Previous Humanities Forum

Past Humanities Forum events

Puerto Ricans at the Fault Lines: A Conversation with Yarimar Bonilla (Hispanic Heritage Month)- Yarimar Bonilla, Hunter College and Graduate Center, CUNY

Cleopatra: The Most Famous Woman of Classical Antiquity (Ancient Studies Week) – Duane Roller, Ohio State University

MATATU: A History of Popular Transportation in Kenya (Robert K. Webb Lecture) – Kenda Mutongi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Life After the Gunshot: Structural Violence, Interpersonal Violence and Trauma Among Young Black Men in Washington DC (43rd W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Joseph B. Richardson, Jr., University of Maryland

A Lord, a Pauper, and an Artist: Putting People Back into Samurai History – Constantine N. Vaporis, UMBC

Indigenous Reading in the Archives of Empire: Birchbark Object Lessons at the 1893’s World Fair – Kelly Wisecup, Northwestern University

Graphic Medicine: Comics in the Age of COVID – Hillary Chute, Northeastern University

Climate Change and Institutions for Future Generations: Calling for a Global Constitution Convention (Evelyn Barker Memorial Lecture) – Stephen B. Gardiner, University of Washington

An Asian American Reckoning: A Conversation with Cathy Park Hong – Cathy Park Hong, poet, essayist, and New York Times best-selling author

Theory Underwater: Diving into Wild Blue Media – Melody Jue, University of California, Santa Barbara

American Higher Education at the Crossroads: Reflections on Access and Student Success in the Past 60 Years (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, UMBC

Racecraft in the Odyssey and Argonautica (Ancient Studies Week) – Jackie Murray, University of Kentucky

A French Village, Its Legacy of Rescue, and Lessons for Troubled Times (Robert K. Webb Lecture) – Maggie Paxson, writer, anthropologist, and performer

Black COVID Stories, Black Lives Matter, and Protest: A Conversation about the Ongoing Struggle for Justice and Change (42nd W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Karsonya “Kaye” Wise Whitehead, Loyola University Maryland

Public Discourse and Representations of Work in the Home – Elizabeth Patton, UMBC

Embodying Empire Through Captivity: Geographies of Caged Animals, Human Domination, and Struggle in New York’s Central Park – Dawn Biehler, UMBC

The Borders of AIDS: Race, Quarantine and Resistance – Karma R. Chávez, University of Texas at Austin

Critical Access Studies: Methods and Approaches from the Humanities – Aimi Hamraie, Vanderbilt University

A Bound Woman? – DaMaris B. Hill, University of Kentucky

Making Abolition Geographies: Social Justice Organizing for Vulnerable Households, Workers, and Communities (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Graduate Center, CUNY

The Fractal Caribbean: The New Literatures of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic (Hispanic Heritage Month) – Mayra Santos-Febres, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras

The Visual Workings of Roman Slaves (Ancient Studies Week) – Jennifer Trimble, Stanford University

Global History as Urban History: A View from Edo, the Greatest City in the World (Robert K.Webb Lecture) – Amy Stanley, Northwestern University

The Future of Du Bois: Consciousness, Citizenship, and Epistemology in Africa (41st W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Nimi Wariboko, Boston University

Can the Children of Iberian Cinemas Speak? A Video Essay – Erin K. Hogan, UMBC

Thinking Like a Caravan: The Current Migration Crisis – Rachel Ida Buff, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Images and the Fight for Women’s Voting Rights in the United States – Allison K. Lange, Wentworth Institute of Technology

Radio Ambulante: Breaking the Language Barrier One Story at a Time (Hispanic Heritage Month)– Carolina Guerrero, CEO and co-founder of Radio Ambulante

An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic (Ancient Studies Week) – Daniel Mendelsohn, Bard College

Visualizing Deafness: Language Manuals and Manual Languages in Premodern Archives (MEMS Colloquium) – Jonathan Hsy, George Washington University

‘Thinks Himself Free’: Escaped Slaves in 18th Century Britain (Robert K. Webb Lecture) – Simon P. Newman, University of Glasgow

Race, Racism, and the New Racial Science (40th W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Dorothy E. Roberts, University of Pennsylvania

High-Tech Housewives and H-4 “Dreamers”: South Asian Immigration in a Changing Landscape – Amy Bhatt, UMBC

Complaint as Diversity Work (Joan S. Korenman Lecture) – Sara Ahmed, independent feminist scholar and writer

Race and Religion in the U.S.: Women Writers in Conversation(Panel discussion) – Samiya Bashir, poet; Susan Muaddi Duraj, fiction writer; Alia Malek, journliast and writer. Moderated by Mejdulene B. Shomali, UMBC

Zombies Speak Swahili: Why Language Matters for Global Citizenship (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Jamie A. Thomas, Swarthmore College

The Case for Substantial Gun Control (Evelyn Barker Memorial Lecture) – David DeGrazia, George Washington University

Building a World that Includes Disability – Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Emory University

Seeing the Unseen Landscape (Lipitz Lecture) – Dan Bailey, UMBC

Show Me Your Papers: The Political Cartoons of Lalo Alcaraz (Hispanic Heritage Month) – Lalo Alcaraz, visual and media artist/writer

Harmonious Monk: Martin Luther and His Reformation through Music (MEMS Colloquium Concert Lecture) – Christopher Boyd Brown, Boston University

Life, Love, and Law in Classical Athens (Ancient Studies Week) – Victoria Wohl, University of Toronto

The Changing Face of Modern War: Chemical Weapons and Civilian Bodies in the Aftermath of the First World War (Robert K. Webb Lecture) – Susan R. Grayzel, Utah State University

The Contemporary African Immigrant Communities in the United States (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Toyin Falola, University of Texas, Austin

Nuclear Pain and Humanitarian Photography: Morizumi Takashi, the Gulf Wars, and Fukushima – Julia Adeney Thomas, University of Notre Dame

The Mark Rice Collection and the Homo-Erotics of Photography after Stonewall (Daphne Harrison Lecture)- James Smalls, UMBC

Attunement: How We Become Enthralled by Art – Rita Felski, University of Virginia

Listening to Racism in the United States – or Why Sound Matters (Media and Communication Studies 10th Anniversary Event) – Jennifer Lynn Stoever, State University of New York at Binghamton

Becoming Bridge-Builders and Disrupters: Navigating Racial and Gender Realities in America Today (Joan S. Korenman Lecture) – Deepa Iyer, South Asian American activist, writer, and lawyer

Flickering Treasures: Rediscovering Baltimore’s Forgotten Movie Theaters – Amy Davis, author and Baltimore Sun photojournalist

Redevelopment and Justice in Baltimore (Panel on Gentrification) – Lawrence Brown, Morgan State University; Felipe Filomeno, UMBC; Seema D. Iyer, Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance, The Jacob France Institute; Nicole King, UMBC

Planned Parenthood in Maryland: A Vital Community Resource (Lipitz Lecture) – Carole McCann, UMBC

Guillermo Gómez-Peña Unplugged: A brand new spoken-word monologue by el Mad Mex(Hispanic Heritage Month) – Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Chicano performance artist, writer, activist, and educator

Demopolis: Democracy, Legitimacy, and Civic Education – Josiah Ober, Stanford University

The Black Presidency – Michael Eric Dyson, Georgetown University and radio host

From Black Lives Matter to the 2016 Elections: The Future of Black Politics (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Cathy J. Cohen, The University of Chicago

Wretched Girls, Wretched Boys, and the Medieval Origins of the ‘European Marriage Pattern’ (Robert K. Webb Lecture) – Judith Bennett, University of Southern California –

Mill Stories: Remembering Sparrows Points Steel Mill (Film screening and conversation) – Michelle Stefano, Maryland Traditions; and Bill Shewbridge, UMBC

Figuring the Population Bomb: Malthusian Masculinities and Demographic Transitions (Joan S. Korenman Lecture) – Carole McCann, UMBC

Myanmar: Perspectives on a Society in Transition – Christina Fink, George Washington University

“I Heard It Through the Grapevine” (Film screening and conversation) – Maurice Wallace, Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and Africana Studies at the University of Virginia; and Maleda Belilgne, UMBC

Isis and Cultural Cleansing: Saving the Ancient and Medieval Treasures of Syria and Iraq – Michael D. Danti, Boston University

The Post-Andalusian Condition: Islam and the Rise of the West – Anouar Majid, University of New England

A Conversation about Digital Access (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress

Confederate Hunger: Food and Famine in the Civil War South (Lipitz Lecture) – Anne Sarah Rubin, UMBC

Harvest of Empire: The Untold Story of Latinos in America(Hispanic Heritage Month) – Eduardo López, television producer, journalist, and documentarian

Dear White People (Film screening and conversation) – Kimberly Moffitt, UMBC; and Damon Turner, UMBC

In Comis Veritas: The Principles of Ancient Roman Hairdressing (Ancient Studies Week) – Janet Stephens, Independent scholar and hairstylist

The Republic of the Unlettered: Intellectual History, the Enlightenment, and the Law in the Spanish Empire (Robert K. Webb Lecture) – Bianca Premo, Florida International University

Linked Fates and Great Expectations: Revisiting Post-Colonial Africa and African-American Life through Diasporic Literature (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Dinaw Mengestu, Brooklyn College and MacArthur Fellow

China’s Forgotten Gated Communities – Tong Lam, University of Toronto

Freedom Marooned: An Atlantic Slave Rebellion in the Dutch Caribbean – Marjoleine Kars, UMBC

Sounding Botany Bay: An Exhibition on How Humans Have Changed a Unique Australian Environment – Tim Nohe, UMBC

Why Have Intersex Rights Been So Hard to Secure in America? (Joan S. Korenman Lecture) – Alice Dreger, historian of science and medicine

It Shouldn’t Have Been Beautiful – Lia Purpura, UMBC

Implicit Biases, Moral Agency, and Moral Responsibility (Evelyn Barker Memorial Lecture) – Angela Smith, Washington and Lee University

‘Some Wine, Ho!’ Shakespeare, Women, and the Story of English Wine (MEMS Colloquium Lecture and Shakespeare Anniversary) – Frances Dolan, University of California, Davis

Heroes and Villains: Art, Imagination and the Road to Improved Race Relations in Baltimore (Daphne Harrison Lecture and Performance) – Breai Mason-Campbell, Baltimore dancer, teacher, and community activist

Can a Comic Book Superhero and Rape Survivor Change Attitudes Toward Sexual Violence? – Ram Devineni, filmmaker, publisher, and founder of Rattapallax publishing and film production company

Socioeconomic Status and Brain Health: Biological, Psychological, and Behavioral Pathways (Lipitz Lecture) – Shari Waldstein, UMBC

Mark Tribe: Art Is a Three-Letter Word (Digital Humanities Initiatives Event) – Mark Tribe, artist

An Evening with Sonia Nazario, author of Enrique’s Journey – Sonia Nazario, author

Children of Rus’: Ukraine and the Invention of a Russian Nation (Robert K. Webb Lecture) – Faith Hilis, The University of Chicago

America’s Gilded Capital – Mark Leibovich, New York Times reporter and author

Translating the Indian Past: The Poets’ Experience – Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Indian poet, translator, and critic

The Honor Code (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Kwame Anthony Appiah, philosopher, cultural theorist, and novelist

Revel Without a Cause? Dance, Performance, and Greek Vase Painting (Ancient Studies Week) – Tyler Jo Smith, University of Virginia

Civil Rights, Asian Americans and Marriage Equality: 50 Years After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – Helen Zia, author and former executive editor of Ms. Magazine

W.E.B. Du Bois and the Challenge to Scientific Racism (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Evelyn M. Hammond, Harvard University

Mapping Memory: Digitizing Sherman’s March to the Sea (Digital Humanities Initiative Event) – Anne Sarah Rubin, UMBC, and Kelley Bell, UMBC

Slavery By Another Name (Panel discussion) – Spencer Crew, George Mason University

Your Powerful Online Voice: Social Media for Social Change (Critical Social Justice Keynote) – Franchesca Ramsey, vlogger

A Stirring Song Sung Heroic – William Earle Williams, Haverford College

There is a crack in everything: That’s How the Light Gets In – Michael Rakowtiz, Northwestern University

“The Paths We Make As We Go:” The Narrative of an Undocumented Woman in the U.S. (Joan S. Korenman Lecture) – Maria Gabriela “Gaby” Pacheco, immigrant rights activist

Four Types of Feminist Empiricism (Evelyn Barker Memorial Lecture) – Miriam Solomon, Temple University

Microscopic War: Fragmenting Vision in Contemporary American Militarism – Rebecca Adelman, UMBC

An Artist’s Life at the Border: Critical Partnerships with Science, History, and the Community – Liz Lerman, choreographer, performer, writer, and educator

India, Pakistan, and Nuclear Weapons: Deterrence Stability in South Asia (Lipitz Lecture) – Devin Hagerty, UMBC

Hispanic Americans: The Cosmic Race – Marie Arana, writer

What Remains? Baltimore Neighborhoods in Transition (Panel discussion) – Nicole King, UMBC; Steve Bradley, UMBC; Bill Shewbridge, UMBC; Michelle Stefano, Maryland Traditions; Deborah Rudacille, UMBC; Eddie Bartee, Jr., former Sparrows Point steelworker; Troy Pritt, former Sparrows Point steelworker; and Jason Reed, community gardener, Curtis Bay. Moderated by Denise Meringolo, UMBC

The Worlds of Joseph Conrad: British Imperial Decline and the Dawn of Globalization (Robert K. Webb Lecture) – Maya Jasanoff, Harvard University

Electric Orisha: Race, Media, and Travel in Transnational Santeria (Africana Studies Research Colloquium) – Aisha M. Beliso-DeJesus, Harvard Divinity School

HOT: Living through the Next 50 Years on Earth – Mark Hertsgaard, environment correspondent for The Nation

Roman Gladiatorial Spectacle (Ancient Studies Week) – Garrett G. Fagan, Penn State University

W.E.B. Du Bois Fifty Years After the March on Washington (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – David Levering Lewis, New York University

Pouring Tea: Black Gay Men of the South Tell Their Tales (Joan S. Korenman Lecture) – E. Patrick Johnson, Northwestern University

Exhibiting Erotic Art (shunga) and the Problem of Obscenity in 20th Century Japan – Amaury Garcia, El Colegio de México, A.C.

Created Equal: America’s Civil Rights Struggle (The Loving Story Film Viewing)

Created Equal (Panel Discussion) – Moderated by Claudrena N. Harold, University of Virginia

Constructing Heritage (Panel Discussion) – James Counts Early, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage; Mario Santo Domingo, UMBC; Ashley Minner, Community Artist and Activist, Baltimore American Indian Center. Moderated by Michelle Stefano, UMBC

The Living Edge: Delights and Dilemmas of the Chesapeake Bay – Tom Horton and Dave Harp, environmental journalists

On Hip Hop, Race, and Politics: The Way We Talk About Things (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Jay Smooth, hip hop culture critic

Curious Behavior: A Celebration of Undergraduate Research at UMBC – Robert R. Provine, UMBC

The Fraught Crossroads Where Class, Race, Sex and Violence Keep Converging across American History – Lawrence Weschler, author

The Aesthetics of Astronomy: A Subjective Look at Cosmigraphical Depictions through Time – Michael Benson, writer, photographer and artist

Dignity and Disability – Samuel Kerstein, University of Maryland

Examining the Book of Lies – Corazon del Sol, artist and curator

Interiors: Identity in Music (Lipitz Lecture) – Linda Dusman, UMBC

The Humanities, Without Apology – Pauline Yu, President of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)

Schleppers and Shoppers: Jews, Street Markets, and the Selling of Ready-to-Ware Fashion in London in the 1920s and 1930s (Robert K. Webb Lecture) – Judith Walkowitz, Johns Hopkins University

Not Always Roman, Not Always Statues: The Recent Lives of Ancient Roman Statues at the Walters Art Museum (Ancient Studies Week) – Marden Nichols, Walters Art Museum

Disability, Justice, and the Future of the Humanities – Michael Bérubé, Penn State University

This is How You Lose Her – Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction writer, MacArthur Fellow, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology

American Challenges for World Peace in the 21st Century (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Horace G. Campbell, Syracuse University

Collecting, Preserving, and Interpreting African American History and Culture(Panel discussion)– Jacquelyn Serwer, National Museum of African American History and Culture; Michelle Joan Wilkinson, Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland; and Moira Hinderer, Afro American Newspaper Archive. Moderated by Denise Meringolo, UMBC

The Civil Rights Movement from the Ground Up (Panel discussion) – Freeman Hrabowski, President, UMBC; Julian Bond, civil rights activist and former chairman, NAACP; and Andrew B. Lewis, author of The Shadows of Youth: The Remarkable Journey of the Civil Rights Generation. Moderated by Taylor Branch

Blackface Imagery and Its Answers: Stereotyping from the Early Civil Rights Era to the Obama Era – Thulani Davis, journalist, playwright and author

Race and Shakesperean Performance (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Ayanna Thompson, Arizona State University

A Life in History: Reflections on Studying Politics and Policy in 20th Century America (W. Augustus Low Lecture) – John Jeffries, UMBC

Charisma in Age of Digital Reproduction (Lipitz Lecture) – Raphael Falco, UMBC

Life and Loss in the Shadow of the  Holocaust: A Jewish Family’s Untold Story – Rebecca Boehling, UMBC

Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language (Hispanic Heritage Month) – Ilan Stavans, Amherst College

The Reception of the Medea in the United States (Ancient Studies Week) – Helene Foley, Columbia University

The Music of Today: Facts and Ideas (Livewire Festival 2: “On Fire” Keynote Lecture) – Carlo Landini, Conservatorio G. Nicolini in Piacenza

Mosquito Empires and Revolutionary Fevers in the Greater Caribbean, 1600-1900 (Robert K. Webb Lecture) – John R. McNeill, Georgetown University

W.E.B. Du Bois’s Intellectual Ancestors: Reassessing the Works of Alexander Crummell and James McCune Smith (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Carla L. Peterson, University of Maryland

Giving the Past Presence: Public History Experiments in New York City – Marci Reaven, New York Historical Society

Pacific Encounter: The Japanese Iwakura Embassy in America in 1872 (Asian Studies Week) – Martin Collcutt, Princeton University

Feminism as Traveling Theory: The Case of Our Bodies, Ourselves (Joan S. Korenman Lecture) – Kathy E. Davis, Institute of History and Culture, Utrecht University, The Netherlands

Passage on the Underground Railroad and the Black Experience within American History (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Stephen Marc, Arizona State University

The Regression of Listening to the “Middle Eastern” Other – Lucian Stone, University of North Dakota

Approaching Authenticity: Locating Living Cultural Memories, Identities, and Traditions in the 21st Century – Neil Silberman, University of Massachusetts Amherst; Theodore Gonzalves, UMBC; Clifford Murphy, Maryland Traditions; Rachel Delgado-Simmons, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. Moderated by Michelle Stefano, Maryland Traditions and UMBC

Morality beyond Demands (Evelyn Barker Memorial Lecture) – Margaret Little, Georgetown University

Near Andersonville: Winslow Homer’s Civil War (W. Augustus Low Lecture) – Peter H. Wood, Duke University

Lost in the Unknown: Family Secrets and Their Consequences – Steve Luxenberg, Author of Annie’s Ghosts: A Journey Into a Family Secret and Associate Editor of The Washington Post

Higher Education? Some Pertinent and Impertinent Questions about the Value Students and Families Receive for their College Investment – Claudia Dreifus, New York Times columnist and Columbia University; and Andrew Hacker, Contributor to the New York Review of Books and Queens College, CUNY

After Hours in the Cerebral Kitchen: Experimental Filmmaking in the 21st Century – Fred Worden, UMBC

Cultic Revelries in the Egyptian New Kingdom (Ancient Studies Week) – Betsy Bryan, Johns Hopkins University

The Very Long Eighteenth Century: An Experiment in the History of Religion? (Robert K. Webb Lecture) – Robert K. Webb, UMBC

Politics and Policy in the 21st Century: Does Race Still Matter? (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Mary Frances Berry, University of Pennsylvania

Social Movements and Participatory Cultural Democracy in Latin America and the U.S. in a Time of Crises – James Counts Early, Smithsonian Institution

The “Viractual” – Joseph Nechvatal, The School of Visual Arts (NYC) and Galerie Richard, Paris

The Obama Effect (Panel discussion) – Heather E. Harris, Stevenson University; Kimberly R. Moffitt, UMBC; and Catherine R. Squires, University of Minnesota. Moderated by Dan Rodricks of WYPR’s “Midday With Dan Rodricks”

Sita Sings the Blues: The Ramayana and “Free Culture” – Nina Paley, Independent Filmmaker and Artist-In-Residence at QuestionCopyright.org

Maryland Traditions (Panel discussion) – Elaine Eff and Cliff Murphy, Co-directors, Maryland Traditions; Kara Rogers Thomas, Folklorist, Frostburg State University; Cynthia Byrd, Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art, Salisbury; Mark Puryear, Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage; and Lafayette Gilchrist, Maryland Traditions Apprentice

Harlem Renaissance Personages and Haiti (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Richard A. Long, Emory University

The Historian: Citizen of the World, and an Archive Mouse (Lipitz Lecture) – James S. Grubb, UMBC

Poetry Reading – Joelle Biele, Poet and Literary Critic

C.P. Snow’s “The Two Cultures”: A Fifty Year Perspective – G. Rickey Welch, UMBC, and Joseph N. Tatarewicz, UMBC

Politics, Expertise and the Two Cultures – Harry Collins, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff, UK

Lincoln and Darwin (Robert K. Webb Lecture) – Sandra Herbert, UMBC

The Parthenon Sculptures and Periklean Policies (Ancient Studies Week) – Jenifer Neils, Case Western Reserve University

Snow, Two Cultures, and the Science Wars – Steve Fuller, University of Warwick, UK

Global Climate Change: Science, Polity, and Authority – Naomi Oreskes, University of California, San Diego

The Two Cultures Today: An Interdisciplinary Panel Discussion on the Connections between the Sciences and the Humanities – Susan Dwyer, University of Maryland; Christoph Irmscher, Indiana University; Manil Suri, UMBC; and Tim Topoleski, UMBC

Three Cups of Tea – David Relin, Best-selling author, journalist and editor

Immigration and African Diaspora Women (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Nkiru Nzegwu, Binghamton University, State University of New York

Francophone Voices of the ‘New’ Morocco in Film and Print: (Re) presenting a Society in Transition – Valerie K. Orlando, University of Maryland

Street Scenes and Blues Lives: Bessie Smith’s Chattanooga (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Michelle Scott, UMBC

Missives on Music in the Seventeenth Century: A View of Education and Values – Skip Morin, UMBC

Virgin Territory: On Writing a History of Virginity – Hanne Blank, writer and independent scholar

Travels around the Globe and the Mind in A Trance After Breakfast – Alan Cheuse, George Mason University

The House at  Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood – Helene Cooper, New York Times White House correspondent and former diplomatic correspondent

If That Language May Be Dying, Why Are You Studying It? (Lipitz Lecture) – Thomas T. Field, UMBC

Gender and Human Rights in Contemporary Africa – Norma Kriger, Independent Scholar and Human Rights Watch

Social Justice, Health and Human Rights – Ruth Faden, Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics

Indigenous and Human Rights in Latin America – James D. Cockcroft, SUNY and Human Rights activist

Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Exhibiting Art and Culture around the Bay of Naples (Ancient Studies Week) – Carol Mattush, George Mason University

Mrs. Henry Hobhouse Goes to War: Conscience and Christian Radicalism in WWI Britain (Robert K. Webb Lecture) – Seth Koven, Rutgers University

DuBois and Africa: The Convergence of Consciousness (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Molefi Kete Asante, Temple University

What is Language for? – Robert Bringhurst, poet, typographer, and linguist

Reading Fiction, Reading Politics: Transnational Modernism and Political Commitment in the Mid-Twentieth Century – Jessica Berman, UMBC

The Glass Castle – Jeannette Walls, best-selling author

Panel Discussion on Transmodernism – James Mahoney, UMBC; Catherine Pancake, Independent Filmmaker and Musician; Elizabeth (Dori) Tunstall, School of Art and Design. Moderated by Preminda Jacob, UMBC

The Muslim Headscarf in Europe: Veiled Threat or Religious Freedom? (Women’s History Month Lecture) – Claudia Koonz, Duke University

Gaining Information, Knowledge, and Power in the 21st Century (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Carla Hayden, Enoch Pratt Free Library

Last One In – Elize Levine, award-winning author

Poetic Narrative: Non-linear Strategies for Digital Cinema (2nd Annual Lipitz Lecture) – John Sturgeon, UMBC

Living Myths: Joseph Beuys and Collective Memory – Lasse Antonsen, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth

Ideologies of Empires: The British Case and its American Echoes (Robert K. Webb Lecture)- Dane Kennedy, George Washington University

Women Writing Letters in Graeco-Roman Egypt (Phi Beta Kappa Lecture) – Roger Bagnall, New York University

Exploring the Origins of the Temple of the Goddess Mut at South Karnak (Ancient Studies Week) – Betsy Bryan, Johns Hopkins University

Media Convergence, Media Democracy – Jason Loviglio, UMBC

Black Leadership in America and the African Diaspora: Its Promises and Problems (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Ronald Walters, University of Maryland

The Age of Shiva – Manil Suri, UMBC

Drawing Serious Laughter: The Art of Political Satire – KAL, Kevin Kal Kallaugher, political cartoonist

What Does the Bible Say about Women? (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Adele Berlin, University of Maryland

Confederate Emancipation (W. Augustus Low Lecture) – Bruce Levine, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne

Verbs that move mountains: Poetry in a Time of Change – Ingrid De Kok, University of Cape Town

Princess Elizabeth Travels Across Her Kingdom in Life, in Text, and on Stage (Robert K. Webb Lecture) – Carole Levin, University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Decoding the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum (Ancient Studies Week) – Carol Mattusch, George Mason University

Who Wrote this Document? – Charles Nicholas, UMBC

Relevance of Du Bois for 21st Century Black America (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Manning Marable, Columbia University

The Changemakers: Ethical Leadership & Real Power – Naomi Wolf, journalist and political advisor

A Corpus Approach to Literacy and Language Variation in the Past – Thomas T. Field, UMBC

The Parthenon East Metopes: Technologies of the 21st Century and New Discoveries – Katherine A. Schwab, historian and archaeologist

Spirituality in African American Music (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Daphne Harrison, UMBC; Janice Jackson, UMBC; and Emmett G. Price, III, Northeastern University

Status Without Rights: African Americans and the Tangled History of Law and Governance in the Nineteenth-Century South (W. Augustus Low Lecture) – Laura F. Edwards, Duke University

Studying Television in the Post-Network Era: Responses to a Changing Media Industry – Horace Newcomb, University of Georgia

Don Quixote de la Mancha: Adventures in Reading – Harry Sieber, Johns Hopkins University

The Supernatural in the Ancient World: an Overview – Chris Hoffman, UMBC

‘To Receive the Oath and Brand of Slave’: Loyalty Oaths and Confederate Identity, 1861-1868 – Anne Rubin, UMBC

Black Academic Achievement in Science and Information Technology (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Carl Mack, National Society of Black Engineers

Marseille/Baltimore: Technology and the Image of Self – Lynn Cazabon, UMBC

A Writer’s Thoughts on Logic, Nature, People, and Science – John M. Barry, prize-winning author and journalist

A Reading of Published and Unpublished Works (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Edward P. Jones, Pulitzer-Prize Winning Author

Coming of Age in the Civil War South (W. Augustus Low Lecture) – James Marten, Marquette University

On a Mission from God? The Story of American Peoplehood Today – Rogers Smith, University of Pennsylvania

A Biography of No Place: 
Ukraine and the Making of Nation-Space – Kate Brown, UMBC

Fantasy and Fungi: Science and Imagination in the Life of Beatrix Potter- Linda Lear, Environmental Historian

Returning the Stones: Recreating Excavated Ekron (Ancient Studies Week) – Barry Gittlen, Baltimore Hebrew University

The Silk Road: 
Pathways to the Imagination – David Kalivas, University of Masachusetts Lowell

Reading Lolita in Tehran – Azar Nafisi, Johns Hopkins University

The W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture – Sheryll Cashin, Professor of Law, Georgetown University

Undergraduate Experiences in Humanities Research Students from the departments of History, English, and Ancient Studies

Darwin, Romantic Geologist? – Sandra Herbert, UMBC

Straddling Borders: literature and Identity in Subcarpathian Rus’ – Elaine Rusinko, UMBC

Sons of Homer: 
The Genealogy of the Epic Poem – Jonathan Tuck, St. John’s College

What’s Next? (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Walter Mosley, novelist and social commentator

America: the New Rome – Mortimer Sellers, University of Baltimore School of Law

Teaching New Dogs Old Tricks: New Technology, Design and Activism in Times of War – Natalie Jeremijenko, New York University

Archaeological Ethics and Pots: What’s the Connection? – Karen D. Vitelli, Indiana University

Intermedia: The Dick Higgins Collection (Symposium) – Hannah Higgins, University of Illinois at Chicago; Chris Thompson, Maine College of Art; Owen Smith, University of Maine. Moderated by Kathy O’Dell and Lisa Moren, UMBC

The Innocent Eye: Children and Photography – Wendy Ewald, Duke University

Breaking Loose Together – Marjoleine Kars, UMBC

Talking About Race, Learning About Racism: A Conversation for the 21st Century (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Beverly Daniel Tatum, President of Spelman College

Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express – Christopher Corbett, journalist and lecturer in English, UMBC

Film, Advertising, and the Avant-garde – Sabine Hake, University of Pittsburgh

Cultural Representation, Traffic, and Urban Modernity in Jazz Age America – Jeremiah B. Axelrod, University of California Humanities Research Institute

Eureka? The Archimedes Palimpsest – William Noel, The Walters Art Museum

From the African Loom to the American Quilt (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Gladys-Marie Fry, University of Maryland

Reflections on America’s Academic Achievement Gap: A 50-Year Perspective (W. Augustus Low Lecture) – Freeman Hrabowski, President, UMBC

Black Visual Theorists: a Spiritual Rendering – David Driskell, artist and scholar

The Battle for God – Karen Armstrong, writer

What the Future Holds: Jihad, McWorld, or Global Democracy? – Benjamin Barber, University of Maryland

Chinese Footbinding, Fashion, and Modernity – Dorothy Ko, Barnard College of Columbia University

Islam and Modernity: Radical versus Reformist Islam – Barbara Stowasser, Director of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University

Prophylaxis Against the Software Way of Knowledge – Paulina Borsook, journalist and writer

Reading the Paper: Newsprint and Modern Memory – Nicholson Baker, writer

An Evening with John Waters – John Waters, writer and filmmaker

The Healing Properties of the Blues – Bernice Johnson Reagon, composer, scholar, and activist

Directions in Research in the Humanities: New UMBC Faculty – Jessica Pfeifer, Philosophy; Jason Loviglio, American Studies; Christel Temple, Africana Studies; Barbara Mennel, Modern Languages and Linguistics, UMBC

The Economic of Global Culture – Tyler Cowen, George Mason University

What Makes a German? Race, Blood, and National Identity in 20th Century Germany – Fatima El-Tayeb, German historian and screenwriter

Death in the Life of Biblical Israel – Barry Gittlen, Baltimore Hebrew University

How Syntax Made Us Human – Derek Bickerton, University of Hawaii in Honolulu

Moral Challenges of a Democratic Society for the 21st Century (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – Vincent Harding, ILIFF of Theology

Student Research in the Humanities – Beth Pennington, Moderator

A Caribbean Writer: The Journey Home – Maryse Condé, Columbia University

Diversity and its Discontents: A Re-Examination – Arturo Madrid, Trinity University

Privacy: A Communitarian Perspective – Amitai Etzioni, George Washington University

Balancing Mythology with Mathematics: A Reading from The Death of Vishnus – Manil Suri, UMBC

Renee Stout, painter, sculptor, and multi-media artist (Daphne Harrison Lecture)

2001 A Space Odyssey: A Century of Vision and Reality – Joe Tatarewicz, UMBC

Context, Interpretation, and Pleasure: Faculty Panel I – Moderated by Kelley Bell, UMBC

The Much Vaunted Flotilla of Commodore Barney: Archaeological Revisions of Maryland’s Cultural Landscape (Ancient Studies Week)– Susan Langley, Maryland Historical Trust

Context Interpretation and Pleasure: Next Works and Words – Johanna Drucker, The University of Virginia

The State of the National Endowment for the Humanities – William Ferris, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities

The Legacy of Thurgood Marshall (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture) – James Freedman, University of Iowa

Context, Interpretation, and Pleasure: Faculty Panel II – Moderated by Elizabeth Walton, UMBC

Resistance, Rebellions, Revelations: Black Women’s Poetry as Redemptive History (Daphne Harrison Lecture) – Abena Busia, Rutgers University

Poetry Symposium  – Lucille Clifton, Leo Connellan
, Michael Fallon ,
Forrest Gander, 
Derrick Gilbert, 
Ray Gonzalez, 
Michael S. Harper, Anthony McGurrin, 
Linda Pastan, and 
Terence Winchs. Moderated by Michael Fallon, UMBC

Resistance, Rebellions, Revelations: Black Women’s Poetry as Redemptive History – Symposium: Framing the Exhibition, Multiple Constructions – Allan Wallach, College of William and Mary; Steven Newsome, Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture; Preminda Jacob, UMBC. Moderated by Leslie Prosterman, UMBC

Excursions in Time: Faculty Panel I – Sandra Herbert, History; Willie Lamouse-Smith, Africana Studies; Andy Miller, Geography and Environmental Systems. Moderated by Stuart Smith, UMBC

The Future Looks at the Past: Modern Technology and Ancient Sculpture – Carol Mattusch, George Mason University

Shirley A. Jackson, International Regulators Association (W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture)

Excursions in Time: Faculty II – Moderated by Scott Bass, UMBC

Doreen Bolger, Baltimore Museum of Art

Unlikely Prospects: On Time and Classical Film – George Wilson, Johns Hopkins University

Eye of the Storm: Photographs of Mildred Grossman – Paul Becker, former active member of the New York City Teachers Union; Steven I. Jackson, Cornell University; Naomi Rosenblum, art historian; Walter Rosenblum, photographer; Nick Salvatore, Cornell University

Fred Wilson, artist

Discursive Time – Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth, University of Edinburgh

Questioning the Millennium – Stephen Jay Gould, Harvard University

Nancy Morejon, poet

Faculty Panel: Arts and Sciences – Angela Moorjani, Modern Languages and Linguistics; Ray Starr, Psychology; Joel Sinsky, Physics; Stuart Smith, Music. Moderated by G. Rickey Welch, UMBC

Word+Image: Swiss Poster Design, 1955-1997 (Panel Discussion) – Thomas Strong, Strong-Cohen; Design and Christopher Pullman, WGBH

Faculty Panel II – Scholomo Carmi, Dean of Engineering and Computer Science; Patricia Scully, Education; Dorothy Beckett, Chemistry; Thomas Seidman, Mathematics. Moderated by Jo Ann Argersinger, UMBC

The Creative Act in the Arts (Symposium) – Stanley Cowell, composer; Petah Coyne, artist; Miriam De Costa-Willis, UMBC; Jewelle Gomez, poet and novelist; Rebecca Hoffberger, American Visionary Museum; Kathy O’Dell, UMBC; Wendy Salkind, UMBC; Renee Stout, artist; Jennifer Tipton, lighting designer; Liz Walton, UMBC

Reflections on Justice, Virtue, and Liberal Learning – Adam Yarmolinsky, UMBC

Form, Function in Architecture: Carlo Scarpa’s Brion Cemetery – R. Thomas Hille, architect

Poetry, Family, and Clinical Psychology: Common Ground – Robert Deluty, UMBC

My Journey as an Artist and Other Things – Kate Millett, author and artist

Gertrude and Sylvia: Kate Millett and Feminism – Arlene Raven, art historian and critic

Race and Gender: Imprisonment Practices in the United States – Angela Davis, University of California, Santa Cruz

“Will the World Run Out of Food? Malthusian and Cornucopian Perspectives – Warren Belasco, UMBC

Collecting for What Objectives: Smithsonian Dilemmas – I. Michael Heyman, Smithsonian Institution

Who Lost the Arts or Why America Has No National Arts Policy as We Approach the 21st Century – Roger Copeland, Oberlin College

Reconciliation of Science and Literature – Carl Djerassi, chemist and recipient of the Priestly Medal, the National Medal of Science, and the National Medal of Technology

Epistemic Trauma: Mixing Art and Science – Tom Vargish, UMBC; and Delo Mook, Dartmouth College

Taylor Branch, author and Pulitzer Prize winner (Augustus Low Lecture)

Derrick Bell
Maurice Berger
Homi Bhabha
Daniel Botkin
Svetlana Boym
Jutta Brueckner
Norma Cantu
Louise Chawla
Noam Chomsky
Robert Coles
Lisa Corrin
Patricia Cruz
Mary Beth Cryor
Doris Davenport
Alla Efimova
Raphael Falco
Renate Fischetti
Robert Forster
Peter Gay
Leon Golub
Sarah Greenough
William Harris
David Harvey
Walter Hill
Jo Anna Isaak
Galway Kinnell
Liz Kotz
Suzanne Lacy
Maud Lavin
Simon Leung
Susanna Toruella Leval
Elizabeth Clark Lewis
David Levering Lewis
Stephen Marc
Viktor Mazin
Pat McDermott
James McKusick
Anjela Moorjani
Kathy O’Dell
David Orr
Ed Orser
Marge piercy
Adrian Piper
Leslie Prosterman
Robert Provine
Franc Nunoo-Quarcoo
Arlene Raven
Ellen Reeder
Mark Sagoff
Helke Sander
Wendy Saul
Joan Shigekawa
Anna Deavere Smith
William D. Snodgrass
Nancy Spero
Gesine Strempel
Khal Torabully
Olessya Turkina
Carol Vance
Gary Vikan
Derek Walcott
Brian Wallis
Simon Watson
Cornel West
William E. Williams
Deborah Willis