The Humanities Center would like to make you aware of our spring events. We always welcome class groups, so build us into your syllabi! All events are free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Humanities Center at 773-325-4580.

Tuesday, April 19, 2005
6:00-8:00 p.m.
Media Roundtable Series with Laura S. Washington
A Conversation with Christie Hefner, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Playboy Enterprises
location TBA
Laura S. Washington, DePaul's Ida B. Wells-Barnett University Professor, welcomes Christie Hefner to discuss her political activism, her longtime leadership of Playboy Enterprises, and how those facets of her life intersect. It promises to be a lively and provocative conversation on the role of women in the media, business and politics. Washington will conduct a one-on-one interview with Hefner, followed by responses and discussion from a panel of DePaul students.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005
2:30-4:30 p.m.
Engaged Humanities Series 2004-2005--Democracy, Justice and the Body Politic:
Democracy without Liberalism
Cortelyou Commons
2324 N. Fremont St.
In this spring quarter installment of the Humanities Center's Engaged Humanities Series on Democracy, Justice, and the Body Politic, H. Peter Steeves, Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy, will lead a discussion that rethinks democracy from a communitarian-based, non-Liberal standpoint. Bridging theory and praxis, and drawing on concrete examples from Latin America and the United States, panelists will focus on the possibilities for a revitalization of democracy and a commitment to justice that separates these goals from the institutions and ideology of Liberalism. Panelists include: Peg Birmingham, Associate Professor of Philosophy, DePaul University; Jim Block, Assistant Professor of Political Science, DePaul University; and James G. Hart, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, Indiana University.

Through Friday, April 29, 2005
Humanities Center Exhibition
Disrupting Perceptions: A Photographic History of the Kano Palace, Nigeria
Photographs by Heidi Nast
DePaul Humanities Center, McGaw 247
802 W. Belden Ave.
Complementing her scholarly work on the political geography of concubines and the importance of reproduction in shaping early agrarian states in West Africa, Heidi Nast, Associate Professor of International Studies and a 2002-2003 Humanities Center Faculty Fellow, has created an exhibition of photography documenting the history of the Kano Palace, the largest and oldest extant palace in West Africa. This exhibition debuted in 2003 at the DuSable Museum of African American History.

Tuesday, May 3, 2005
10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Politics, Prose, and the Writer's Responsibility: A Cross-Cultural Exchange
Student Center, room 314
2250 N. Sheffield Ave.
Visiting Fellow Janis F. Kearney, literacy advocate and former personal diarist to President Bill Clinton, leads a day-long consideration of literary artists' responsibility to address social and political issues in their work. William R. Ferris, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities and currently the Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History and Senior Associate Director of the Center for the Study of the American south at UNC, will deliver the keynote address. A panel discussion, "Taking Political Responsibility to the Page"--featuring literary artists from varying cultural backgrounds, literary readings, and a writers Q&A will round out the day.

Dwelling/Exile
Essays, Poems, Music
Date and Location TBA
What is our current relationship to place? Globalization has created a world of exiles. Many are not only physically far from their homeland or homes, but also distanced from the very idea of home. And yet some become exiles to dwell more deeply, to be more at home. This presentation features works where dwelling/exile intersect--where the terms live together, and apart. Organized by Liam Heneghan, Associate Professor of Environmental Science and a 2004-2005 Humanities Center Fellow, and poet Chris Green.

Patriot Acts
Film Documentary Screening and Discussion
Date and Location TBA
2004-2005 Humanities Center Fellow Shailja Sharma, Associate Professor of English, hosts a screening of Patriot Acts, a 2004 documentary that explores the impact among members of Chicago's northside Muslim community of the Bush Administration's controversial National Security Entry-Exist Registration System (NSEERS). Instituted in September of 2002, curtailed (amid allegations of racial and religious profiling) in December of 2003, then replaced by US-VISIT in January 2004, NSEERS required non-immigrant males from predominantly Muslim countries to register with the Department of Homeland Security. A post-screening discussion will include local scholars, filmmakers, and members of the Muslim community.