UChicago Arts Co-Hosts EXPO CHICAGO’s South Side Night April 22, 2025
For the fifth consecutive year, UChicago Arts showcases arts excellence across the University of Chicago and throughout neighboring south side communities.
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Media Mentions March 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.
What is 'recession pop' — and why is it making a comeback? New music from Kesha, Lady Gaga signals return to 'escapist pop bangers.'
Yahoo Entertainment
Paula Harper (music) was interviewed for this article on the resurgence of "recession pop"—the dance-floor anthems that offered escapist joy during the Great Recession and are now making a comeback. Harper explains how these songs served as “overcompensating counterpoints” to economic despair, offering “sonic bodily pleasure” in moments of uncertainty.
How much influence did white supremacist groups have on Chicago housing?
WBEZ
Adrienne Brown (English Language and Literature) was interviewed for this article on how white supremacist groups influenced Chicago housing segregation. She explains that while extremist groups like the White Circle League played a role, segregation was also upheld by real estate boards, neighborhood associations, and banks that adapted discriminatory practices even after legal barriers fell. Brown emphasizes that these systemic issues not only shaped Chicago’s housing market but also the lives and works of Black thinkers like Richard Wright, Lorraine Hansberry, and Gwendolyn Brooks.
Meet the Staff: Joshua Oaks
More than 100 staff members work in the Division of the Humanities. We’ll introduce you to our staff in this continuing series.
Joshua Oaks
Director of Digital Communications
Office of the Dean
UChicago announces unified Division of the Arts & Humanities
The University of Chicago has announced the Division of the Humanities and UChicago Arts have been unified into the new Division of the Arts & Humanities.
In a message to the UChicago community on April 9, President Paul Alivisatos and Provost Katherine Baicker called the announcement “an important milestone in the University’s academic evolution.”
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
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
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
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.