In this session, the presenter will address one of the most important and least understood periods in the development of the ancient “global economy.” About 1,200 years ago, at a time when the early Islamic empire of the Abbasids in the Middle East and Tang China were the two global superpowers, daring merchant seafarers began—for the first time in history—sailing from the Middle East to China.
With the flourishing of new arts programs in theater, creative writing, and media arts and design at the University, the Humanities is now reimagining itself as a place not only for thinking about art but also for making art. In this session, five UChicago faculty members will discuss how their “Arts Labs” initiative at the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society seek to shape a culture of experimentation and critical analysis around arts research.
Multi-species commingling and augmented reality come together in Untidy Objects, a gardened site, where we are invested in revealing the untidiness of property, rights, and obligations, in proximity to joy, survival, play, dirt and code.
In the 2020s, we have seen an unprecedented expansion of transmedia storytelling (a narrative technique in which a story is told across multiple platforms and formats). While the constellation of “Web 3.0” is arguably more of a buzzword than a present reality, new or expanded technologies and forms have emerged, including augmented reality, virtual reality, artistic applications of AI and machine learning, play-to-earn games, and more.
What is the Humanities Core? Why is it foundational to the University’s educational mission? How did it come to be? And how has it changed over time? This hands-on session enables participants to experience just one of the many ways that the Humanities Core Curriculum extends beyond the classroom, to appreciate changing approaches to the Humanities over the past century, and to learn about the depth of undergraduate research engagement with the University’s Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center at the Regenstein Library.
This presentation offers an introduction to the book cultures of Spain and Latin America in the early modern period. Working hands-on with books printed between 1500 and 1700, attendees will view original examples of works of anatomy, botany, devotion, law, fiction, and poetry from the Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center at the Regenstein Library as well as authors such as Miguel de Cervantes, Garcilaso de la Vega el Inca, and María de Zayas.
How do singers cast spells on listeners? And why does singing carrying such special powers to cause deliriums and entrancements, even beyond preaching, acting, or rallying the masses? This presentation looks at the circuitry that operates between singers-as-spell-casters and target-listeners.
While games are often associated with frivolous fun, game designers are increasingly exploring whether play can be a productive force to tackle our world’s problems. This presentation will discuss different ways that video games are being deployed to “serious” ends: educating players about tough social or scientific problems like climate change, inviting the public to volunteer to be a part of research projects, and helping people make necessary lifestyle changes.
Most of us seek to be reasonably good people leading reasonably good lives. There is a mountain of evidence suggesting that almost none of us live up to our own standards. This presentation will focus on the place of ongoing character development in helping us narrow the gap between the people we'd most like to be and the people we are, no matter what sort of vision we have of what it takes to live well.
Like many holidays, Halloween is often treated as empty fun; its content—which plainly concerns death and its place in life—is dismissed as irrelevant to the meaning of the holiday as it is now practiced although it is conceded that this macabre content may be part of the historical origins of Halloween. In this session, the presenter will argue that this "nothing to see here" attitude should be rejected, and that Halloween can give us the opportunity to think through the central question facing all of us: How should we live?
