- Upcoming Events
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- Autumn Quarter 2007
- Spring Quarter 2007
- Winter Quarter 2007 – (podcasts available)
- Past Events
- Fall Quarter 2006 – (podcasts available)
- Spring Quarter 2006
- Winter Quarter 2006
- Fall Quarter 2005
- Spring Quarter 2005
- Winter Quarter 2005
- Autumn Quarter 2004
- Spring Quarter 2004
- Autumn Quarter 2007
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Stacey Robertson - Bradley University
“’Hearts Beating for Liberty’: Women Abolitionists in the Old Northwest”
DePaul Student Center
2250 Sheffield, Room 120
Reception 5:30 p.m • Lecture 6 p.m.
 click to view flyer |
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Eric G. Wilson - Wake Forest University
Against Happiness
DePaul Student Center
2250 Sheffield, Room120
Reception 5:30 p.m • Lecture 6 p.m.
| click to view flyer |
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Patricia Meyer Spacks - University of Virginia
The Pleasures of Re-reading Early English Novels
in their 19th Century Contexts
DePaul Student Center
2250 Sheffield, Room 314
Reception 5:30 p.m • Lecture 6 p.m.
| click to view flyer |
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Terry Castle - Stanford University
Virginia Woolf
DePaul Student Center
2250 Sheffield, Room 314
Reception 5:30 p.m • Lecture 6 p.m.
| click to view flyer |
Tuesday, February 20, 2009
Michael McKeon - Rutgers University
The Theory of the Novel Against Happiness
DePaul Student Center
2250 Sheffield, Room 120
Reception 5:30 p.m • Lecture 6 p.m.
| click to view flyer |
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Phillip Lopate - Hofstra University
Against Joie de Vivre
DePaul Student Center
2250 Sheffield, Room 314
Reception 5:30 p.m • Lecture 6 p.m.
| click to view flyer |
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Jerome McGann
“Swinburne, 'Hertha,’ and the Voice of Language”
Reception 5:30 p.m., Lecture 6 p.m.
DePaul Student Center, Room 314
Jerome McGann, John Stewart Bryan University Professor at the University of Virginia, kicks off our series on “Poetic Texts and Contexts” with a lecture intriguingly titled “Swinburne, 'Hertha’ and the Voice of Language.” The lecture discusses comparative religion, syncretic mythology, and Buddhist philosophy, particularly in their 19th century contexts.
 click to view flyer |
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Thursday, October 18, 2007
Kurt Westerberg
Beethoven and the Heroic Style: A Composer's
Perspective on Erotica, The Waldstein and The Ninth
4 p.m. Recital Hall of the School of Music
Kurt Westerberg DePaul's School of Music Professor will offer an illustrative lecture on Beethoven’s music to a general audience and those attending the 7th Annual Leslie Marchand Lecture on Lord Byron.
click to view flyer click to view flyer
Thursday, October 18, 2007
John Clubbe
Byron, Beethoven, and Napoleon
Reception 5:30 p.m., Lecture 6 p.m.
DePaul Student Center, Room 314
John Clubbe discusses “Byron, Beethoven, Napoleon, and the Ideals of the French Revolution.” Clubbe, emeritus professor at the University of Kentucky, will give the 7th Leslie Marchand Lecture for the Byron Society of North America. Past lecturers have included Kate Jamison, Romulus Linney, and Leon Botstein. Clubbe is the author of Byron, Sully, and the Power of Portraiture, English Romanticism: The Grounds of Belief, Cincinnati Observed: Architecture and History, Victorian Forerunner, The Later Career of Thomas Hood, and editor of Froude’s Life of Carlyle and Selected Poems of Thomas Hood.
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Monday, October 29, 2007
Terry Eagleton
"How to Read a Poem"
Reception 5:30 p.m., Reception 6 p.m.
Room314-DePaul Student Center, Room 314
Terry Eagleton, John Edward Taylor Professor of English Literature at the University of Manchester, will present a lecture focused on his new book, How to Read a Poem (Blackwell, 2006). This engaging work includes close readings of Auden’s “Musee des Beaux Arts,” among other poems. Eagleton is the author of the highly acclaimed Literary Theory: An Introduction.
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Spring Quarter 2007
Thursday, April 12, 2007Rich Cohen
"Sweet and Low"
Reception 5:30 p.m., Lecture 6:00 p.m.
DePaul Student Center, Room 314
click to view flyer
Rich Cohen is the author of Lake Effect, a memoir about growing up on the North Shore of Chicago, which won the Carl Sandburg Award. He has also written Tough Jews, The Avengers, and Machers and Rockers: Chess Records and the Business of Rock & Roll. His work has appeared in The New Yorker and Vanity Fair, among many other publications. He is contributing editor to Rolling Stone and lives in New York City.
Monday, May 7, 2007
Jacqueline Taylor
"Waiting for the Call: From Preacher's Daughter to Lesbian Mom."
Reception 5:30 p.m., Lecture 6:00 p.m.
DePaul Student Center, Room 314
click to view flyer
We invite you to a discussion with Jacqueline Taylor, Dean of DePaul's newly instituted College of Communication, who will read from her memoir, Waiting for the Call: From Preacher's Daughter to Lesbian Mom.
Waiting for the Call takes readers from the foothills of the Appalachians---where Jacqueline Taylor was brought up in a strict evangelical household---to contemporary Chicago, where she and her lesbian partner are raising a family that includes two adopted children from Peru. Told in the great storytelling tradition of the American South, full of deep feeling and wry humor, Waiting for the Call engagingly demonstrates how one woman bridged the gulf between faith and sexual identity without abandoning her principles.
Winter Quarter 2007
Thursday, January 25, 2007Steven Biel
"American Gothic"
Reception 5:30 p.m., Lecture 6:00 p.m.
DePaul Student Center, Room 314
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Steven Biel is Executive Director of the Humanities Center and Senior Lecturer in History and Literature at Harvard University. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, he received his B.A. from Brown and his M.A. and Ph.D. in History from Harvard. His other books include Down with the Old Canoe: A Cultural History of the Titanic Disaster and Independent Intellectuals in the United States, 1910-1945.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Clayborne Carson
"The Civic Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr."
Reception 5:30 p.m., Lecture 6:00 p.m.
DePaul Student Center, Room 120
click to view flyer
Clayborne Carson is Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford. A Professor of History and editor of the papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Dr. Carson is also the author of In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s, which won the Organization of American Historians' Frederick Jackson Turner Award, and co author of African American Lives: The Struggle for Freedom. He has co-edited more than a dozen books on King and the movements King inspired.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Bayo Ojikutu
"Free Burning" - A Reading and Discussion with Bayo Ojikutu
12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m.
DePaul Humanities Center
2347 North Racine Avenue
Lincoln Park Campus
Chicago, Illinois
click to view flyer
We invite you to a discussion with Bayo Ojikutu, Visiting Fellow at the DePaul Humanities Center, Winter Quarter, who will read from his latest novel, Free Burning (Three Rivers Press, 2006). Ojikutu is the winner of the Washington Prize for Fiction and the Great American Book Contest for his debut novel, 47th Street Black (Three Rivers Press, 2003). This event is free and open to the public.
Past Events
Fall Quarter 2006
- Podcasts now available for:
- Joyce Appleby, The Intellectual Underpinnings of Democracy, 10/19/2006
- Janis F. Kearney and David Alsobrook, The Paper Trail: Creating Presidential Legacies, 10/30/2006
- Laura S. Washington, Covering Katrina, Uncovering Race, with Cheryl Corley and Gary Rivlin, 11/2/2006
- George Packer, America's War in Iraq, 11/6/2006
Robert Jensen
"The Problem of Diversity: The Politics of Race, Class, and Gender"
12:00 p.m.
DePaul Student Center, Room 120
click to view flyer
Robert Jensen discusses the problem of diversity in the context of his latest book, The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege. Jensen is an Associate Professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity and Writing Dissent:Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream, co-author with Gail Dines and Ann Russo of Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality, and co-editor with David S. Allen of Freeing the First Amendment: Critical Perspectives on Freedom of Expression.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Joyce Appleby
"The Intellectual Underpinnings of Democracy"
Reception 5:30 p.m. -- Lecture 6:00 p.m.
DePaul Student Center, Room 120
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Monday, October 30, 2006
Janis F. Kearney and David Alsobrook
"The Paper Trail: Creating Presidential Legacies"
Reception 5:30 p.m. -- Discussion 6:00 p.m.
DePaul Student Center, Room 314
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Thursday, November 2, 2006
Laura S. Washington
"Covering Katrina, Uncovering Race"
Reception 5:30 p.m. -- Discussion 6:00 p.m.
DePaul Student Center, Room 120
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click to view flyer |
Monday, November 6, 2006
George Packer
"America's War in Iraq"
Reception 5:30 p.m. -- Lecture 6:00 p.m.
DePaul Student Center, Room 314
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Spring Quarter 2006
Thursday, March 30, 2006Ted Anton
"The Biology of Longevity"
Walter Payton College Preparatory High School
1034 N. Wells, Chicago, Illinois
This event is by invitation only
click to view flyer
Author of Bold Science, Seven Scientists Who Are Changing Our World (Henry Holt & Co.), and winner of the Carl Sandburg award, DePaul Professor Ted Anton will highlight research from his forthcoming study that treats recent advances in the molecular biology of longevity.
Noted University of Wisconsin researcher Dr. Rozalyn Anderson will discuss her research and career in this field, commenting on prospects for young people, particularly women, in biotechnology. Walter Payton Biology Department chair Dr. Marilyn Havlik will lead participants in a DNA experiment, offering talented Chicago public high school students and teachers the opportunity to participate in this cutting-edge research.
View Spring Schedule
Brian F. Havel
"In Search of a Theory of Public Memory: The State, the Individual, and Marcel Proust"
***Please note: This event has been postponed to the 2006-2007 academic year.***
This presentation will analyze the phenomenon of official public memory and its construction through public law and official policy. Official public memory seeks to assure social control by masking contestation and is, accordingly, neither complete nor authentic. Using Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time and other philosophical, historical, scientific, and literary sources, Brian F. Havel posits a conceptual foundation for an anti-hegemonic and more authentic public memory. In particular, he demonstrates how affective (emotional) memory creates a permanent potential for contestation and authenticity, setting a natural limit to the power of governments to manipulate the past.
View Spring Schedule
Friday, April 21, 2006
Shailja Sharma
"New Cosmopolitanisms: South Asians in the U.S."
Edited by Shailja Sharma and Gita Rajan
Discussion and Book Signing 3:00-4:30 p.m.
DePaul Humanities Center
2347 N. Racine Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
Shailja Sharma, Associate Professor of English at DePaul University and a 2004-2005 fellow of the Humanities Center, discusses New Cosmopolitanisms: South Asians in the US(Stanford, 2006), edited by Shailja Sharma and Gita Rajan. New Cosmopolitans offers an in-depth look at the ways in which technology, travel, and globalization have altered traditional patterns of immigration for South Asians who live and work in the United States, and explains how their popular cultural practices and aesthetic desires are fulfilled. The "new cosmopolitans" are uniquely adaptable to the mainstream cultures of the United States, but also vulnerable in a period when nationalism and security have become tools to maintain traditional power relations in a changing world.
View Spring Schedule
Thursday, May 4, 2006
Marjorie Garber
"Bartlett’s Familiar Shakespeare: The Pleasures and Pitfalls of Quotation"
Reception 5:00 p.m., Lecture 6:00 p.m.
DePaul Student Center, Room 314, Lincoln Park Campus
2250 N. Sheffield Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
click to view flyer
Marjorie Garber is William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of English and American Literature and Language and of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University, and the Director of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts. She is the author of 12 books, including Vested Interests, Vice Versa, Symptoms of Culture, Quotation Marks, Sex and Real Estate, and Dog Love. Her four books on Shakespeare include, most recently, Shakespeare After All, chosen by Newsweek as one of the ten best nonfiction books of 2004, and awarded the 2005 Christian Gauss Award from the Phi Beta Kappa Society.
View Spring Schedule
Tuesday, May 9, 2006
Laura S. Washington
"Playing the Race Card"
Media Roundtable Series 6:00-8:00 p.m.
DePaul Student Center, Room 314, Lincoln Park Campus
2250 N. Sheffield Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
Katrina whipped it up with a fury. George H.W. Bush dispatched scare tactics, a la Willie Horton, to win an election. Clarence Thomas declared that his confirmation hearings were no more than a "high tech lynching." While often reviled, the act of "Playing the Race Card" has become a permanent part America’s lexicon and culture.
What does it really mean to Play the Race Card?
On May 9, 2006, Laura S. Washington, DePaul's Ida B. Wells-Barnett University Professor, in conjunction with Metalworks Gallery, will present a provocative discussion by artists, writers and scholars exploring the meaning of Playing the Race Card. An artistic show featuring their work will open on April 21 at Metalworks Gallery, 2340 N. Lister St., Chicago.
View Spring Schedule
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
H. Peter Steeves
"The Mourning Show"
7:00 p.m.
DePaul Student Center, Room 120, Lincoln Park Campus
2250 N. Sheffield Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
Language, like all carnivores, lives by means of the corpse—the carcass of the sign, the mourning that lingers in the sounding of the depths of words. Writing, especially, participates in the risks of mourning—a hazard, Derrida reminds us, marked by the lure of "closure." Once a sign is written down it can exist without its author: it points to our mortality, to a world continuing without us. And yet, we write. Recalling, among other works of art, Shakespeare’s sonnet LXXI, H. Peter Steeves examines the nature of writing and mourning, investigating the relationship between logos and grief, between naming and sorrow, inevitably coming see the death of the name as the impossibility of mourning and the apparent lamentation of language as the inevitable grief and yet rejoicing of those left behind. Steeves, author of Founding Community: A Phenomenological-Ethical Inquiry (Kluwer, 1998) and contributing editor to Animal Others: On Ethics, Ontology, and Animal Life (SUNY, 1999), is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at DePaul University and a 2001-2002 fellow of the Humanities Center.
He has two new books forthcoming from SUNY Press: The Things Themselves: Phenomenology and the Return to the Everyday, and Whacking The Sopranos: Uncovering the Meaning and Understanding the Violence Behind America’s Favorite (Crime) Family.
Cosponsored by the Department of Philosophy
View Event Flyer
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Ana Castillo and Henry Godinez
"Staging Psst! I have something to tell you, Mi Amor"
Reception 5:00 p.m., Lecture 6:00 p.m.
DePaul Student Center, Room 314, Lincoln Park Campus
2250 N. Sheffield Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
Dr. Ana Castillo holds the Sor Juana de la Cruz Chair at DePaul University. An acclaimed poet, novelist, essayist, editor, and translator, she is the author of Peel My Love Like an Onion and So Far From God, among other works, and has published several collections of poetry, including I Ask the Impossible and My Father Was a Toltec and Selected Poems. Henry Godinez is an Associate Professor at The Theatre School of DePaul University, whose work has appeared at the Goodman, Steppenwolf, and other major theatres in Chicago, New York and throughout the United States. A talented director and actor, he has staged Ana Castillo's work in the past. He is the recipient of the 1999 TCG Alan Schneider Directing Award and the Distinguished Service Award from Lawyers for the Creative Arts.
View Event Flyer
Winter Quarter 2006
Tuesday, January 24, 2006David Denby
Reception 5:00 p.m., Lecture 6:00 p.m.
DePaul Student Center, Room 314, Lincoln Park Campus
2250 N. Sheffield Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
click to view flyer
David Denby is film critic for The New Yorker and author of Great Books: My Adventures with Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World and American Sucker. His film criticism has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Boston Phoenix, New York Magazine, The New Republic and The New York Review of Books, and he is currently planning a book on American film criticism and film culture.
Thursday, February 2, 2006
Ellen Eslinger
"Researching Free Blacks in Antebellum Virginia: A New Approach"
Thursday, February 2, 2006
Reception 5:00 pm • Lecture 6:00 p.m.
DePaul Student Center, Room 314, Lincoln Park Campus
2250 N. Sheffield Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
click to view flyer
Ellen Eslinger is Professor of History at DePaul University, author of Citizens of Zion: The Social Origins of Camp Meeting Revivalism (University of Tennessee Press), and editor of Running Mad for Kentucky: Frontier Travel Accounts (University Press of Kentucky). As a 2005-2006 Fellow of the Humanities Center, she is working on her next book project, Free Black Society in the Rural South: From the Age of Jefferson Through the Civil War. Free people of color constituted a small but influential segment of the Southern population. Limited documents, however, make their lives difficult to investigate. Historians have attempted to overcome this problem by concentrating on cities, where an extra layer of municipal records provides valuable information. The majority of people, however, lived in the countryside. Eslinger’s lecture will address how the application of database technology can help to assemble diffuse documentation and provide an unprecedented level of detail about free black family formation, migration patterns, and opportunities to acquire wealth.
Tuesday, February 21 through Friday, March 31, 2006
Matthew Girson
"Satellites and Scotomas, After and Above"
Opening Reception Tuesday, February 28, 2006, 7:00-9:00 p.m.,
Lecture Tuesday, February 28, 2006, 4:00 p.m.
Lake Forest College Soanenschein Gallery, Durand Art Institute
555 N. Sheridan, Lake Forest, 847-735-5194
click to view flyer
Matthew Girson’s paintings give visual form to ideas of ethics and responsibility. Influenced as much by the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas as by the artist Jasper Johns, the paintings in the exhibit Satellites and Scotomas, After & Above spin traditional genres of art toward recent discussions of philosophy. In this exhibit individual self-portraits and skyscapes generate mutual orbits and shared meanings when viewed collectively.
Friday, February 24, 2006
Peter Graham
"Jane Austen and Charles Darwin"
Reception 5:00 p.m., Lecture 6:00 p.m.
DePaul Student Center, Room 314, Lincoln Park Campus
2250 N. Sheffield Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
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Peter Graham is the Clifford Cutchins Professor of English at Virginia Tech University and the Director of International Relations for the Messolonghi Byron Research Center in Messolonghi, Greece. His many books include The Portable Darwin, Byron’s Bulldog: The Letters of John Cam Hobhouse to Lord Byron and Don Juan and Regency England, which won the Elma Dangerfield Prize in Byron studies.
Fall Quarter 2005
Friday, October 14, 2005An Evening with the Nights: Theatrical, Historical and Literary Explorations of The Arabian Nights
Reception 5pm, Program 6pm
DePaul Student Center, room 314 Lincoln Park Campus
2250 North Sheffield Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
click to view flyer
Mary Zimmerman,Tony Award-winningdirector and recipient of the John D. and Catherine T.MacArthur Fellowship, discusses her dramatic adaptation of The Arabian Nights, with introductions and commentary by Humanities Center Fellow Warren Schultz, Associate Professor of History, DePaul University, and Daniel Beaumont, AssociateProfessor of Arab Language and Literature, University of Rochester.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Houston A. Baker, Jr.
Reception 5:00 p.m., Lecture 6:00 p.m.
DePaul Student Center, Room 120, Lincoln Park Campus
2250 N. Sheffield Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
click to view flyer
Houston A. Baker, Jr. is the Susan Fox Beischer and George D. Beischer Artsand Sciences Professor of English and Professor of African and AfricanAmerican Studies at Duke University. He is the author of Turning SouthAgain: Re-Thinking Modernism, Re-Reading Booker T. and Critical Memory:Public Spheres, African American Writing and Black Fathers and Sons inAmerica, among other works.
Tuesday, November 1, 2005
Ana Castillo
12-2 pm
DePaul Humanities Center
2347 N. Racine Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
Ana Castillo, acclaimed author and writer in residence at DePaul University, reads from her new verse novel, Watercolor Women, Opaque Men. Books will be available for purchase on the day of the event for purchase and signing.
This event is free and open to the public, but we ask that you register by October 25th. To register, please contact the DePaul Humanities Center at aperson@depaul.edu.
Monday, November 7, 2005
Reporters on the Record
6:00-8:00 p.m.
Schmitt Academic Center, Room 154
2320 North Kenmore Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
click to view flyer
Who is qualified to tell the African American story? Can, and should, blackwriters define the challenges of their race?
The DePaul Humanities Center presents an unprecedented opportunity to hear top journalists andauthors discuss their craft as Laura S. Washington, DePaul’s Ida B. Wells-Barnett University Professor, welcomes:
Chris Benson, Associate Professor, University of Illinoisat Urbana-Champaign, former Editor and writer, Ebony magazine, and co-author with Mamie Till-Mobley of "Death of Innocence: The Story of a Hate Crime that Changed America."
Yolanda Joe, former News Writer for CBS2/Chicago, and best-selling author of "He Say, She Say" and other novels.
David Thigpen, Correspondent, Time magazine, andauthor of "Jam Master Jay: the Heart of Hip Hop." Rita Whack, Emmy award-winning IndependentTelevision Producer, Chicago Public Radio contributorand author of "Meant to Be."
Laura S. Washington is the Ida B.Wells-Barnett University Professor at DePaul University and a Fellow of the DePaul Humanities Center. An award-winning editor and a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, she is an expert on media coverage and issues, including journalistic ethics and investigative reporting. Other areas of specialization include African-American affairs, Illinois and national politics, diversity, race and racism, and social justice.
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Harry Petrakis
"Homer and Hunger"
Reception 12:00 p.m., Lecture 1:00 p.m.
DePaul Humanities Center
2347 N. Racine Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
click to view flyer
Harry Petrakis is a long-time Chicago resident and the author of twenty books, including The Orchards of Ithaca, Twilight of the Ice, and Reflections. Twice a finalist for the National Book Award in fiction, Petrakis will discuss the role of the ethnic novel in Chicago, the Greekness of Homer, and his own obligations as a writer to his craft, his family, and his readers.
Spring Quarter 2005
Tuesday, April 19, 2005Media Roundtable Series with Laura S. Washington
A Conversation with Christie Hefner, Chairman and CEO, Playboy Enterprises
6:00-8:00 p.m.
Schmitt Academic Center, room 154
2320 North Kenmore Avenue
click to view flyer
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. An interview with Hefner will be followed by response and discussion from a panel of DePaul students: Alauna Dowd, Cassandra Sharpe-Taylor, and Sharon Reed.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Engaged Humanities Series 2004-2005—Democracy, Justice and the Body Politic: Democracy without Liberalism
6:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m.
Schmitt Academic Center, room 254
2320 North Kenmore Avenue
click to view flyer
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
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
Politics, Prose, and the Writer's Responsibility: A Cultural Exchange
10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Student Center, Room 314
2250 N. Sheffield Avenue
Attendance is free, but registration is required by Wednesday, April 27. To register contact the Humanities Center. Email: aperson@depaul.edu; Phone: 773-325-4580.
click to view flyer
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. Noted Chicago poet Sterling Plumpp will also participate. 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.
Date and Location TBA
Dwelling/Exile
Essays, Poems, Music
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.
Date and Location TBA
Patriot Acts
Film Documentary Screening and Discussion
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.
Winter Quarter 2005
Monday, November 1, 2004 to Thursday, March 31, 2005Humanities 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.
Wednesday, January 19
Never a City So Real: A Walk in Chicago, by Alex Kotlowitz
6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Student Center, Room 314
2250 N. Sheffield Ave.
click to view flyer
Alex Kotlowitz, author of the highly influential book, There Are No Children Here, discusses his new book, Never a City So Real: A Walk in Chicago. Kotlowitz's latest work takes us into the heart of Chicago by introducing us to some of the city's most interesting, if not always celebrated, people. Chicago is one of America's most iconic, historic, and fascinating cities, as well as a major travel destination. For Alex Kotlowitz, an accidental Chicagoan, it is the perfect perch from which to peer into America's heart.
EVENT POSTPONED UNTIL SPRING QUARTER. DATE AND TIME T.B.A. WE APOLOGIZE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE
Engaged Humanities Series 2004-2005: Democracy, Justice and the Body Politic - Democracy without Liberalism
6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Student Center, Room 314
2250 N. Sheffield Ave.
click to view flyer
In this winter 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; James G. Hart, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, Indiana University.
Autumn Quarter 2004
Saturday, October 9Classics in Context: Beloved, by Toni Morrison
9:30 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Student Center, Room 314
2250 N. Sheffield Ave.
As part of our sponsorship of the Chicago Humanities Festival, each year the Humanities Center hosts a session of the Festival's Classics in Context program, which brings together Chicago school teachers with humanities scholars to discuss classics past and present. Forty-five high school teachers from the Chicago area participated in this year's session, devoted to Toni Morrison's Beloved. Ann Stanford, St. Vincent DePaul Professor and Professor of Literary Studies at DePaul's School for New Learning, and Francesca Royster, Associate Professor of English at DePaul, led the seminar.
click to view slideshow
Friday, October 15
The Block/El Bloque: A Young Lords Story
7:00 p.m.
Recital Hall, School of Music
804 W. Belden Ave.
Written and directed by Jacqueline Lazu, 2003-2004 Humanities Center Faculty Fellow, Assistant Professor, Department of Modern Languages.
Although the Young Lords are most often recognized through their New York chapter, this organization was actually established in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood in the 1960s. Working closely with former and current members of the Young Lords Organization and other community members, Jacqueline Lazu has created a script that sheds new light on the history of Lincoln Park, Latinos in Chicago, and the role of Chicago in the Civil Rights movement.
Wednesday, October 27
Chicago Premier of The Ballad of Round Eyes: American Women Who Served in Vietnam
7:30 p.m.
Student Center, Room 120
2250 N. Sheffield Ave.
Written by Stacey Engels, directed by Donato Lemmo, and developed by Visible Theatre Company.
Set in Vietnam at the time of the Tet offensive, The Ballad of Round Eyes follows a group of American women who participated in the war as nurses, journalists and Red Cross volunteers. A post-performance discussion features Jurate Kazickas, a pioneering female war correspondent and co-author of War Torn: Stories of War from the Women Reporters who Covered Vietnam, and Alphonso Lingis, author of Foreign Bodies, Dangerous Emotions and Trust.
Monday, November 1
Fall Exhibition Opening Reception
Disrupting Perceptions: A Photographic History of the Kano Palace, Nigeria
5:00p.m. - 7:00p.m.
DePaul Humanities Center, McGaw 247
802 W. Belden Ave.
Photographs by Heidi Nast, 2002-2003 Humanities Center Faculty Fellow, Associate Professor, International Studies 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 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.
Monday, November 15
Political Timing, Media Roundtable Series with Laura S. Washington
6:00p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Schmitt Academic Center, Room 254
2250 N. Sheffield Ave.
click to view flyer
Two wars dominated the presidential election, but one ended nearly 30 years ago. How much does timing and the passage of time matter in 21st century American politics? How does around-the-clock media coverage affect political strategy? Is the near-instantaneous nature of blogging "bogging down" the power of traditional media?
Laura S. Washington welcomes Scott Deatherage, senior lecturer, communication studies and director of the debate society at Northwestern University, Jim Houlihan, Cook County Assessor, and Lynn Sweet, Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times, to discuss the art and artifice of political timing.
Tuesday, November 16
STRIPTEASE: The Untold Story of the Girlie Show
by Rachel Shteir
5:00p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Cortelyou Commons South Room
2324 N. Fremont St.
click to view flyer
This event is sponsored by the DePaul University Humanities Center with support from The Theatre School at DePaul University.
Stripping has been a part of American entertainment and pop-culture since the early 1900s when theatre, cabaret, and vaudeville were at their height of popularity, and burlesque emerged as a new type of entertainment. Author Rachel Shteir argues that this new, modern art form allowed otherwise "good girls" to virtually reinvent themselves overnight, thus enabling women to take ownership of their identity, sexuality, and monetary independence. Based on exhaustive research and filled with rare photographs and period illustrations, STRIPTEASE is the only comprehensive book that examines the fascinating history of burlesque. This vital piece of cultural history recreates the combustible mixture of license, independence, and sexual curiosity that allowed burlesque to thrive for nearly a century.
Rachel Shteir is Associate Professor and head Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism Program at The Theatre School at DePaul University. She has written for The New York Times, The Nation and the Chicago Tribune.
For more information, call 773-325-4580 or email aperson@depaul.edu
Wednesday, November 17
President's Book Club Premiere
Soft Power, by Joseph P. Nye
3:00p.m. - 5:00 p.m., Reception to follow
DePaul Student Center, Room 120
2250 N. Sheffield Ave.
Join a university-wide conversation on U.S. foreign policy. This inaugural meeting of the President's Book Club takes place during Presidential Inaugural Week, November 17-21. To RSVP for this event, and for further information about other Inaugural Week events, click here.
Spring Quarter 2004
January 12-June 15Pared a Pared: Counter-narratives through the Eyes of the People
Photos by Marisa Alicea
This event is free and open to the public.
click to view flyer
This exhibition of Chicago Puerto Rican murals is drawn from a collection of photos taken over the past 23 years by Marisa Alicea, Associate Professor at DePaul's School for New Learning and a 2002-2003 fellow of the Humanities Center. The exhibit has appeared at the Hispanic Housing center and the Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture.
Pictures from the February 18th Exhibition Reception:
click to view slideshow
Friday, April 2 and Saturday, April 3
Cosponsor for DePaul Philosophy Graduate Student Annual Conference
April 2
Keynote Address by Claudia Baracchi
"The polemos that Gathers All: Heraclitus on War"
5:30 p.m.
Richardson Library, Room 400
2350 North Kenmore Avenue
April 3
Conference
Session Topics include: Ethics, Ancient Philosophy, and Contemporary French
Philosophy
10:00 a.m. - 6:30 p.m.
Cortelyou Commons
2324 North Fremont Street
For more information, contact the Department of Philosophy, 773-325-7265
Wednesday, April 7
Beyond Neoliberalism: The Citizen Schools Project in Porto Alegre
6:30-8:30 p.m.
Schmitt Academic Center, Room 154
2320 N. Kenmore Avenue
Cosponsor for a presentation by Luis Armando Gandin, Associate Professor in
the Department of Eductional Foundations, Universidade Federal do Rio Grando do
Sul, Brazil.
The Citizen Schools, serving the Favelas of Porto Alegre, are grounded in the
democratization of participation, governance and knowledge. Professor Gandin
will discuss how these schools challenge neoliberalist notions of what it means
to be educated and to be a citizen.
For more information, contact the Department of Educational Policy Studies and
Research, 773-325-1856.
Thursday, April 29
The Lost Apple, by María de los Angeles Torres
Reading and Reception
5:30-7:30, DePaul Student Center, Private Dining Room (2nd floor)
2250 North Sheffield Avenue
This event is free and open to the public
click to view Book Jacket
María de los Angeles Torres, a 1999-2000 fellow of the Humanities Center, will
read from her latest book, The Lost Apple: Operation Pedro Pan, Cuban Children
in the U.S., and the Promise of a Better Future (Beacon Press). A
discussion and reception will follow.
From 1960 to 1962, in a program partially financed by the U.S. government,
14,048 Cuban minors arrived in Miami, sent to America by parents terrified that
the new communist government would ship their children to Soviet work camps.
María de los Angeles Torres was six years old when she took part in this
massive airlift, now known as "Operation Pedro Pan." Examining the event from
both a historical and a deeply personal perspective, Torres focuses on the
plight of the refugee children, broaching a larger discussion of how nations
imagine their future through their progeny. Torres scoured hundreds of
documents from Cuba and the United States, and even sued the CIA under the
Freedom of Information Act-forcing declassification of key documents.
A frequent media commentator on Cuban-U.S. relations, Torres is associate
professor of political science at DePaul University and author of several
books, including In the Land of Mirrors: Cuban Exile Politics in the United
States.
Tuesday, May 4
Open Season? Media Coverage of the 2004 Presidential Race
A Media Roundtable with Laura S. Washington,
Ida B. Wells-Barnett University Professor and Fellow of the DePaul Humanities
Center
Tuesday, May 4, at 6:00 p.m.
DePaul University Student Center, room 314B
2250 North Sheffield Avenue
This event is free and open to the public
In this inaugural session of a quarterly series, Ida B. Wells-Barnett
Professor Laura S. Washington welcomes Delmarie Cobb, Chicago-based political
consultant and advisor; Maria de Los Angeles Torres, associate professor of
Political Science at DePaul University; Don Wycliff, public editor of the
Chicago Tribune; and Jeff Zeleny, Washington correspondent for the Chicago
Tribune for a discussion of the media's coverage of the 2004 presidential
election season.
The panel will assess the media's coverage of the presidential primary race and
what might be ahead in the fall.
Key questions include:
After a year of continuous revelations about ethical missteps by the media, how
can readers and voters assess the accuracy and fairness of campaign coverage?
How does media promote or hinder the democratic process? Does the media bring
biases to its coverage of presidential campaigns? How should voters "read the
media" in an election year?
An award-winning editor and a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, Laura S.
Washington is an expert on media coverage and issues, including journalistic
ethics and investigative reporting. Her other areas of specialization include
African-American affairs, Illinois and national politics, diversity, race and
racism, and social justice.
Monday, May 10
Community Connection Series 2004
Homefront
by Patricia Monaghan
Staged reading
7:00 p.m., Student Center 120
2250 North Sheffield Avenue
This event is free and open to the public.
Soldiers are not the only ones who suffer war and its aftermath; so do their
families. 2003-2004 Humanities Center fellow Patricia Monaghan examines the
"Homefront" in a series of poems with that title. A staged reading of the work,
set to music by folk composer Michael Smith and performed by Smith and vocalist
Jamie O'Reilly, offers a voice to the silenced.
Tuesday, May 11
Community Connection Series 2004
Title: Girls' Theory: Me-Search Research
Film screening and discussion
hosted by Camilla Fojas
6:00 p.m., Student Center 314B
2250 North Sheffield Avenue
This event is free and open to the public
2003-2004 Humanities Center fellow Camilla Fojas hosts a screening of Girls'
Theory: Me-Search Research. This documentary was produced in a
year-long workshop with girls aged 14-17, using the media to explore their own
lives and the world around them. In their own voices, the girls cover topics
such as violence, stereotypes of women, sex, relationships, reputation, and the
future. The video and project was organized by beyondmedia founder Salome
Chasnoff. Salome will be featured on a post-screening panel with some of the
girls she works with, who will discuss the impact of media on their lives.
Beyondmedia's mission is to equip under-served and under-represented women,
youth, and communities to tell their stories, articulate their identities, and
organize for social justice through the collaborative creation and distribution
of alternative media arts.
Thursday, May 27
Gay Marriage: Faith-based, Legal and Personal Perspectives
6:00-8:00 p.m.
Schmitt Academic Center, Room 254
2320 North Kenmore Avenue
This event is free and open to the public
This panel, led by Associate Professor of Philosophy Darrell Moore, will look
at the contentious issue of gay marriage from a variety of perspectives:
In what ways do religious communities articulate positions for or against gay marriage? What are the advantages or disadvantages to making the case for gay marriage in the legislative arena? By judicial means? What is at stake for those who seek the right to gay marriage? For those who oppose it?
Panelists include:
Rev. Gregory Dell, Pastor, Broadway United Methodist Church, who in 1999
received a one-year suspension for conducting Holy Union services for same sex
couples;
Rev. James Halstead, O.S.A., Associate Professor and Chair of Religious
Studies, DePaul University;
Susan Mezey, J.D., Professor of Political Science, Loyola University;
Jackie Taylor, Professor of Communication and Director, DePaul Humanities
Center.
Monday, June 7 and Tuesday, June 8
Community Connection Series 2004
Conversations with Bill Irwin
hosted by Rachel Shteir
An award-winning playwright, clown, actor, and director, Bill Irwin began
clowning with San Francisco's famous Pickle Family Circus. He would later
create many original works, including the Broadway productions of the Tony
Award-winning Fool Moon, The Regard of Flight and Largely/New York. He
is also renowned as performer and director of Texts for Nothing and Scapin.
His appearances as an actor range from Edward Albee's The Goat on Broadway and
Waiting for Godot at Lincoln Center Theater to Mr. Noodle on "Sesame
Street," and span many other television and film roles.
June 7
7:30 p.m.
Steppenwolf Theatre
Irwin will perform as part of Steppenwolf Theatre Company's Traffic Series.
Contact Steppenworlf for details and ticket information: 312-335-1650;
http://www.steppenwolf.org.
June 8
Q&A
2:00 p.m.
Student Center, Private Dining Room 220 (Tentative, location to be confirmed)
Shteir, head of dramaturgy at the DePaul Theatre School, will conduct a Q&A
with Irwin. They will talk about comedy, collaboration, and contemporary
theatre.
This event is free and open to the public.
Irwin will also teach a master class to DePaul Theatre School students.
Sunday, July 11
Community Connection Series 2004
Family Art Workshop: Aztec Genealogies
hosted by Delia Cosentino
2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum
1852 West 19th Street, Chicago
Registration is required and space is limited. To register, contact the
museum at 312-738-1503, ext. 142
In collaboration with the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in Pilsen, 2003-2004
Humanities Center fellow Delia Cosentino will host a free family art workshop,
led by artist Dolores Mercado. Families will be introduced to the Aztec art of
pictorial genealogies, which were used to prove ancestral rights and justify
power based on lineage. Using both traditional and modern materials,
participants will be invited to create their own family trees in the style of
the ancient Mexican examples.