Campus Wellness Events
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
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Graduate students interested in community-engaged research (CER) and leadership are invited to join CSGGE and the Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute for a panel discussion.

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Please join us for the Women in Science Lecture Series! October 13 from 12 - 1 pm hear Kelli Trei (B.S. Microbiology, 1999, and MLIS, 2012), Associate Professor and Biosciences Librarian, University of Illinois, discuss her background in microbiology and work as liaison to the Schools of Life Sciences and IGB.

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Higher Education Under Attack. Panelists include: Sean McDonald, co-founder of Digital Public, where he focuses on data governance design; Shawn Gilmore, a Teaching Assistant Professor in English and co-author the the recent AAUP report; and Terri Barnes Professor in the History and Gender & Women's Studies Departments.

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Please join the Unit for Criticism for a Modern Critical Theory lecture by John Lurz (English, Tufts) on Poststructuralism.

Wednesday, October 14, 2026
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PhD candidate from The Center for Writing Studies, Azlan Smith will be giving their Graduate Research Forum about their dissertation, centering on five writing principles that community writing asks us to consider! Please join us next Wednesday, October 14!

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Join Krannert Art Museum and Family Service of Champaign County for a Creative Aging Art Tour and Memory Café, a guided tour of the museum’s collection for seniors, those living with dementia or Alzheimer’s, and care partners, followed by refreshments, artmaking activities, and conversation.

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Join us to celebrate the new books of three history PhD alumni: Latinx Encounters: How Mexicans, Mexican Americans, and Puerto Ricans Made the Modern Midwest by Juan Ignacio Mora (PhD, ’21, history); White, Black, Brown: Becoming Puerto Rican in Chicago by Michael Staudenmaier (PhD, ‘16, history)...

Thursday, October 15, 2026
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CSGGE Lunch talk with Dr. Tingting Zhang, School of Labor and Employment Relations, "Pushed out and Boxed In: Gendered Silence and Exit Orientation in China's Tech Industry". She argues that silence in such environment is not a uniform response to constrained institutional conditions, but it shaped by the gendered social positions workers occupy.

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Professor Ángel García (English/Creative Writing) will read from his latest collection, Indifferent Cities.

Monday, October 19, 2026
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This lecture traces the emergence of Mizrahi Jews as go-betweens within the shifting political, linguistic, and cultural geographies of the modern Middle East.

Tuesday, October 20, 2026
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How does privacy change as AI becomes more powerful, pervasive, and autonomous? Join the Informatics Program at the iSchool for a conversation at the intersection of technology, law, & society.

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Please join the Unit for Criticism for a Modern Critical Theory lecture by Greta LaFleur (American Studies, Yale) on Gender.

Thursday, October 22, 2026
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CSGGE Lunch talk with Dr. Maria Hadjipolycarpou, Dept of Classics and Director of Modern Greek Studies, "Class, Gender, and Secularization in Costas Montis’ Afentis Batistas and the Other Things". Her talk will delve into unexplored areas and performs an intersectional analysis of gender, class, and religion, challenging stereotypical ideologies around these issues.

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Dr. Tyson E. Lewis, Professor Art Education in the College of Visual Arts and Design at the University of North Texas, will present a lecture, “Research-Creation and the Alchemical Studio: An Experiment in Studious Drift."

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Join us for a talk by Dr. Tyson E. Lewis, Professor Art Education at the University of North Texas: "Research-Creation and the Alchemical Studio: An Experiment in Studious Drift."

Friday, October 23, 2026
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Please join us for the Game Studies and Design October Town Hall. This month's guest speaker is Amber Holkenbrink, Principal Experience Designer on Apex Legends at Respawn Entertainment. She has worked in the game industry for over 16 years and has contributed to the art, animation, and design of more than 30 titles, including Call of Duty: Warzone.

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In this CAS/MillerComm presentation, GAM Visiting Scholar Professor Sangaré (Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales - INALCO) treats Islam in France as a case study in the state management of minority religion in a secular republic. Hosted by the Department of History.

Monday, October 26, 2026
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Following the election, this panel examines the results and their significance for Brazil's future. Speakers will analyze voting patterns, political shifts, and the potential impact of the election on governance, public policy, and democratic institutions.

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Join the Education Justice Project for an author talk with Rebecca Neusteter, author of 911, What’s Your Emergency? She will discuss the 911 system, its impact on communities of color, and the challenges of relying on police as the default emergency response. Dinner and copies of the book will be provided. For questions or accessibility requests, email policy@educationjust

Tuesday, October 27, 2026
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The techniques for making texts have changed across multiple media and historical contexts since antiquity, but a regular feature of the work of authors and scholars through all those changes is the reliance on helpers or amanuenses. Dr. Ann Blair (Harvard) will discuss the factors that have made them both invisible and occasionally visible, and the kind of work they did.

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Please join the Unit for Criticism for a Modern Critical Theory lecture by Rob Rushing (European Languages & Transcultural Studies, UCLA) on Biopolitics.

Wednesday, October 28, 2026
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The Center for Writing Studies will be hosting Dr. José A. de la Garza Valenzuela for a brownbag talk! Dr. de la Garza Valenzuela will be giving a lecture about his book, titled "Queer in a Legal Sense: Brown Citizenship and Other Lawful Fictions " Please join us on Wednesday, October 28!

Thursday, October 29, 2026
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Professor Gillen D'Arcy Wood (English and Earth Science & Environmental Change) will discuss his book, The Wake of HMS Challenger: How a Legendary Victorian Voyage Tells the Story of Our Oceans’ Decline.

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Photographs documenting sixties-era struggles across Africa and the African diaspora reveal how individuals and communities entered political life by gathering in public squares to listen to state authorities, dissidents, and one another.

Friday, October 30, 2026
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Youssouf Sangaré (George A. Miller Visiting Scholar) will examine the case of Chérif Ousmane Madani Haïdara and the Ançar Dine movement in Mali as a window into the dynamics of contemporary African Islam.

Tuesday, November 3, 2026
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Professor Xiao Su presents innovative electrochemical approaches for addressing environmental challenges and improving water purification technologies. The lecture explores emerging research that advances sustainable solutions for water treatment and environmental remediation.

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Please join the Unit for Criticism for a Modern Critical Theory lecture by Chi-Ming Yang (English, University of Pennsylvania) on Orientalism.

Wednesday, November 4, 2026
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Bruce J. Tromberg, the director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the National Institutes of Health, will give the Beckman-Brown Lecture on Interdisciplinary Science at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 4, in the auditorium of the Beckman Institute.

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Join us for a reception and conversation with Yao Jui-Chung and Kao Chien-Hui, "Landscape as Storytelling: The Journey of 'Yao’s Black Divine Comedy'." Presented in conjunction with the "Ink Shower: Contemporary Taiwanese Artists Reimagine Tradition" exhibition at Krannert Art Museum (on view Nov 5, 2026–Feb 27, 2027).

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Taiwanese artist Yao Jui-Chung and critic Kao Chien-Hui engage in a conversation about Yao's practice within Taiwan's layered histories of migration, colonialism, martial law, and contested boundaries. A reception precedes the talk at 4:00 PM. Presented in tandem with Ink Shower: Contemporary Taiwanese Artists Reimagine Tradition at the Krannert Art Museum.

Thursday, November 5, 2026
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Representatives from the HuMetricsHSS Humane Metrics Initiative will present on the values-based frameworks they’ve developed to guide all kinds of scholarly processes. The session will include time for audience questions.

Friday, November 6, 2026
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Professor Stefania Chiarelli explores representations of water, rivers, and aquatic environments in Brazilian literature. Drawing on examples from Brazilian prose, the lecture examines how aquatic imagery shapes narratives, cultural memory, and literary interpretations of place and identity.

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Join exhibiting artists and curators of "Ink Shower: Contemporary Taiwanese Artists Reimagine Tradition" to to gain an understanding of historical ink painting traditions and artmaking today in Taiwan. Panelists will include Taipei-based Yao Jui-Chung, who will be an artist-in-residence on campus (November 3–7).

Tuesday, November 10, 2026
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The Lemann Center Grad Forum showcases research conducted by graduate students whose work engages with Brazil. Through presentations and discussion sessions, participants share emerging scholarship, exchange ideas across disciplines, and strengthen connections within the Brazilian studies community at Illinois.

Wednesday, November 11, 2026
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Please join us for this community building event! We will share information about the new MS in Game Development, and showcase games we are building and playing right now. We will also hear from our guest speaker Jeremy Moncauskas, Senior Level Designer at WB Games.

Thursday, November 12, 2026
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Emblematica (Illinois) and Compositor (U. of Birmingham) are databases that use digital technologies to explore the early modern text-image interface. Join Dr. Hazel Wilkinson (Birmingham) to learn how historical readers used “emblem-literacy” to engage with ornamented books in ways previously unaccounted for in scholarship.

Monday, November 16, 2026
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"Elizabeth Vartkessian works with criminal defense teams as a mitigation specialist. She isn't part of the Innocence Project; her clients are often legally guilty, and often of terrible crimes. Rather, her job is to spend hundreds of hours per case talking to the parents, siblings, teachers, and neighbors of a defendant, situating their crimes in context.

Tuesday, November 17, 2026
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Please join the Unit for Criticism for a Modern Critical Theory lecture by Thomas Davis (English, Ohio State) on Environmental Humanities.

Thursday, December 3, 2026
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Join us for our December Town Hall with special Guest Speaker Shad Bradbury, Animator with Pixar Animations Studios. Shad Bradbury has worked in animation for over 20 years at studios like Pixar, Sony, Tippet, and Rhythm and Hues. His credits include, "Elio", "Coco", "Finding Dory", "Inside Out", "Hotel Transylvania", and "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2".

Thursday, February 11, 2027
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Justice in the Balance: Democracy, Rule of Law, and the European Court of Human Rights

Tuesday, February 16, 2027
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At the February Town Hall we will speak with VFX Artist Lisa Starc, Principal VFX Artist, at Monumental. Lisa Starc is a highly technical real time VFX artist with 20+ years of experience in the video game industry. She has worked as a VFX artist at Netflix Games, Boss Fight Entertainment, Amazon Games, and High Voltage Software.

Wednesday, March 3, 2027
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More information is coming.

Thursday, March 4, 2027
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Patricia Owens Book Talk: Erased: A History of International Thought Without Men.

Wednesday, March 10, 2027
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Please join us for a presentation and discussion with Mitch Cronin, Senior Tech Producer, Santa Monica Studio. Mitch Cronin is a Senior Producer and Release Manager with nearly 19 years of game development experience. He's worked on the development side as well as publishing. Over his long career he has worked on many AAA titles as well as indie titles.

Thursday, April 1, 2027
Thursday, April 15, 2027
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More info is coming.

Monday, April 26, 2027
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“Once Upon a Time in the Jazira: Archaeology and the Mass Graves of the Armenian Genocide”. Professor Lori Khatchadourian, Departments of Near Eastern Studies & Anthropology, Cornell University. Director, Cornell Institute of Archaeology & Material Studies.


