Alexander Grass Humanities Institute

08/05/2026

AGHI Director’s New Book Revives the Legacy of J.E. Casely Hayford! More here:

The University of Pretoria's Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship (CAS) recently hosted the South African launch of 'The Letter of the Law in J.E. Casely Hayford's West Africa,' a new book that shines a light on one of Africa's most influential, yet largely overlooked, intellectuals.

05/20/2026

A handy round-up of next year’s main Alexander Grass Humanities Institute programming, including our Yearly Conversation events with numerous Johns Hopkins faculty plus guests Teresa M. Bejan, Nana Osei Quarshie, and David Bromwich; our AGHI in Translation mini-residency with Deep Vellum Publishing, The Hopkins Review, and Lily Meyer; the Macksey Lecture with Yale’s Katie Trumpener; and a special conference on Arthur Lovejoy and the history of ideas co-sponsored by our Envisioning the Future award to celebrate JHU’s 150th anniversary. Plus, stay tuned for Humanities in the Village and Humanities on the Hill announcements - we’ve got some great surprises in store. We are also co-sponsoring more than TWENTY additional events. PHEW.

04/29/2026

04/21/2026

Only two weeks left to submit to the fifth annual Anne Frydman Translation Prize! This contest is open to all emerging translators (no book) and early-career translators (no more than one full-length book of translation). Tell a friend or two. We can't wait to read your work!

https://hopkinsreview.com/stephen-dixon-fiction-prize-anne-frydman-translation-prize

The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University Alexander Grass Humanities Institute Johns Hopkins University Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences Johns Hopkins University Press Johns Hopkins University The Hopkins Review Jeanne-Marie Jackson-Awotwi

04/15/2026

The level of excitement we are feeling right now at the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute is just 🤩! Announcing our inaugural cohort of AGHI Summer Spark classes and instructors. A new partnership with the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association Odyssey Lifelong Learning program, Summer Spark builds on the success of our previous Blast Courses to allow Johns Hopkins University Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences graduate scholars to design and teach interactive virtual seminars in their fields of expertise. Congratulations to Emmanuel Awine, Leib Celnik, Camille Roche, and Alison Wilkinson - we’re so excited to work with you!

Registration will be available soon!

03/05/2026

We are excited to share with you to upcoming details and poster of the theater show of Ibrahim Miari - In Between

In between is a semi-autobiographical one-man show that portrays the complexities and contradictions inherent in Palestinian-Israeli identity. On the precipice between two cultures stands Ibrahim Miari, son of a Palestinian Muslim father and Jewish Israeli mother. Written and performed by Ibrahim Miari.

When: Sunday, March 8th - 5:30PM-7:30PM
Where: The Bloomberg Student Center, Theater 105

You can find more information here: https://ibimiari.wixsite.com/website/about

02/24/2026

Happy publication day to our SECOND “AGHI in Translation” text! 🙌

Happy publication to THE INVISIBLE YEARS, an extraordinary novel by Rodrigo Hasbún, translated by and published in collaboration with the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute at Johns Hopkins ( ).

“A heady exploration of memory and friendship—and the places where both can fray.” —Kirkus Reviews

Andrea and Julián haven’t seen one another in twenty-one years—not since that tragic, fateful night their senior year of high school that marked their group of friends forever. A shocking phone call brings the two together again in Houston, where they begin to unravel the truth of that year, picking open long scabbed-over wounds from their upper-class adolescence in 1990s Bolivia and the scandal that ripped them apart.

A writer unhappy in his career and his marriage, Julián has been novelizing the past for his next book, trying to make meaning out of the events that changed the course of their lives forever. “I’d thought that writing about that time would free me, relieve the burden of the invisible years,” he writes, “but often it seems that it’s done the reverse.” Juxtaposing the naïve invincibility of adolescence with the grasping uncertainties of adulthood, THE INVISIBLE YEARS deftly weaves a coming-of-age tale that leaves the reader hanging on every word, even as they know how the cards fall in the end.