Speakers

The annual MLK Lecture is a thoughtful discussion about the teachings and perspectives of Dr. King

Hear from Ambassador Shapiro as a distinguished diplomat and foreign policy expert with over two decades of experience in senior U.S. government positions. RSVP is required for this event. If you have not registered in advance, you will not be allowed into the event.

Lee Miller was an incredible photographer who was present at the liberation of some concentration camps. Trigger warning: some parts of this film display graphic images of survivors and victims of the Holocaust. 7 pm Holocaust Remembrance Day screening of Lee. Location TBD.

Award winning experimental theater artists Holly Hughes (one of the NEA Four) and Katie Pearl are building a new performance about the Supreme Court and sexual violence and plan to premiere the piece in the fall of 2026.

Ladelle McWhorter, a professor of philosophy at the University of Richmond, delivers a lecture on The Person Trap: A Genealogically Informed Critique of a Key Moral Concept

In her book Unbecoming Persons: The Rise and Demise of the Modern Moral Self, philosopher Ladelle McWhorter (U. of Richmond) describes the agony of trying and failing to be a good person. In a globalized capitalist economy, personhood makes unfulfillable demands.

In "THE LIFECYCLE OF WRITING SUBJECTS: On Generative AI and the Future of Writing," Lauren M.E. Goodlad (Distinguished Professor at Rutgers) introduces generative AI in light of its concentrated political economy, long history of anthropomorphized machine “intelligence,”

Researchers will share work in progress from "The Virality of Racial Terror in U.S. Newspapers, 1863-1921," a Mellon-sponsored project. VRT uses digital humanities methods to trace the circulation of reports about anti-Black violence in US newspapers in the late 19th & early 20th centuries.

Dr. D. Fairchild Ruggles, Professor and Debra L. Mitchell Chair in Landscape Architecture, will present her lecture "Muslim Woman and Architectural Patronage" February 6|12pm till 1pm (CST) | Coble Hall 306 or Zoom

Please join us for an event in the Timbuktu Talks series with Aly Drame, a professor of history at Dominican University. His lecture will call attention to the need to better reframe the rise and development of Islam in the wider Senegambia, considering the role played by the Mandinka Muslim settlements in the Middle Casamance in this process through intermarriage...

Join us for a lecture in the Illinois Forum on Human Flourishing in a Digital Age Speaker Series with Brett Robinson titled " Resistance is Fruitful: A Renewed Media Ecology for the Digital Age."

A lecture in the Forum on Human Flourishing in a Digital Age series featuring Brett Robinson(University of Notre Dame). Drawing on thinkers such as Wendell Berry, Paul Kingsnorth, and James Carey—as well as emerging experiments in digital fasting and community-building.

Join us on Friday, February 13 at 12 noon in Latzer Hall for the annual Verdell Frazier Young Symposium Distinguished Speaker event in conjunction with the Friday Forum/Conversation Cafe series, featuring reproductive justice activist, abortion storyteller, and writer, Renee Bracey Sherman.

Join us for a lecture by Sandford Goldberg, the Chester D. Tripp professor in the Humanities in the Department of Philosophy at Northwestern University.

Northwestern University philosopher Sandford Goldberg explores how we might modify or expand Stalnaker’s Common Ground framework to capture the normative dimension of inquiry and conversation. Goldberg suggests that we should make room for normative expectations both within common ground and about common ground, with far-reaching implications for epistemology.

Wagner'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...

Join us for a lecture by Heather Demarest, an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of California, Boulder.

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)

Time and location TBD.

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.

Erin 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.

A new history of slavery and the slave trade in the medieval Middle East based on the Cairo Geniza archive, with attention to such crucial topics as the slave trade in state diplomacy, the entanglements of gender and household slavery, and the lives of the enslaved.

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

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...

Dr. Justin R. Garcia is an evolutionary biologist and sex researcher. He is executive director and senior scientist at the Kinsey Institute, Ruth N. Halls Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences, and adjunct professor of medicine at Indiana University, Bloomington.

The 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.”

Blewish And Beautiful: Contemporary Black Jewish Voices roundtable with TaRessa Stoval, Marc Perry, David Wright Faladé and other contributors to the Blewish And Beautiful volume co-edited by Sara Feldman, Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell, and Brett Ashley Kaplan.

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.

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.

HGMS annual conference, 9a-5pm. Location TBD.

Time and location TBD.

Story & Place event series: Anke Pinkert Book Talk 4pm

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.

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...

Join us for a lecture by Andrea Scarantino, a professor of Neuroscience and Philosophy at Georgia State University.

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)...

Join us for a lecture in the Illinois Forum on Human Flourishing in a Digital Age Speaker Series with Alva Noë.

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.

Join us for a discussion with GAM Visiting Artist Paul O'Mahony, Founder and Director, Out of Chaos Theatre (London, UK).

Time and location TBD.

Book launch of Ethan Madarieta's Land's Language: On Mapuche Memory, Translation, and the Territorial Aporia.

Annual Armenian Genocide Event, featuring Helen Makhdoumian (Postdoc, Vanderbilt University)

Join us for a lecture in the Illinois Forum on Human Flourishing in a Digital Age Speaker Series with Ross Douthat.

Time and location TBD.