UChicago Division of the Arts and Humanities

09/02/2026

"Vulnerability as Legacy" — a night where honesty in music takes center stage

Friday, September 12, 2026 6:00 – 8:30 PM CDT Green Line Performing Arts Center, 329 E. Garfield Blvd FREE (plus free food and free parking)

From Robyn's Dancing on My Own to Beyoncé's Love On Top, Mariah Carey's Fly Like a Bird, and Raye's I Know You're Hurting — the songs that last share one thing: raw, uncomfortable honesty.

Join us for a night exploring why vulnerability in song isn't just an artistic choice, including a live DJ set, interactive stations, panel discussion, and after-event dance party.

Curated and hosted by Britt Julious — Chicago Tribune music critic, Studs Terkel Award winner, and 2023 Chicago Critics Table Cohort member.

Part of Arts and Public Life's ongoing series with Chicago Critics Table alumni.

Learn More:

The songs that last - Robyn's "Dancing on My Own," Beyoncé's "Love On Top," Mariah Carey's "Fly Like a Bird," Raye's recent ...

08/31/2026

Grossman Ensemble delivers a stunning modernist journey.

During TIME:SPANS the Grossman Ensemble — led by conductor Timothy Weiss — turned five independently composed works into one seamlessly interlocking experience, making it one of the finest evenings in the festival's history.

At the heart of it all: composer Augusta Read Thomas, founder of the ensemble, whose Solstice Ritual—Hommage to Varèse and Ravel closed the program with colorful orchestration, four percussionists, and a Messiaen-tinged sense of exalted ritual.

Learn More: http://ms.spr.ly/6186arYjY

UChicago Dept. of Music

08/28/2026

Experience “OBON,” a staged reading of a work-in-progress by acclaimed Japanese novelist and playwright Yū Miri on September 21 at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts. Miri is a recipient of Japan’s most prestigious literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, and the author of Tokyo Ueno Station, winner of the 2020 National Book Award for Translated Literature.

Register here:

This event will take place in the Theater West at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts. Monday, September 21, 2026 | 7 pm CT ...

08/26/2026

Considering graduate study in the Arts & Humanities at UChicago? Join our recruitment team on September 9 for an info session on our advanced degree programs and the application process. Learn more about departments, admissions, and what to prepare as you navigate the next step.

Sign up here:

Join the Division of the Arts & Humanities recruitment team for a conversation about graduate degree programs in the Humanities and the graduat...

08/24/2026

Harrison Smith (AB’14) was named Obituary Writer of the Year in 2019, a recognition affectionately known as a “Grimmy.” He has also covered major events as a writer for The Washington Post, including the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, part of the paper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning public service coverage in 2022.

As an English major at UChicago, Smith discovered narrative nonfiction through writers like Joan Didion and John McPhee. He found in obituary writing a home for the same craft: turning the facts of life into a compelling story that illuminates a person and their time.

As Smith puts it, obituaries offer “a wonderful showcase for narrative writing.”

Learn more in UChicago Magazine:

Journalist Harrison Smith, AB’14, reflects on the craft of obituary writing.

08/21/2026

With UChicago’s new archaeology major, students combine robust humanistic inquiry with the study of objects left behind by people long ago.

Attending “Ceramic Analysis in Archaeology” in the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures Museum Institute, students learned from Derek Kennet, Howard E. Hallengren Professor in Arabian Peninsula and Gulf States Archaeology in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies. Each week, they studied a different era or technique of pottery-making before examining ceramic fragments and nearly intact pieces.

Undergraduates worked alongside graduate researchers, a common type of intellectual exchange in the Arts & Humanities Division. Students at every level learned from one another while decoding material evidence of the past.

Learn more about the course:

Course at UChicago’s ISAC Museum teaches how to think like an archaeologist with hands-on approach

08/19/2026

At UChicago, architecture students are invited to think with the civic life of a city.

In a new Q&A, Ann Lui, incoming Associate Professor of Practice in the Arts and Director of Undergraduate Architectural Studies, discusses the ideas behind Art History’s architecture minor and the possibilities that emerge when the liberal arts and architectural thinking meet. The minor gives students a chance to approach built environment as a site of cultural, political, and social inquiry.

Learn about Lui’s approach to teaching and her own work in the South Side.

Read on:

Associate Professor of Practice in the Arts brings nationally recognized design practice, adding her interdisciplinary vision to Art History Department This Autumn, architect, designer, and educator Ann Lui will take up her post as Associate Professor of Practice in the Arts and Director of Undergra...

08/17/2026

At “Manuscript Meet and Greet,” scholars and archive enthusiasts can gather at the Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center to explore objects selected by Elizabeth Frengel, curator of rare books and director of the Kim-Park Program for the Study of the Book.

At the last meeting, visitors examined materials ranging from manuscripts to early printed books, including a first Russian Iliad translation produced as part of Catherine the Great’s efforts to have classical texts translated. Learn more about the series and get on the events list for future intimate glances at book history—a scholarly obsession that anyone can develop.

Behold old books:

At this speed dating event, damage and mysterious pasts are welcome.

08/14/2026

We remember Joel Snyder, scholar, teacher, photographer, and a foundational figure in the study of photographic history at UChicago and beyond.

For more than five decades, Snyder challenged students and colleagues alike to look harder, think more carefully, and question what others took for granted. One of the first faculty members in the US hired specifically to teach the history of photography, he helped establish the field while shaping generations of scholars, curators, and artists through his exacting intellect and deep generosity.

His legacy lives on in the classroom, in museums and archives, and in the habits of attention he inspired: scrupulous looking, rigorous questioning, and a refusal of easy answers.

Read more about Joel Snyder’s life and legacy:

UChicago’s PhD, MA, and MFA programs combine disciplinary acuity with explorations that span departments and expand fields of knowledge. Widely recognized for rigor and innovation, our programs train world-class scholars, artists, and leaders across academia and other professions.

08/12/2026

A major honor for Jacqueline Stewart: the acclaimed film historian, curator, and founder of the South Side Home Movie Project has been named a 2026–2027 Getty Scholar.

At the Getty Research Institute, Stewart will develop a new book drawn from two decades of work preserving and studying home movies from Chicago’s South Side. The project will become the first book-length study of African American home movies, exploring how Black families documented their lives, communities, and aspirations on film across the twentieth century.

From family keepsakes to vital historical records, these films open powerful new ways of seeing Black cultural life, memory, and visual history.

Learn more:

UChicago’s PhD, MA, and MFA programs combine disciplinary acuity with explorations that span departments and expand fields of knowledge. Widely recognized for rigor and innovation, our programs train world-class scholars, artists, and leaders across academia and other professions.