University of Virginia, College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Spring 2023 Distinguished Visitors

Killian Quigley (Feb. 10-17), Premesh Lalu (March 22-25), and Francesca Orsini (March 24-28)
Learn More

Mellon Fellow Book Talks, Spring 2023

Feb 3  – Samhita Sunya, Sirens of Modernity: World Cinema Via Bombay

March 17 – Paul Dobryden, The Hygienic Apparatus: Weimar Cinema and Environmental Disorder

April 7  – Aynne Kokas, Trafficking Data: How China is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty

 

Read For Action: 

Climate, Conflict & Humanitarian Crisis

Co-sponsored by the IHGC, United Nations, UVA Humanitarian Collaborative, and the Environmental Resilience Institute, Read for Action brings readers together to discuss contemporary novels about humanitarian crises intertwined with climate and environmental justice issues.

Learn more at https://www.readforaction.org/

"Planetary Futures"

Lecture by Dipesh Chakrabarty, University of Chicago
12:00-1:30pm, Thursday April 20, Wilson Hall 142

In person only

Premodern Encounters, Spring 2023 Colloqium Series 

Feb 2 - ​"Race and Empire in the Premodern World," Shao-yun Yang, Denison University and Michael Gomez, NYU

Mar 30 - "Premodern Textual Cultures," Marina Rustow, Princeton University and Daniel Wakelin, University of Oxford

April 13 - "Premodern Ecologies and Environments," Lydia Barnett, Northwestern University and Adam Goldwyn, North Dakota State University. 

Click here for additional information

Futurities Lecture Series

The year-long IHGC lecture series features humanists, scientists, writers, artists, and policy experts who explore burning questions about our unfolding futures.

See the Spring 2023 Lineup

Back to the Present

The time is now
Humanities Week 2023, March 27-31, 2023
Convened by Tori Custer, Maryann Xue, & Rebecca Barry
Learn More

Watch

Annual Report 2021-22

VIEW

News & Announcements

Fri Mar 24
Premesh Lalu, “Undoing Apartheid: Aesthetic Education" - Distinguished Visiting Scholar Lecture

Premesh Lalu, “Undoing Apartheid: Aesthetic Education" - Distinguished Visiting Scholar Lecture

Register Here

Professor Premesh Lalu is the former Director of the DSI-NRF Flagship on Critical Thought in African Humanities of the Centre for Humanities Research. Following an MA from the University of the Western Cape, he was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Doctoral Fellowship to read towards a doctorate in History at the University of Minnesota. In 2003 he successfully defended a doctoral dissertation titled “In the Event of History”. After sixteen years in the Department of History as an Associate Professor, Lalu was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant to convene a fellowship programme on the Study of the Humanities in Africa. He was promoted to full professor upon being appointed as Director of the Centre for Humanities Research in 2008. Lalu has published widely in academic journals such as History and Theory,  Journal of Southern African Studies, Afrika Focus, Journal of Higher Education in Africa, Kronos: Southern African Histories, Current Writing, Afrika Focus, Journal of Africa, Middle East and Asian Studies, Social Dynamics, and History in Africa. Lalu’s writing has appeared in newspapers and online platforms such as the Mail and Guardian, Dailymaverick, Africa is a Country, Business Day, the Cape Times as well as in edited publications. His book The Deaths of Hintsa: Postapartheid South Africa and the Shape of Recurring Pasts (2009) argues that a postcolonial critique of apartheid is necessary in order to forge a concept of apartheid that allows us to properly formulate a deeper meaning of the post-apartheid. He is co-editor of Remains of the Social: Desiring the Post-Apartheid (2017) and Becoming UWC: Reflections, Pathways and Unmaking Apartheid’s Legacies (2012). Lalu is a board member of the Consortium of Humanities Centres and Institutes, former chairperson of the Handspring Trust for Puppetry in Education, and former trustee of the District Six Museum in Cape Town, South Africa.

[field_location]
11:00am-12:30 EDT | Wilson 142
Mon Mar 27
Francesca Orsini, "Studying, Strolling, Overhearing: Poetry in Multilingual Early Modern North India" - Distinguished Visiting Scholar Lecture

Francesca Orsini, "Studying, Strolling, Overhearing: Poetry in Multilingual Early Modern North India" - Distinguished Visiting Scholar Lecture

Register Here

Francesca Orsini is a reader in the literatures of north India at SOAS, University of London, and works with Hindi, Urdu, and Indo-Persian texts. She is interested in the ways in which a multilingual approach to literary history can challenge identitarian approaches to literary history in India and also provide an appropriate model for understanding the dynamics of world literature from the bottom up.

[field_location]
4:30-6:00pm EDT | Wilson Hall 142
Thu Mar 30
Premodern Encounters Colloquium, "Premodern Textual Cultures"

Premodern Encounters Colloquium, "Premodern Textual Cultures"

Speakers for this colloqium event are Marina Rustow, Princeton University, author of The Lost Archive: Traces of the Caliphate in a Medieval Synagogue (2020) and Daniel Wakelin, University of Oxford, author of Immaterial Texts in Late Medieval England: Making English Literary Manuscripts, 1400–1500 (2022).

 

Each colloquium brings together two scholars whose recent work engages with similar themes from different cultural and temporal eras. Rather than delivering formal talks, speakers will initiate a dialogue that places their related works in conversation. Participants are encouraged to have read their books in advance and will be invited to attend a casual pre-discussion of these works prior to the colloquium. Hard copy and .pdfs of scholarship will be made available to colloquium participants upon request.  Contact Deborah McGrady (dlm4z@virginia.edu) for information.

[field_location]
5:00-7:00 PM (EST) | In Person (Location TBD)
Fri Apr 07
Aynne Kokas, Mellon Book Talk, "Trafficking Data: How China is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty "

Aynne Kokas, Mellon Book Talk, "Trafficking Data: How China is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty "

Register here. 

 

Aynne Kokas is the C.K. Yen Professor at the Miller Center and an associate professor of media studies at the University of Virginia. Kokas’ research examines Sino-U.S. media and technology relations. Her book Trafficking Data: How China is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty (Oxford University Press, October 2022) argues that exploitative Silicon Valley data governance practices help China build infrastructures for global control. Kokas is a non-resident scholar at Rice University’s Baker Institute of Public Policy, a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a fellow in the National Committee on United States-China Relations’ Public Intellectuals Program. 

[field_location]
10-11:30 AM EST | Wilson 142
Thu Apr 13
Premodern Encounters Colloquium, "Premodern Ecologies and Environments"

Premodern Encounters Colloquium, "Premodern Ecologies and Environments"

Speakers for this colloqium event are Lydia Barnett, Northwestern University, author of After the Flood: Imagining the Global Environment in Early Modern Europe (2022) and Adam Goldwyn, North Dakota State University, author of Byzantine Ecocriticism: Humans, Nature, and Power in the Medieval Greek Romance (2018). 

 

Each colloquium brings together two scholars whose recent work engages with similar themes from different cultural and temporal eras. Rather than delivering formal talks, speakers will initiate a dialogue that places their related works in conversation. Participants are encouraged to have read their books in advance and will be invited to attend a casual pre-discussion of these works prior to the colloquium. Hard copy and .pdfs of scholarship will be made available to colloquium participants upon request. Contact Deborah McGrady (dlm4z@virginia.edu) for information.

[field_location]
5:00-7:00 PM (EST) | In Person (Location TBD)

More Events

News & Announcements

Fri Mar 24
Premesh Lalu, “Undoing Apartheid: Aesthetic Education" - Distinguished Visiting Scholar Lecture

Premesh Lalu, “Undoing Apartheid: Aesthetic Education" - Distinguished Visiting Scholar Lecture

Register Here

Professor Premesh Lalu is the former Director of the DSI-NRF Flagship on Critical Thought in African Humanities of the Centre for Humanities Research. Following an MA from the University of the Western Cape, he was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Doctoral Fellowship to read towards a doctorate in History at the University of Minnesota. In 2003 he successfully defended a doctoral dissertation titled “In the Event of History”. After sixteen years in the Department of History as an Associate Professor, Lalu was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant to convene a fellowship programme on the Study of the Humanities in Africa. He was promoted to full professor upon being appointed as Director of the Centre for Humanities Research in 2008. Lalu has published widely in academic journals such as History and Theory,  Journal of Southern African Studies, Afrika Focus, Journal of Higher Education in Africa, Kronos: Southern African Histories, Current Writing, Afrika Focus, Journal of Africa, Middle East and Asian Studies, Social Dynamics, and History in Africa. Lalu’s writing has appeared in newspapers and online platforms such as the Mail and Guardian, Dailymaverick, Africa is a Country, Business Day, the Cape Times as well as in edited publications. His book The Deaths of Hintsa: Postapartheid South Africa and the Shape of Recurring Pasts (2009) argues that a postcolonial critique of apartheid is necessary in order to forge a concept of apartheid that allows us to properly formulate a deeper meaning of the post-apartheid. He is co-editor of Remains of the Social: Desiring the Post-Apartheid (2017) and Becoming UWC: Reflections, Pathways and Unmaking Apartheid’s Legacies (2012). Lalu is a board member of the Consortium of Humanities Centres and Institutes, former chairperson of the Handspring Trust for Puppetry in Education, and former trustee of the District Six Museum in Cape Town, South Africa.

[field_location]
11:00am-12:30 EDT | Wilson 142
Mon Mar 27
Francesca Orsini, "Studying, Strolling, Overhearing: Poetry in Multilingual Early Modern North India" - Distinguished Visiting Scholar Lecture

Francesca Orsini, "Studying, Strolling, Overhearing: Poetry in Multilingual Early Modern North India" - Distinguished Visiting Scholar Lecture

Register Here

Francesca Orsini is a reader in the literatures of north India at SOAS, University of London, and works with Hindi, Urdu, and Indo-Persian texts. She is interested in the ways in which a multilingual approach to literary history can challenge identitarian approaches to literary history in India and also provide an appropriate model for understanding the dynamics of world literature from the bottom up.

[field_location]
4:30-6:00pm EDT | Wilson Hall 142
Thu Mar 30
Premodern Encounters Colloquium, "Premodern Textual Cultures"

Premodern Encounters Colloquium, "Premodern Textual Cultures"

Speakers for this colloqium event are Marina Rustow, Princeton University, author of The Lost Archive: Traces of the Caliphate in a Medieval Synagogue (2020) and Daniel Wakelin, University of Oxford, author of Immaterial Texts in Late Medieval England: Making English Literary Manuscripts, 1400–1500 (2022).

 

Each colloquium brings together two scholars whose recent work engages with similar themes from different cultural and temporal eras. Rather than delivering formal talks, speakers will initiate a dialogue that places their related works in conversation. Participants are encouraged to have read their books in advance and will be invited to attend a casual pre-discussion of these works prior to the colloquium. Hard copy and .pdfs of scholarship will be made available to colloquium participants upon request.  Contact Deborah McGrady (dlm4z@virginia.edu) for information.

[field_location]
5:00-7:00 PM (EST) | In Person (Location TBD)
Fri Apr 07
Aynne Kokas, Mellon Book Talk, "Trafficking Data: How China is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty "

Aynne Kokas, Mellon Book Talk, "Trafficking Data: How China is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty "

Register here. 

 

Aynne Kokas is the C.K. Yen Professor at the Miller Center and an associate professor of media studies at the University of Virginia. Kokas’ research examines Sino-U.S. media and technology relations. Her book Trafficking Data: How China is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty (Oxford University Press, October 2022) argues that exploitative Silicon Valley data governance practices help China build infrastructures for global control. Kokas is a non-resident scholar at Rice University’s Baker Institute of Public Policy, a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a fellow in the National Committee on United States-China Relations’ Public Intellectuals Program. 

[field_location]
10-11:30 AM EST | Wilson 142
Thu Apr 13
Premodern Encounters Colloquium, "Premodern Ecologies and Environments"

Premodern Encounters Colloquium, "Premodern Ecologies and Environments"

Speakers for this colloqium event are Lydia Barnett, Northwestern University, author of After the Flood: Imagining the Global Environment in Early Modern Europe (2022) and Adam Goldwyn, North Dakota State University, author of Byzantine Ecocriticism: Humans, Nature, and Power in the Medieval Greek Romance (2018). 

 

Each colloquium brings together two scholars whose recent work engages with similar themes from different cultural and temporal eras. Rather than delivering formal talks, speakers will initiate a dialogue that places their related works in conversation. Participants are encouraged to have read their books in advance and will be invited to attend a casual pre-discussion of these works prior to the colloquium. Hard copy and .pdfs of scholarship will be made available to colloquium participants upon request. Contact Deborah McGrady (dlm4z@virginia.edu) for information.

[field_location]
5:00-7:00 PM (EST) | In Person (Location TBD)

More Events

News

Dissertation Prospectus Development Fellowships, 22-23

The Institute of the Humaities and Global Cultures is pleased to have offered dissertation prospectus development fellowships for three graduate stduents working across departments in the College of Arts & Sciences: Brittany Acors, Isabelle Ostertag, and Rebekah K. Latour.

Brittany Acors (PhD student, Religious...

New Faculty Fellows

For the 2022-23 academic year, the Institute of the Humanities and Global Cultures is pleased to welcome Elizabeth Shanks Alexander (Religious Studies) and Oludamini Ogunnaike (Religious Studies) as faculty fellows! Learn More

IHGC Working Group Events, Spring 2023

The IHGC is proud to support three working groups from 2022 to Fall 2023: the Environmental Humanities (EH) working group, Global Histories and Transgender Studies in the Humanities, and Theories and Practices of Listening. See a lineup of each group's events here

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Clay Endowments & Grants

Clay Endowments & Grants

The Institute of the Humanities and Global Cultures (IHGC) invites proposals for funding from the Buckner W. Clay Endowment to support innovative work in the global humanities at the University of Virginia. The Endowment provides an ambitious basis of support for faculty and student research and teaching to be conducted under the auspices of the IHGC. Faculty and students from across all schools and disciplines at the university are welcome and encouraged to apply. 

Learn More

Bologna

Summer School in Global Studies and Critical Theory

The Academy of Global Humanities and Critical Theory is a new research entity jointly promoted by the University of Virginia, Duke University and the University of Bologna. It is conceived as an intellectual space for scholars coming from different research fields and geographical regions to work together on the redefinition of the humanities in a global age.

Learn More

Publications