Humanities Institute > Talks & Lecture Series > Humanities in the Village

Humanities in the Village

Crowd gathered at Bird in Hand coffeeshop looking at Prof. Laura Mason (seated upfront).
Professor Laura Mason speaks to an audience at Bird in Hand café for Humanities in the Village’s January 2023 event (alongside Professor Sarah Pearsall).

The Alexander Grass Humanities Institute (AGHI) and the Ivy Bookshop present an initiative in the public humanities called “Humanities in the Village.” The endeavor seeks to bring fresh scholarly work from our city’s thriving universities and colleges into conversation with a broader public audience. How does humanities research intersect with contemporary social and political concerns? Can we include these intersections in our developing work, bringing our scholarship into closer resonance with the pressing public matters of this time?

Join us for Humanities in the Village talks every month during the academic year and frequently during the winter and summer breaks. See our Events calendar for specific details.

Upcoming Spring 2023 Humanities in the Village Events

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Want to present at a Humanities in the Village event?

Have a new book, project, or discussion idea ready for a public audience and wider discussion? We are scheduling Humanities in the Village workshops for Fall 2023/Spring 2024. If you are a faculty member or graduate student at any Baltimore college or university and would like to pitch us an event for a public audience, please fill out our form.

Interested in attending?

  • Time: The last Monday of each month at 6:30 p.m.
  • Location: The Ivy Bookshop patio, Mt. Washington (whenever weather permits) OR Bird in Hand bookshop, Charles Village. (During the ongoing COVID-19 period, some talks may take place on Zoom.)
  • Format: Scholars present short and accessible excerpts of ongoing research, often in conversation with colleagues, followed by spirited sessions of collective discussion and feedback with the audience.
  • Audience: All are welcome! These events draw a diverse audience of local teachers, students, professionals, activists, book lovers, and public intellectuals.
  • Curator: William Egginton
  • Email: [email protected]

Past Humanities in the Village Events: 2023

  • January — Laura Mason, book event for The Last Revolutionaries (in conversation with Sarah Pearsall)
  • February — Elizabeth Bronwyn Boyd, book event for Southern Beauty (in conversation with Samanda Robinson)
  • March — Greg Smithsimon, book event for Liberty Road (in conversation with Lawrence Jackson)
  • August—Bill Egginton, book event for The Rigor of Angels (in conversation with Sean Carroll)
  • September—Melanie Marotta, book event for African American Adolescent Female Heroes (in conversation with Samanda Robinson)
  • More events for 2023–24 to come! Want to pitch us an event? Fill out this form.

Past Humanities in the Village Events: 2022

  • January 31 – Harold Morales: “Betting On Hope: Baltimore’s Black Butterfly and the Work Of 2020”
  • February 28 – John Murungi, Towson U: Decolonization of the Postcolonial African Body
  • March 28 – Jean McGarry, JHU: Book Release – Blue Boy (In-person / Bird in Hand)
  • April 25 – Tim Murray, Cornell University: Book talk – Technics Improvised: Activating Touch in Global Media Art (In-person at the Ivy Bookshop)
  • May 23 – Will Linder and Dr. Ralph Hruban – A Scientific Revolution
  • August 29 – Virginia Jewiss – A New Life For Dante’s Vita Nuova (In-person at the Ivy Bookshop)
  • September 26 – Sean Carroll – The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion (In-person at the Ivy Bookshop)
  • November 7 – Alexander Heffner – Journalist & Civic Educator (virtual)

Past Humanities in the Village Events: 2021

  • January 25 – Jeanne-Marie Jackson author of the African Novel of Ideas (In Conversation With William Egginton & Ato Quayson)
  • February 22 – Salvadore Pappalardo: Modernism In Trieste: Literary Europe And The Alternatives To National Identification
  • March 29 – Writing And Translating Love With Julien Tribotté, JHU, French
  • April 26 – Audrey Fastuca, Italian, JHU – Letting Southern Italy Speak for Itself
  • August 30 – Lingxin Zhang – Drugs, amulets, and birth charts: Women’s health in ancient Egypt
  • September 27 – Jennifer Stager & Leila Easa – “A Feminist Practice of Monumentalizing: Scaling Loss, Listing Names”
  • October 25 – Donald Berger – Where Poems Come From: A Poetry Reading and Discussion of Influence and Processes of Composition

 Past Humanities in the Village Events: 2020

  • January 27 – Jean McGarry, Writing Seminars, JHU – Reading “The Last Time,” a story from Dream Date
  • February 24 – A Conversation with Kondwani Fidel and Devin Allen
  • May 18 (online) – Jan Dutkiewicz, Political Science, JHU; Alex Blanchette
  • July 6 (online) – Before Comic Books: The Early Newspaper Comic Strip and American Culture, Jean Lee Cole, Loyola University of Maryland
  • July 27 (online) – Russia’s Age of Genius: Jeffrey Brooks, History, JHU
  • August 31 (online) – On Not Being Someone Else: Tales from our Unled Lives. Andrew H. Miller, English, JHU
  • October 26 (online) – Ernest Quarles, JHU – Framing Frederick Douglass: The Female Talented Tenth That Shaped America.
  • November 30 (online) – Martin Shuster, Philosophy, Goucher College: The Art and Politics of New Television