News

Two UChicago Professors Discuss Using Alternate Reality Gaming for New Student Orientation at the 2018 Humanities Day

UChicago students enhance their campus orientation through an ARG program.

UChicago professors Patrick Jagoda and Kristen Schilt will present the session “Transforming First-Year Orientation Through Alternate Reality Gaming” at the 2018 Humanities Day, Oct. 20, on the UChicago campus. The two professors helped to design an Alternate Reality Game “the parasite” for new student orientation. ARGs use transmedia storytelling, online and offline gameplay, and social interactions to create dynamic platforms of play, which include both designers and players. A recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education explains more about how ARGs work to enhance the experience for students.

October 15, 2018

World-Famous Musical Composer Augusta Read Thomas to Discuss Composing an Opera at the 2018 Humanities Day

Augusta Read Thomas by Anthony Barlich

UChicago University Professor Augusta Read Thomas will present the session “An Opera in the Making” at the 2018 Humanities Day, Oct. 20, on the UChicago campus. Her presentation will give a glimpse into the creative process of a world-class composer. A recent Big Brains podcast with Thomas also discusses the state of classical music today, and how she helps train the next generation of composer

October 15, 2018

Prominent Performance Artist Pope.L to Co-Present Session at the 2018 Humanities Day

William Pope.L

William Pope.L and Amber Ginsberg will co-present the session “Poetics in a Time of Climate Collapse and Human Rights Abuses” at the 2018 Humanities Day, Oct. 20, on the UChicago campus. Pope.L’s artistic work is a theatrical provocation that combines scathing satire with heartfelt activism. A recent article about the UChicago professor in the New York​ Times gives more context and examples of his work.

October 15, 2018

Renowned UChicago Linguist Chris Kennedy to Deliver Keynote Address at 2018 Humanities Day

Chris Kennedy, 2018 Humanities Day Keynote Presenter

Chris Kennedy will present the keynote address on October 20 at the 2018 Humanities Day on the UChicago campus. He is the William H. Colvin Professor of Linguistics and Chair in the Department of Linguistics. In his keynote presentation, Kennedy explores the meaning of truth and the role it plays in thought and communications. He also examines why people should care about truth. In this edited question and answer, Kennedy discusses how meanings and context in language and the sincerity and trust it engenders can influence truth. Here's a podcast of Chris Kennedy discussing "Truth."

October 15, 2018

Philosophy Professor Gabriel Richardson Lear to Deliver Aims of Education Address

Gabriel Richardson Lear

Gabriel Richardson Lear, professor in the Department of Philosophy, the Committee on Social Thought, and the College, will deliver the Aims of Education address to incoming UChicago students on Sept. 27 at 6:30 p.m. in Rockefeller Memorial Chapel. During this celebrated UChicago tradition, she will talk about wonder and how it helps us to understand the world and ourselves.
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September 26, 2018

Edward Wasiolek, renowned scholar of Russian literature, 1924–2018

Edward Wasiolek, 1924-2018

In his 40-plus-year career at the University of Chicago, Edward Wasiolek became a renowned scholar of Slavic and comparative literature, and particularly of Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Wasiolek edited five volumes devoted to the notebooks for Dostoevsky’s novels, translated and edited volumes on Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, and wrote the widely acclaimed Dostoevsky: The Major Fiction (1964). He also wrote Tolstoy’s Major Fiction (1978) and gave a distinguished presentation on Tolstoy to the United Nations in 1988.

Wasiolek, who passed away on May 3 at age 92, taught from 1955 to 1996 at UChicago, where he was the Avalon Foundation Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Comparative Literature, and the College. He also served as the chair of the Comparative Literature Program and of the Department Slavic Languages and Literatures.

September 18, 2018

Heralded Composer and UChicago Colleagues Launch New Concert Series

Inaugural Season of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition

Award-winning UChicago composer Augusta Read Thomas is championing the inaugural session of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition. She sees the opening season for these concerts as the start that advances beyond the UChicago campus. For example, one of Center’s featured musicians in the the Grossman Ensemble “could be ambassadors for the university and the city and the composers, and themselves,” says Thomas, University Professor of Composition in the Music Department of the Division of the Humanities.
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September 12, 2018