Events
- Love is the Greater Labyrinth Program
- Humanities Event Series
- Teaching Conversations: Why I Teach...
Humanities Event Series
The Humanities Event Series invites students to engage with the ancient and modern core texts we teach in our courses in ways that encourage students to self-consciously reflect on what gives one’s life value and meaning. With each new event, we hope to create and strengthen partnerships with other colleges, academic departments, and campus organizations that result in a more connected and engaged student community.
Past Events
Roosevelt Montás
"Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation"
What is the value of a liberal education? Traditionally characterized by a rigorous engagement with the classics of Western thought and literature, this approach to education is all but extinct in American universities, replaced by flexible distribution requirements and ever-narrower academic specialization. Many academics attack the very idea of a Western canon as chauvinistic, while the general public increasingly doubts the value of the humanities. In Rescuing Socrates, Dominican-born American academic Roosevelt Montás tells the story of how a liberal education transformed his life, and offers an intimate account of the relevance of the Great Books today, especially to members of historically marginalized communities (Princeton University Press).
This event was sponsored by Revelle College's Humanities Program, Eleanor Roosevelt College's Making of the Modern World, and the UC San Diego Parents Fund. Thank you to Chicanx and Latinx Studies for your partnership and support. 
The Suppliants Project
The Suppliants Project presents dramatic readings by acclaimed actors of scenes from Aeschylus’ play The Suppliants—an ancient tragedy about fifty refugees who seek asylum in the ancient city of Argos, and the struggle within that city about whether to receive them—as a catalyst for powerful, candid discussions about immigration, domestic and gender-based violence, human trafficking, and the refugee crisis.
Featuring performances by Alfred Molina (Spider-Man), Keith David (Nope), Tate Donovan (The O.C.), and a chorus of San Diego community members, including: Sarab Aziz (an immigrant originally from Damascus, Syria, who migrated to the US in 1999), Césaire (Ze) Jose Carroll-Dominguez (an interdisciplinary artist based in the US/MX Border region), Marysol Gomez (We are walking revolutions), Marzia Khalil (Visiting Research Assistant at The Bowman Lab, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and formerly an Assistant Professor at Balkh University, Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, who migrated to the US in March 2022, as a Scholar-at-Risk), Liam McKee (PhD student in UCSD's History program, originally from Ireland), Amira Noeuv (graduate student in Ethnic Studies at UC San Diego, whose research centers on transgenerational trauma, healing, and critical refugee studies), Shane Prince (Spanish teacher from Trinidad and Tobago), and Hela Khalil (first-year undergraduate at UCSD).
This event was sponsored by the Humanities Program at Revelle College, The Center for Hellenic Studies, Chicanx and Latinx Studies, and the UC San Diego Parents Fund.
Additional support from The Institute of Arts and Humanities, Office of the Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities, Vice Chancellor’s Office for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, Society for Classical Studies, Gerry and Jeannie Ranglas Chair in Ancient Greek History, Making of the Modern World, Eleanor Roosevelt College, Classical Studies Program, History, Latin American Studies, The Ancient Jewish Civilizations Chair, and Middle East Studies.
Support for digital programming was provided, in part, by the Mellon Foundation.
Jericho Brown
Jericho Brown is author of the The Tradition (Copper Canyon 2019), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Award. Brown’s first book, Please (New Issues 2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (Copper Canyon 2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection, The Tradition won the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poems have appeared in The Bennington Review, Buzzfeed, Fence, jubilat, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, TIME magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University.
This event was made possible by the generous support of the UC San Diego New Writing Series, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, Black Resource Center and LGBT Resource Center.
Matthew Zapruder
Matthew Zapruder’s first book, American Linden, was published by Tupelo Press in 2002 after winning the Tupelo Press Editors’ Prize. He is also the author of Why Poetry, an impassioned call for a return to reading poetry, as well as four other poetry collections, including Father’s Day. His honors include the May Sarton poetry award from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Born in Washington, DC, he lives in Oakland, where he is an associate professor in the Saint Mary’s College of California MFA Program in Creative Writing, as well as editor at large for Wave Books.
Poster designed by Melanie Jaffe and Dereck Garcia.
Ada Limón
Ada Limón, a current Guggenheim fellow, is the author of five poetry collections, including The Carrying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. Her fourth book Bright Dead Things was named a finalist for the National Book Award, a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She serves on the faculty of Queens University of Charlotte Low Residency M.F.A program and lives in Lexington, Kentucky.
Poster designed by Dereck Garcia.
