Friday, March 6, 2026
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11:00 am - 12:00 pm
Professor Bharat Mehra, University of Alabama, on "From Trauma, Anxieties, and Dislocation at Intersecting Margins in a South Asian Experience and Beyond to Social Justice: “If Life Gives You Bananas Make Mango Shake”
Saturday, March 7, 2026
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8:30 amLevis Faculty Center, Room 210This informal group aims to bring together graduate students from across campus to share their enthusiasm for the thought-provoking scholarship that animates them as people. Light refreshments will be provided. This edition of Scholarship Out Loud will be part of the 2026 Women’s and Gender History Symposium.
Monday, March 9, 2026
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5:00 - 7:00 pmAlice Campbell Alumni Center (601 S. Lincoln Ave., Urbana)
Please join us for the launch of Black, Jewish, and Beautiful: Contemporary Blewish Voices (Syracuse University Press, 2026). This anthology, co-edited by Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell, Sara Feldman, and Brett Ashley Kaplan, brings together impactful perspectives from diverse Blewish/Black Jewish landscapes in the U.S. and globally.
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5:00 - 7:00 pmAlice Campbell Alumni Center (601 S. Lincoln Ave., Urbana)
Please join us for the launch of Black, Jewish, and Beautiful: Contemporary Blewish Voices (Syracuse University Press, 2026). This anthology, co-edited by Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell, Sara Feldman, and Brett Ashley Kaplan, brings together impactful perspectives from diverse Blewish/Black Jewish landscapes in the U.S. and globally.
Tuesday, March 10, 2026
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5:00 pmKnight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum, 600 S. GregoryIngrid Sinclair’s feature-length film Flame (1986) tells the story of two young African women who join the liberation struggle for Zimbabwe in the 1970s. The film follows Flame and Liberty as they are faced with sexual harassment by male freedom fighters and later, by the patriarchy of the newly liberated Zimbabwe.
Wednesday, March 11, 2026
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3:30 - 5:00 pmGregory Hall 319
Join us for a lecture with Jennifer Chuong, an assistant professor in the Department of Art History at the U of I. This lecture examines the invention of carborundum mezzotint by the African American artist Dox Thrash (1893-1965), arguing that the technique's significance lies not only in its aesthetic effects but in the labor surrounding its discovery and production.
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7:00 - 10:00 pmVirginia Theatre (203 W Park Ave, Champaign, IL 61820)Illinois Public Media and the Japan House present KOKUHO (2025). Kokuho, meaning "National Treasure," is a highly successful 2025 Japanese epic film by director Sang-il Lee about the intense, decades-long rivalry between two men destined for greatness in the traditional world of Kabuki theater.
Thursday, March 12, 2026
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11:00 am - 1:00 pmLevis Faculty Center, Room 208 919 W. Illinois St, Urbana
We are delighted to showcase the work of some of our most productive and creative faculty in this informal series of intellectually and spiritually invigorating presentations. You are invited to drop in when you can to learn about the exciting projects undertaken by our faculty.
Wednesday, March 25, 2026
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12:00 - 1:30 pmLevis Faculty Center, Room 210, 919 W. Illinois St
CAS Associate 2024-25 Merle Bowen (African American Studies) discusses her research that brings to light untold stories of African-descended communities in Atlantic Canada. With support from the Center for African Studies and the Department of African American Studies.
Thursday, March 26, 2026
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3:00 - 5:00 pmMain Library, Room 346
From its invention in the Bronze Age, glass was conceived as “molten stone” and continuously used to emulate gems, gold, and rare marbles. Drawing on archaeological finds, representations in art works, and written sources, Dr. Anastasios Antonaras (Museum of Byzantine Culture, Thessaloniki,)
Friday, March 27, 2026
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9:00 am - 5:00 pmLevis Faculty Center 210
HGMS annual conference, 9a-5pm. Location TBD.
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9:00 am - 5:00 pmLevis Faculty Center 210
Please join us for the seventh annual symposium in Holocaust, Genocide, Memory Studies. The past annual symposia were wonderful, and we hope that this conference will continue to showcase diverse and brilliant work within memory studies (broadly conceived) of graduate students. The keynote will be at 11am by Solomon Brager, author of Heavyweight.
Monday, March 30, 2026
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12:00 - 1:30 pmLevis Faculty Center, Room 424This informal group aims to bring together graduate students from across campus to share their enthusiasm for the thought-provoking scholarship that animates them as people. Bring your lunch and stop by to listen and chat!
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4:00 pmLevis Faculty Center, Room 210Story & Place event series: Anke Pinkert Book Talk 4pm
Wednesday, April 1, 2026
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4:00 - 6:00 pm
Join us to celebrate the book launch of Richard (Chip) Burkhardt's The Leopard in the Garden: Animal and Human Lives in Paris at the First Public Zoo of the Modern Era (U of C Press, April 2026). Professor Burkhardt will share some highlights of the book, then participate in a panel discussion with local and visiting scholars.
Thursday, April 2, 2026
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4:30 pmIllini Union Bookstore Author's Corner
A reading by alumni of the creative writing program, Jessica Tanck and Matthew Gavin Frank. This event is made possible by the Robert J. and Katherin Carr visiting author series.
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5:00 - 6:30 pmCampus Instructional Facility (CIF) Room 1035
2026 Pakistan Studies Lecture by Professor Saad Gulzar, University of Notre Dame on "Politics, Bureaucracy, and the Promise of Better Governance in Pakistan" NO REGISTRATION required.
Friday, April 3, 2026
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9:00 am - 5:00 pmLevis Faculty Center, Room 210, 919 W Illinois St
Jesse Oak Taylor (U Washington), Jonathan Howard (Yale U), Sarah Dimick (Northwestern U), and Min Hyoung Song (Boston College) join UI faculty in a series of talks and a concluding roundtable, which together will take up the question of how the study of literary history can contribute to our understanding of both the causes of and potential solutions...
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1:30 - 3:00 pm306 Coble Hall, 801 S. Wright St., Champaign
Join us for a hybrid CEAPS Speaker talk "Finding An Audience: Japan’s First Women Architects and the NHK Ladies' Classroom" with Dr. Michelle L. Hauk (Washington University in St. Louis). Register here!
Tuesday, April 7, 2026
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7:00 pmKnight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum, 600 S Gregory St. Urbana
Award-winning Palestinian artist and filmmaker Basma al-Sharif will present early and recent film works, Morgenkreis/Morning Circle (2025, 20:31minutes), which follows a father and son in their intimate rituals as they prepare to start the day and head to kindergarten; Capital (2023, 19 minutes)...
Wednesday, April 8, 2026
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4:30 pmTBD
A reading by Stephen Markley, made possible by the Robert J. and Katherin Carr visiting author series. Stephen Markley is the author of The Deluge, hailed by The New York Times Book Review as an Editor's choice. His previous books include the critically acclaimed bestseller Ohio, as well as Publish this Book and Tales of Iceland.
Friday, April 10, 2026
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1:30 - 3:00 pm306 Coble Hall, 801 S Wright St, Champaign
Join us to help celebrate Political Science professor & CEAPS Advisory Board member Yujeong Yang on her new book! Refreshments will be served. Please register here!
Tuesday, April 14, 2026
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6:00 - 7:30 pmKnight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum
2026 Indian Languages and Cultures Lecture by Professor Andrew Ollett, University of Chicago, on "Context, from 7th century India to today". NO REGISTRATION required.
Wednesday, April 15, 2026
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12:00 pmBruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center (1212 W Nevada St., Urbana)Undergraduates of any major are invited to this informal lunch talk with Rita Dove. Dove served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 1993–1995. She was a winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in poetry and the 2023 honorary National Book Award.
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7:30 pmAlice Campbell Alumni CenterJoin us for a free public reading by award-winning poet Rita Dove. Dove served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995, and was a winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in poetry and the 2023 honorary National Book Award.
Thursday, April 16, 2026
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11:00 am - 1:00 pmLevis Faculty Center, Room 210, 919 W Illinois St
Join us for presentations by our recent CAS Associates. At 11am Ramón Soto-Crespo (English) discusses the origin of Puerto Rico's ecological literature and at noon, Alison Bell (Evolution, Ecology, & Behavior) presents the evolution of family life in a small fish.
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4:00 pmLevis Faculty Center, Room 210, 919 W Illinois St
Join us for a discussion with GAM Visiting Artist Paul O'Mahony, Founder and Director, Out of Chaos Theatre (London, UK).
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7:15Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum.
2026 Screening and Discussion: Zinda Bhaag (2013), will be an event of film screening and introduction followed by Q/A with Professor Iftikhar Dadi, Cornell University. A reception will follow. NO REGISTRATION required.
Friday, April 17, 2026
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3:00 - 5:00 pmMain Library, Room 346
This public event will begin with a lecture by Dr. Warren C. Brown (California Institute of Technology discussing medieval textuality and materiality. A reception and open house will follow where visitors may view our recently acquired Merovingian manuscript and Greek papyrus. All are welcome, and refreshments will be served.
Monday, April 20, 2026
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5:00 pmLevis Faculty Center, Room 208
Book launch of Ethan Madarieta's Land's Language: On Mapuche Memory, Translation, and the Territorial Aporia.
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5:00 pmLevis Faculty Center 208
Please join us for the launch of Ethan Madarieta’s first book, Land's Language: On Mapuche Memory, Translation, and the Territorial Aporia.
Thursday, April 23, 2026
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All DayCenter for Writing StudiesGrad students from all disciplines are invited to the 16th Gesa E. Kirsch Graduate Student Symposium, April 23–24, 2026—an interdisciplinary, student-led event featuring diverse presentations, workshops, and a keynote by Kaia Simon (UW Eau Claire). Proposals on writing, rhetoric, media, education, and more are welcome in traditional or experimental formats.
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5:00 pmTBD
Annual Armenian Genocide Event, featuring Helen Makhdoumian (Postdoc, Vanderbilt University)
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5:00 pmLevis Faculty Center Room 208
In honor of the annual commemoration of the Armenian Genocide, Helen Makhdoumian will give a talk entitled "On Beginnings, or the Roots and Routes of the Nested Memory Concept.”
Friday, April 24, 2026
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All DayCenter for Writing Studies
Grad students from all disciplines are invited to the 16th Gesa E. Kirsch Graduate Student Symposium, April 23–24, 2026—an interdisciplinary, student-led event featuring diverse presentations, workshops, and a keynote by Kaia Simon (UW Eau Claire). Proposals on writing, rhetoric, media, education, and more are welcome in traditional or experimental formats.
Friday, May 1, 2026
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12:00 - 1:30 pm404 David Kinley Hall, 1407 W. Gregory Drive, Urbana
Join us for a hybrid CEAPS Speaker/Political Science Workshop titled “From Correction to Connection: Relational Approaches to Countering Misinformation” with Cesi Cruz (University of Michigan). Register here!
Thursday, May 7, 2026
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10:00 am - 12:00 pmPlym Auditorium, Temple Hoyne Buell Hall
The PhD Program in Architecture and Landscape Architecture hosts a keynote lecture by Hi'ilei Julia Hobart (Native and Indigenous Studies, Yale) as part of the symposium "Creativity in Modern Heritage." Hobart is author of Cooling the Tropics: Ice, Indigeneity, and Hawaiian Refreshment (Duke University Press, 2022).
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3:00 - 5:00 pm
Celebrate the semester’s end with RBML! We are diving into the trendy book decoration world — bring your own books and paint the edges with our supplies, then view various historical fore-edge paintings from the collection in our Reading Room. All are welcome to attend, and refreshments will be served.
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4:00 - 6:00 pmLevis Faculty Center, Room 422
Prizes for Research Ceremony and Reception