Humanities Week celebrates human adventure across time, history, culture and place
This October, The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University will host its third annual Humanities Week — a collection of inspiring and high-impact events to highlight the breadth of offerings in the humanities division.
Running Oct. 16–20, Humanities Week events will be both virtual and in person, and will cover a wide range of subjects and interests. Students, staff, faculty and community members are invited to explore the offerings in subjects as diverse as history, culture, literature, social justice, climate change and much more.
Every day during the week there will be department open houses, classes, hands-on activities and public lectures.
“Humanities Week is a celebration of the scholars, teachers, writers, researchers, students and staff who make the humanities at ASU a national model for thriving at a time of challenge,” said Jeffrey Cohen, dean of humanities at The College.
“We invite the university community to join with us as we explore the human adventure over time and across cultures. Through activities that are engaging, intellectually stimulating and often just fun, we show why the humanities continue to matter when it comes to creating a more just world as well as living a fulfilling life.”
The College's Marshall Distinguished Lecture will be a signature event of the week, featuring Eddie Glaude Jr., a passionate educator, author and political commentator.
Other events include:
- Humanities Week Open House: Get to know The College's three humanities academic units and see what research is taking place across the division. Stop by for swag and treats.
- Language and the Locations of Culture: The Linguistics and Applied Linguistics/TESOL Program in the Department of English at ASU presents this talk by linguist Jerry Lee, a professor at the University of California, Irvine. In the talk, Lee asks "Where is culture?"
- Shakespeare at 400: Scenes From and Discussion of "The Book of Will" by Lauren Gunderson: Discover how history was made with the publishing of Shakespeare's complete works.
- ASU Worldbuilding Initiative Distinguished Lecture with Connor Alexander: An interactive lecture and workshop with Connor Alexander about the world of Coyote & Crow, a role-playing game set in a First Nations alternate future where colonization never happened. Afterward, he will lead a character creation workshop where audience members can make their own characters to take home.
- Arming Students for Good: Youth Activism to Prevent Violence: Come learn how the humanities contribute to understanding and abating one of America’s most pressing tragedies of our time.
- Hear Our Voices: Why We Need Historians to Write Children's Books in the Wake of a Banned Books Movement: Radhika Natarajan, author and historian, will discuss her first children's book, “Hear Our Voices: A Powerful Retelling of the British Empire in 20 Stories.” Students will have the opportunity to create book ban and censorship awareness buttons.
- So, what are you going to do with that?: Humanities alumni panel: English majors, history majors, language majors and more have heard the question a million times. Hear the truth from alumni and where their humanities degrees took them.
- Social Cohesion Dialogue 2023: Public Dialogue: Join the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy as we reflect on vulnerability, borders, resistance, history, love, advocacy and justice.
- SILC Café: Hosted by a different language program each day, the School of International Letters and Cultures invites anyone who is searching for a place to come and get to know people from across the world or surround themselves with languages from around the globe.
- Mining the Deep: Speculative Fictions and Futures: This lecture by Elizabeth DeLoughrey will examine the oceanic turn in the humanities, particularly what Gaston Bachelard once termed the “depth imagination.”
More events will be added soon. To stay up to date, visit the Humanities Week website.
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