Lectures and Seminars

The Humanities Institute hosts several lectures, which are free and open to the public, across campus throughout the academic year. These include an annual lecture delivered by the Cline Centennial Visiting Professor, four Distinguished Visiting Lectures over the course of a two-year inquiry into a theme or issue of broad intellectual importance, our annual Paul and Mary Ho Distinguished Lecture in China Studies, and occasional special lectures, such as those delivered by our Health and Humanities Pop-Up Institute. 

In 2019, we hosted Doris Sommer as our Cline Centennial Visiting Professor. Dr. Sommer delivered her lecture, Pre-Texts in a Dublin Prison: StoryDads Tell Tall Tales.

In Fall of 2021 we hosted two virtual Distinguished VIsiting Lecturers on the 2020-2022 theme of  "The Humanities in the Environment/The Environment in the Humanities." Scholar and activist Dr. Nick Estes lectured on  "State Repression of Indigenous Movements: From the Red Power Movement to the Pipeline Protests of Dakota Access and Line 3," and activist Vivien Sansour spoke about "Seed Conservation: Creating New Worlds."

The 2021-2022 Ho Lecture Series departed from the usual single lecture format to present a series of readings by Chinese American poets. A reading by Chen Chen opened the series in October 2021, followed by Jennifer Chang in December. There were also two readings done in the spring, Jane Wong in March 2022, and Jeffrey Yang in April.

The Humanities Institute often sponsors lectures on topics of interest that aren't part of an organized series. In Spring 2022, we presented a conversation between Dr. George Makari and Professor Robert Abzug on the topic "Xenophobia: Recovering the Past, Confronting the Present." Our 2018 Health and Humanities Pop-Up Institute featured individual public lectures from scholars and included a public symposium with a keynote lecture, and led to the creation of the Humanities, Health, and Medicine program. In May 2018, our Health and Humanities Pop-Up Institute featured individual public lectures from scholars and included a public symposium with a keynote lecture. 

In addition, HI co-sponsors and helps to support a number of other lectures on campus each year. In 2021-2022, we collaborated with Mexican American and Latinos studies to present a panel on border security; with Performance as Public Practice on a film screening and discussion with the organization DNAWORKS; and with the South Asia Institute and the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice to present acclaimed writer Arundhati Roy in conversation with Professor Syed Akbar Hyder. We also co-sponsored lectures by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and the Climate in Context Conference.