Dialogs: Actor/Performer/Etc. Alan Cumming Brings Charm and Stories to Chicago Humanities Festival
By Carr Harkrader With its dramatic palazzo ornamentation, twinkling star-lit ceiling, and mischievous cherubs nuzzling within insets, the Music Box Theatre was perhaps the perfect place for a talk with […]
Dialogs: Should Social Media Be Regulated? CHF Panel Considers a Thorny Question
Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are private entities even though we may think of them as similar to public “marketplaces of ideas.” A panel of three experts on […]
Dialogs: Young Activists Discuss Grief, Action, Hope, Radical Love in CHF Panel
Four Chicagoans—and one cute and persistent dog—joined together in the Chicago Humanities Festival panel “Youth Leading Change” to discuss grief, collective action, hope, and radical love. The panel began in […]
Dialogs: 2020 CHF Event—Chicago Neighborhood Check-in: Arts and Neighborhood Development
Reported by C.E. Archer-Helke In a Chicago Neighborhood Check-In as lively and vibrant as any in-person panel, Bernard Lloyd of Urban Juncture and Build Bronzeville; Billy Ocasio, “reformed” politician and […]
Dialogs: 2020 CHF Event—Discussing MLK and Malcolm X with Dr. Peniel E. Joseph
Reported by Carr Harkrader “Whoever heard of a revolution that came out singing, and not swinging,” Malcolm X asked about the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolent civil rights strategy. […]
Dialogs: 2020 CHF Panel—A Scholarly Conversation on Author Elena Ferrante’s Transnational Appeal
The Chicago Humanities Festival recently hosted a conversation among Katherine Hill, Merve Emre, and translator Ann Goldstein, all scholars of elusive Italian novelist Elena Ferrante. The discussion is available to […]
Dialogs: 2020 CHF Panel Discusses Art as a Means to Social Change
Art in the Moment Reported by C.E. Archer-Helke Speaking from separate corners of Chicago, Chicago artists Bob Faust, Edra Soto, and Sadie Woods and art historian Greg Foster-Rice brought warmth, […]
Dialogs: CHF Panel Explores Racist Corners of American History in What’s Next: Wealth, Property and Inequality
Reported by C.E. Archer-Helke In a Chicago Humanities Festival panel moderated by Chicago journalist Natalie Moore, economist William Darity, legal scholar Matthew L.M. Fletcher, and historian Rebecca K. Marchiel brought […]
Dialogs: Two Screenwriters Talk About Their New Novels—Utopia Avenue and Antkind
It was just serendipity that the Chicago Humanities Festival scheduled two screenwriters with hot new novels two weeks in a row for their livestream show. Well, serendipity and the fact […]
Roxane Gay, Camille Paglia and Jessa Crispin at War in My Head
Several weeks ago, I went to hear Roxane Gay read from her latest book Hunger as a part of the Chicago Humanities Festival Now summer programming. The event fell on […]
George Saunders, Pop Culture Phenom, Comes to Chicago
I’ve liked George Saunders’ since I read his short story collection Pastoralia as a freshman in college. I’d never read anything like it. There was a historical re-enactment theme park, […]