Humanities Day at UChicago invites the public to join the conversation as scholars from the Division of the Humanities present on an impressive range of topics, from gastromusicology to endangered languages to Bob Dylan’s voice. 

Humanities Day is comprised of three hour-long sessions (9:30-10:30 am, 2-3 pm, and 3:30-4:30 pm), each with more than a dozen concurrent lectures, readings, and discussions. The breaks provide opportunity to visit related exhibitions, open houses, and special events across campus.

Entering its 34th year, Humanities Day features new locations, most notably the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, as well as new faculty. Department of Visual Arts Chair Jessica Stockholder, for example, provides one of the visual arts lectures. Her presentation, “Art in Context,” will focus on primarily on her work and how its meaning is in part derived from its location. 

Stockholder’s is one of several arts-related talks happening throughout the day. Other arts-related highlights include: 

Session I: 9.30-10.30am

Music/Emeritus
Rossini's "Maometto Secondo" at Santa Fe
Philip Gossett

Music
Sound Masala: Gastromusicology and Popular Music in South India
Kaley Mason

Music
Here's Your Throat Back, Thanks for the Loan: On Dylan's Voices
Steven Rings

Visual Arts
Art in Context
Jessica Stockholder

Romance Languages & Literatures/Cinema & Media Studies
Rudolph Valentino: The First "Latin Lover"
Rebecca West

Session II: 2.00-3.00pm

Music
The New Budapest Orpheum Society Goes to the Movies
Philip Bohlman

Art History/Visual Arts
What Comes After Contemporary Art?
Matthew Jackson

Art History/Smart Museum of Art
Awash in Color: French and Japanese Prints
Anne Leonard

Session III: 3.30-4.30pm

Music
Delight in Sound - Transformations and Connections
Augusta Read Thomas

Cinema & Media Studies
The Cinema’s Lesson for Cubism
Jennifer Wild

Committee on Creative Writing
The Art of Writing through Reading
Leila Wilson, Megan Stielstra , Rachel DeWoskin