Annual Humanities Week returns with inspiring lineup of conversations, events
A student visits a table during a past Humanities Week Open House at ASU's Tempe campus. ASU photo
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University will kick off its fourth annual Humanities Week from Oct. 21 to 25.
Throughout the week, students and the public are invited to engage with events, from open houses to hands-on activities, that provide context and insight as to how the humanities are involved in everything, from unexpected conversations to everyday life.
Humanities Week will also feature its signature event, this year’s Marshall Distinguished Lecture: “An Evening with Dan-el Padilla Peralta.”
“The humanities are essential to living a good life and being an engaged citizen," said Jeffrey Cohen, dean of humanities at The College. Humanities Week continues to showcase the creative and scholarly work of our faculty and students, and the lasting impact of the humanities on the world.
“We’re excited to invite the ASU community and beyond to discover how the humanities provide the tools to understand the human adventure across culture and time, and strengthen our ability to solve real-world problems.”
Here are some of the signature events happening on the Tempe campus and online for Humanities Week 2024. View the full schedule of events.
Kick off Humanities Week on Monday, Oct. 21, by getting a glimpse of all a humanities degree and career can offer. Stop by the Durham Hall courtyard from 10 a.m. to noon and visit tables from The College’s humanities departments, including its three academic units. Grab free swag and food and take part in hands-on activities.
Crip Critique: Spoken Word Narratives on the Lived Pasts and Imagined Futures of Work
Featured guests Sabrina Ali Jamal-Eddine and Allison Hobgood will discuss lived disabled experiences through spoken word poetry and community-based narrative on Monday, Oct. 21, at 2 p.m. in the Memorial Union Alumni Lounge. The two speakers work to expand the dialogue surrounding the future of flexibility and accessibility.
Brazilian Dance and Music Workshop
Take a midday break and enjoy the sounds and music from Brazil with a workshop. Learn steps to dance genres such as samba and forró on Tuesday, Oct. 22, in Durham Hall 240 at noon.
Marshall Distinguished Lecture Series
The Marshall Distinguished Lecture Series is an annual event that hosts nationally known scholars working in and promoting the humanities. This free public lecture is funded with an endowed gift from Jonathan and Maxine Marshall.
This year’s lecture will feature Dan-El Padilla Peralta, a professor at Princeton University where he specializes in classics, African American history, Latino studies and Latin America. He is originally from the Dominican Republic but came to the United States as a child in 1989 and grew up in New York.
Padilla has written several books, including his memoir “Undocumented: A Dominican Boy’s Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League.” He co-founded Racing the Classics, a two-day conference focused on using and developing theories of race and ethnicity within their field, which recently received $1 million in funding from the Mellon Foundation. He currently sits on the board of the RaceB4Race collective and is the volume co-editor for “The Cambridge History of the African Diaspora.”
The event will take place at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 22, in the Armstrong Hall Roskin Great Hall (ARM 101).
The brush is mightier: One man's mission to rescue art from the Taliban
Join Mohammad Yousof Asefi, an artist-in-residence at the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, for a live painting session and learn about his efforts to preserve art by disguising it during the early years of Taliban rule. He will work on two original pieces, which will be on display from 3 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 24, at West Hall, room 135.
Curator IRL XP with the Hispanic Research Center
Get an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at the Hispanic Research Center’s Chicano art collection on Thursday, Oct. 24, from 3 to 4 p.m. at the Interdisciplinary A building, room 202. Santiago Moratto, the center’s art curator, and Anita Huizar-Hernández, the associate director, will walk through the highlights of the collection currently on display in the ASU Art Museum exhibit, “Chicano/a/x Prints and Graphics: Selections from the Hispanic Research Center’s Collection, 1980–2010.”
So what are you going to do with that?: Humanities alumni panel
Listen to a group of alumni answer the common question, "What are you going to do with your humanities degree?" The panelists will share stories on where they are now and how their degree positively influenced their career. Attendees can view the event in person at Memorial Union 207 or online from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 25.
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