News
Call for Papers: “Contours of Pain: Perspectives from the Humanities”
The Reevaluating Care in the Global Economy Humanities Working Group invites proposals for an interdisciplinary workshop, “Contours of Pain,” to be held at the University of South Carolina (Columbia, SC) on February 18 and 19, 2027.
Download the full call for papers.
Submissions are due October 26, 2026.
Fall 2026 Events
Workshop
Time: 9:30–11:30 a.m.
Location: TCL L118
In collaboration with the Humanities Collaborative, this hands-on, in-person session will help participants begin using the Library-licensed WordPress account to build a website. We’ll focus on the practical work of shaping an author’s online presence: defining the site’s purpose, identifying key audiences, organizing essential pages, drafting core content, and making choices about design, platform, and maintenance. Participants will leave with a clearer site plan, a draft homepage or About page, and a practical next-step checklist for creating or revising their own author website.
Date: Friday, October 2, 2026
Time: 6–8 p.m.
Location: All Good Books, 743 Harden St.
Join the Humanities Collaborative in celebrating recent books by humanities faculty. Authors Monica Barra (Anthropology/SEOE), Agnes Mueller (languages, literatures, and cultures), and Leland Spencer (WGST) will be reading from their new books, which will also be available to purchase. Refreshments provided. Free and open to the public.
Date: Wednesday, October 21, 2026
Time: Noon
Location: Gambrell 429
Join the Humanities Collaborative and USC Press Director Michael McGandy for a lunch-hour discussion and Q&A on securing and negotiating book contracts. We will discuss related issues such as advances, royalties, subventions, and permissions from the publisher’s perspective. Bring your questions, too! Light lunch provided.
Date: Tuesday, November 10, 2026
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Location: Lumpkin Auditorium, Close-Hipp Building, 8th Floor
The Humanities Collaborative welcomes Prof. andré carrington, associate professor of English at the University of California-Riverside and director of the graduate emphasis in Speculative Fictions & Cultures of Science. carrington will discuss his new book, Audiofuturism: Science Fiction Radio Drama and the Black Fantastic Imagination, which unearths how radio adaptations of Black speculative texts bring the cultural politics of twentieth-century African American literature to the public through sound and performance.
Mellon Events
Date: Thursday, September 24, 2026
Time: 5–6:30 p.m.
Location: Lumpkin Auditorium, Close-Hipp Building, 8th Floor, 1705 College St.
Date and time: Thursday, September 24, 5:00-6:30pm
Location: Lumpkin Auditorium; 8th floor of Close-Hipp (1705 College St.)
Hahrie Han (Johns Hopkins) is a 2025 recipient of the MacArthur “genius grant.” Hahrie Han is an SNF Agora Institute Professor of Political Science and Faculty Director of the P3 Research Lab at Johns Hopkins University, where she also served as the Inaugural Director of the SNF Agora Institute from 2019-2026. She is an award-winning author of five books and numerous scholarly articles. Her latest book (Knopf 2024), about faith and race in America with a focus on evangelical megachurches, was named to the New York Times list of 100 Notable Books of the Year in 2024, and the New Yorker's list of Recommended Books for 2024. Han’s work examines organizational structures and tactics that encourage individuals to interact across difference and work together for change. In Undivided, she tells the inspiring story of evangelicals in Cincinnati struggling to bridge racial divides in their own church, their community, and across the nation. Lecture and Q&A will be followed by a reception and book signing. Sponsored by the Mellon Foundation Grant on “Civic Engagement, Voting Rights, and the Founding Documents at the University of South Carolina.”
Sept 25 - Faculty-Graduate Lunchtime Seminar with Hahrie Han
Date and Time: September 25, 12:30-2 pm
Location: All Good Books
RSVP to Samuel Bagg.
A lunch seminar with Han discussing her work. Open to faculty and graduate students. Lunch will be provided.
(Sponsored by Mellon)
Working Group Events
Time: 4:30–6 p.m.
Location: 429 Gambrell
Experimental Critical Theory working group welcomes Jonathan Flatley, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago. Flatley will deliver a public talk on W. E. B. Du Bois drawn from Flatley’s current book-in-progress, “Black Leninism: How Revolutionary Counter-Moods Are Made.”
Date: Thursday, November 5, 2026
Time: 2:30–3:45 p.m.
Location: 104 Humanities Office Building (English Department Lounge)
The Experimental Critical Theory Group will host a seminar discussion of Flatley’s “Like Trees,” which we will pre-circulate. For a copy of the essay, email Greg Forter. Free and open to the public.
Browse our archive of past lectures and events.