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Media Mentions February 2025

The latest media mentions, quotes, profiles, and writings from Division of the Humanities faculty, students, staff, and alumni.

The Necessity of Nussbaum
Aeon
Martha C. Nussbaum (Philosophy and Law) is praised for her influential work in ethics, political philosophy, and human development. The article highlights her capabilities approach, her theory of emotions as central to ethical reasoning, and her critique of anger as a response to injustice.

Agnes Callard: «What is Free Speech?»
Det humanistiske fakultet UiO
Agnes Callard (Philosophy) discusses a Socratic approach to free speech, rejecting standard liberal models—debate, the marketplace of ideas, and persuasion—for failing to prevent the politicization of speech. She explains what politicization is, why it is coercive, and how Socrates’ conversational method offers a way to avoid it.

Theaster Gates: ‘I’m an artist. It’s my job to wake things up’
The Guardian
Theaster Gates’ (Visual Arts) 1965: Malcolm in Winter: A Translation Exercise explores the intersections of civil rights history, material culture, and global craft traditions. By engaging archival materials—including a rare collection of Malcolm X translations—Gates reactivates historical memory as a form of aesthetic and political resistance.

The Biggest Reason to Be Optimistic About 2025, According to Philosophers
Newsweek
Martha C. Nussbaum (Philosophy and Law) is quoted in this article, stating that the greatest reason for optimism in 2025 is “the energy, intelligence, and compassion of young people.”

Neubauer Collegium Selects Faculty Research Projects for 2025–2026

Let’s Get It On: The Wearable Art of Betye Saar Exhibition

The Neubauer Collegium has announced nine new faculty-led research projects exploring interdisciplinary topics such as (socio)linguistic theory, the evolving role of AI in the humanities, the opportunities and challenges of artistic research, among others. Sixteen faculty members from the Division of the Humanities will participate.

Life with Untimely Questions: Q&A with Agnes Callard

Agnes Callard doesn’t only study and teach philosophy—she lives it. Whether debating a friend over dinner, leading a late-night discussion in Hyde Park, or questioning her own beliefs in print, she treats inquiry as an open-ended pursuit rather than a search for fixed truths. A philosopher of ancient thought and modern dilemmas, she is known for her relentless curiosity, her insistence on argument as a mode of friendship, her appreciation for colors and their beauty, and her commitment to intellectually challenging both herself and others—often in public. For Callard, inquiry is essential to living a meaningful life. The following conversation delves into Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life, its central themes, and why, for her, philosophy is not just something we can study—it’s something we can live with.

Meet the Staff: Trevor McCulloch

More than 100 staff members work in the Division of the Humanities. We’ll introduce you to our staff in this continuing series.

Trevor McCulloch
Student Affairs Administrator
Department of English Language and Literature

What do you like most about your job?

Talking to undergraduate students about their interests and what they’re enjoying in their classes. Their enthusiasm is infectious, and I love hearing firsthand how they’re exploring their passions. I also work alongside some wonderful administrative staff and faculty—everyone has been so kind and welcoming!

What was the last good book you read?

Patricia Highsmith’s Edith’s Diary. Highsmith is a favorite of mine, and I’ve been working my way through all her novels. I would never call her vision of the world warm or optimistic (she was known in life to be quite misanthropic!), but I find her books perversely comforting. Though not quite a thriller, the title character succumbs to her pathologies through her banal life, much like many of Highsmith’s characters, who discover their capacity for violence and madness in the everyday. Anyone can be a psychopath! This probably says more about me than it does about Miss Highsmith . . .

You might work with me if . . .

You need any information regarding undergraduate studies, course scheduling, or general information about the English department.

Have you come across someone or something recently—like an activity, object, or idea—that’s been inspiring or uplifting?

I’ve recently been engaging (or reengaging) with the films of Chantal Akerman and catching up on some blind spots in her filmography. Her personal history isn’t the sunniest, and her films are often steeped in alienation and loneliness. But in their formal beauty and generous humanity, they search for connection and meaning while grappling with the difficulty of a world that often seems to limit connection. Seeing the films actively work through these problems has been poignant, and even at their bleakest, they represent a powerful search for truth and meaning.

Winter Dean's Salon: February 25, 2025

Dreaming Home: The Cultural Imagination and Racial Realities of Home Ownership - February 25, 2025, at 6:30 p.m. (CST). Video and resources from this event coming soon.

Media Mentions January 2025

The latest media mentions, quotes, profiles, and writings from Division of the Humanities faculty, students, staff, and alumni. Visit us on X, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook for more updates.

Commitment to History
Anandabazar Patrika
Rochona Majumdar (South Asian Languages and Civilizations) pays tribute to Shyam Benegal, who began his career at the height of the Indian new wave. She highlights his work in film, television, and documentary highlighting his commitment to history, radical cinema, and social critique. From Ankur (1974) to Mammo (1994), his films expose systemic oppression while exploring India’s evolving identity.

Snehalata Mukhopadhyay: The teen whose dowry death shook 20th-century Bengal into action
The Indian Express
Rochona Majumdar (South Asian Languages and Civilizations) is featured in the article through her book Marriage and Modernity: Family Values in Colonial Bengal. In it, she examines Snehalata Mukhopadhyay's tragic suicide, which stemmed from her family's inability to afford the dowry required for her marriage, as one of the most debated cases in Bengali and Indian history. Prof. Majumdar provides critical historical context and analysis, linking this personal tragedy to broader themes of family values, societal expectations, and gender oppression in colonial Bengal.

Thomas ‘Tom’ Mapp, visionary arts educator and administrator at UChicago, 1936‒2024

Thomas 'Tom' Mapp, a transformative leader in arts education and administration at the University of Chicago, passed away on Nov. 11, 2024. He was 88.

Mapp worked at UChicago for 26 years, beginning in 1975. He served as the second director of Midway Studios, part of the Committee on Art and Design within the Department of Art History, which also oversaw the Master’s in Fine Arts program. Over his tenure, he helped reshape the program to focus on intellectual rigor and artistic innovation. By 1996, Mapp had overseen its evolution into the Committee on the Visual Arts, independent from Art History with its own faculty chair and budget, laying the groundwork for what is now the Department of Visual Arts.

Humanities Day, in brief

James F. Osborne, associate professor in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, spoke on the love affair between archaeologists and pottery. (Photography by Joe Sterbenc)

The UChicago Division of the Humanities showcased the depth and impact of arts and humanities research during our annual signature event, Humanities Day, on Oct. 26, 2024.

'UChicago Magazine' highlighted faculty presentations, including Derek Kennet’s exploration of ancient shipwrecks and early globalization, Jason Salavon’s insights on AI’s influence on creativity, and Eric Slauter’s talk, which focused on the Humanities Core, and how faculty, including himself, have introduced students to primary texts and to the task of confronting them collaboratively as an academic community.

Meet the Staff: Anna Hornsby

More than 100 staff members work in the Division of the Humanities. We’ll introduce you to our staff in this continuing series.

Anna Hornsby
Department Administrator
Classics Department

What do you like most about your job?

My educational background and interests are well aligned with the Classics Department, with an MA in Archaeology focused on Viking Age Scandinavia. So it is nice to be back around faculty and students who are teaching and researching in areas I am also interested in.

What was the last good book you read?

I finally read Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel Persepolis over the break. It's gorgeous, and I highly recommend it.

You might work with me if …

Your department works closely with Classics, overlapping with courses or events amongst our departments.

What are you looking forward to in 2025 and why?

In August of 2024, I moved from Austin, Texas, to Chicago. I’ve lived in several states and a couple of countries over the years, and so while large moves aren’t new, this one was a part of a bigger life-changing experience. With it also came my move from The University of Austin to UChicago!

2025 will be my first full year in Chicago, so I’m looking forward to exploring the city more, watching it change with the seasons, and finding new things to try (like the Silent Book Club and Queer Soup Kitchen at Dorothy’s).

Five UChicago Humanities Faculty Members Receive Named, Distinguished Service Professorships

Five University of Chicago Humanities faculty members have received distinguished service professorships or named professorships.

Profs. Josephine McDonagh, Sianne Ngai and Jacqueline Najuma Stewart have received distinguished service professorships.

Profs. Hans Thomalla and Ming Xiang have received named professorships.

Theaster Gates's House Museum Gone Wild

UChicago scholar and artist Theaster Gates

Theaster Gates’s latest exhibition, When Clouds Roll Away: Reflection and Restoration from the Johnson Archive, would give all but the most radical archivist a heart attack.

International scholars recognize UChicago professor's original thinking

UChicago Prof. Eric Santner does not belong to one discipline. Instead, he has explored different fields, which has led him to develop diverse concepts that combine literature, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and religious thought.

In tribute to his intellectual contributions, the "Angelaki, Journal of the Theoretical Humanities," recently devoted an entire special issue to him called “Politics of the Flesh.” The issue contains articles written by an international group of philosophers, theologians, legal scholars, political theorists, and literary scholars who have found in Santner’s work resources for rethinking problems in their own areas of research. The authors presented many of these papers at an international conference called “The Weight of All Flesh” held in Munich in June 2023 at the Hochschule für Philosophie.

Welcome to Haven Academy

When logging onto the game, students see the five islands that make up Haven Academy. (Provided by the Weston Game Lab)

Throughout your exploration of this world, you discover a number of mysteries and solve puzzles, all while interacting with characters and your fellow students en route to discovering deeper truths about the university—and working together to make a big decision.

This is Haven Academy, a multimedia role-playing game created by UChicago scholars and students to help orient first-year College students to the Core curriculum, university life and the Chicago Principles of free expression. This summer, more than 1,000 incoming first-years engaged with Haven during Orientation—and the game has been made available to all undergraduates to play and experience over winter break.

UChicago students engage their senses outside the classroom

UChicago scholars Amber Ginsburg (right) and Jennifer Scappettone (second from right) discuss the history of the Chicago River during a class trip on a water taxi. Photo by Jean Lachat

On an unusually warm November day, a group of University of Chicago students walked through Jackson Park in Chicago, listening for natural and unnatural sounds. Bird calls were drowned out by crunching gravel, and the hum of cars mixed with rustling leaves. Though the park appeared a natural oasis, it sounded far from bucolic.

This Autumn Quarter, the course “Sensing the Anthropocene” challenged students to engage senses often dulled in the classroom: hearing, touch, taste and smell. Co-taught by UChicago scholars Amber Ginsburg and Jennifer Scappettone, the course took students across Chicago to grapple with how our built urban environment has transformed the natural one.

Humanities scholar analyzes racial perceptions through architecture and home ownership

Dancers from Kuumba Lynx Youth perform at the opening celebration of the APL Arts Lawn on Oct. 7, 2023. Photo by Anjali Pinto

Assoc. Prof. Adrienne Brown’s groundbreaking research connects the architecture of skyscrapers and the propaganda of home ownership to key transformations in race’s perception. She finds strong evidence to support her argument in political, organizational, and literary sources of the 20th century, with culprits as varied as politicians like Herbert Hoover, organizations such as the National Association of Realtors, and writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Her first book, The Black Skyscraper: Architecture and the Perception of Race (2017), shows the skyscraper’s influence on the shape of modern U.S. cities and the racial perceptions of its residents. For Brown’s insights, her first book won the Modernist Studies Association’s 2018 First Book Award. Her new book, Residential Is Racial: A Perceptual History of Mass Ownership (2024), is equally groundbreaking as she discusses how mass homeownership changed the definition, perception, and value of race in the U.S.

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