2023

Community Amplified: Harnessing the Collective Potential for Lasting Impact

This presentation delves into two compelling case studies that illuminate the dynamic interactions between UChicago students and the diverse, vibrant Chicago community, emphasizing the power of meaningful community connection and engagement. The first case study examines how to foster meaningful and enduring cross-cultural understanding between the Latinx and the University of Chicago communities. It focuses on El Cafecito, a culturally immersive activity series at the University of Chicago, which engages with target language enclaves within the Latinx community.

Porous Instruments: Synthesizers and the Circulation of Cultural Values

Electronic sound pervades our experiences: A sci-fi thriller opens with electronic whirrs, clicks, and hums; teenagers lose themselves in the trance-inducing loops of DJ-produced electronic dance music; hip hop producers create sick beats from the mechanical thumps of drum machines. How did electronic sound become so ubiquitous? Culturally speaking, why does electronic music matter?

SOLD OUT: How Not to Read the Qur’ān

This presentation is sold out. The Qur’ān’s complex literary form has long impeded Western engagement with the sacred scripture of Islam. Despite containing many of the same characters, stories, and themes as the Jewish and Christian Bibles, the Qur’ān does not read like the scriptures with which many Western audiences are familiar. This session investigates this tension and outlines the most productive ways for new readers to engage with the Qur'ān.

Plucking and Bowing: Developing Two Instrument Types in Central Asia

This presentation will examine the origins of two types of instruments, the long-necked plucked lute and the long-necked two-stringed "fiddle" in Central Asia and Siberia, and their possible common ancestor. The session also looks at the various uses of these instruments in the hands of performers such as bards and healers, explore modern iterations of these instruments among various Central Eurasian peoples, and discuss the influences these instrument types may have had on other related instruments elsewhere in the world.

Information as a Blessing and a Curse

Information is the blessing and the curse of our digital age. How do writers adopt, and adapt, literary forms to manage information in novels, poetry, and literary nonfiction? Several University of Chicago faculty members in Creative Writing will discuss the many forms that information assumes in their art, in the lives of their characters and creations, and in their classrooms.