Tuesday, May 28 | Wednesday, May 29 | Thursday, May 30 | Friday, May 31 | Saturday, June 1

Tuesday, May 28

• 5:00pm - 6:00pm | Registration open, David Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA 94704

• 6:00pm - 7:30pm | Opening Keynote, David Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA 94704

  • Welcome Address: Chancellor Carol Christ (UC Berkeley)
  • Introductions: CHCI President Stephen Best
  • Poetry reading: Solmaz Sharif (UC Berkeley), Polina Barskova (UC Berkeley), Aracelis Girmay (Stanford)

• 7:30pm - 8:30pm | Opening Reception, David Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA 94704

Wednesday, May 29

All events will take place at Pauley Ballroom (3rd floor, Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union, 2495 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA 94720).

• 8:00am - 9:00am | Breakfast and Patio Conversations | Full schedule and descriptions

• 9:00am - 11:00am | Membership Plenary

  • 9:00am - 10:00am | Directors Meeting | A member-led discussion on leading a humanities center or institute. All attendees, particularly those leading centers and institutes, are welcome to attend this session.
    • Teresa Mangum (University of Iowa)
    • Cristina Stanciu (Virginia Commonwealth University)
  • 10:00am - 10:15am | A State of the Consortium | A brief report from CHCI staff
  • 10:15am - 11:00am | CHCI Research Initiatives

• 11:00am - 11:15am | Coffee Break

• 11:15am - 12:45pm | What is a Scholar at Risk?

  • Chair: Damon Young (UC Berkeley)
  • Gil Anidjar (Columbia)
  • Deborah Feldman, participating remotely
  • Jane Newman (UC Irvine), participating remotely
  • Renée Nicholson (WVU Humanities Center)

• 12:45pm - 1:45pm | Lunch & Patio Conversations | Full schedule and descriptions

  • Humanities Centers and Centering the Humanities (Paul Fleming—Cornell, Carla Freeman—Emory)
  • LGBTQ+ Affinity Group (Dean Allbritton—Colby, Aaron Fai—CHCI)

• 1:45pm - 2:45pm | Public Humanities Award for Leadership in Practice and Community—CHCI Public Humanities Network | Full bios

  • Chair: Ulka Anjaria (Brandeis)
  • Robert Adams (Penn Center)
  • Saskia Nauenberg Dunkel (UCSC)
  • Sarah Fouts (UMBC)
  • Dayne Riley (Tulsa)

• 2:45pm - 3:00pm | Coffee Break

• 3:00pm - 4:30pm | Borders, Citizenship, Statelessness

  • Chair: Kader Konuk (Academy in Exile)
  • Fonna Forman (UC San Diego)
  • Asli Igsiz (New York University)
  • Nando Sigona (University of Birmingham)

• 6:00pm - 9:00pm | Membership Dinner (Optional), Hotel Shattuck Plaza, Crystal Ballroom, 2086 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA 94704

  • Pre-registration required. $135/person.
  • Includes a beer and wine open bar for the first two hours and a three-course plated dinner.

Thursday, May 30

All events will take place at Pauley Ballroom (3rd floor, Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union, 2495 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA 94720).

• 8:00am - 9:00am | Breakfast and Patio Conversations | Full schedule and descriptions

  • Reimagining the Western Humanities Alliance (Jim Ellis—Calgary, Jena Turner—University of Oregon)

• 9:00am - 10:30am | At Home / In Exile

  • Chair: Mario Telò (UC Berkeley)
  • Prathama Banerjee (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies)
  • Thomas Keenan (Bard)
  • Debarati Sanyal (UC Berkeley)

• 10:30am - 10:45am | Coffee Break

• 10:45am - 12:15pm | Resilient Responses to Risk—CHCI Administration Network | Panelists from a diverse set of humanities centers and institutes will present briefly on case studies of administrative resilience in the face of risk, followed by facilitated discussion and audience questions. This session will include time for group discussion of topics of recurrent interest in humanities center administration–from fostering collaborative research to developing new programs–in the evolving contexts of higher education globally, and their attendant risks and opportunities.

  • Rachel Arteaga (University of Washington)
  • Aimee Germain (Syracuse, CNY Humanities Corridor)
  • Jennifer Ho (CU Boulder)
  • Susannah Smith (University of Minnesota)

• 12:15pm - 1:15pm | Lunch & Patio Conversations | Full schedule and descriptions

  • Health and Medical Humanities (CHCI Health and Medical Humanities Network)
  • CHCI Critical Humanities Spaces Network

• 1:15pm - 2:15pm | Humanities As Risk—CHCI Critical Humanities Spaces Network | This network provides a platform for critical reflection on the work of institutes, centers, and other venues for humanities and cross-disciplinary work. | In this session, we look at the work of the humanities, and its attention to the future of the human, as a wager: a risking of the unknown, a risking of the self; a welcoming, perhaps, of the stranger. | Full description

  • Chair: Maurits van Bever Donker (University of the Western Cape)
  • Jack Chen (University of Virginia)
  • Kader Konuk (Academy in Exile)
  • Ato Quayson (Stanford)
  • Mario Telò (UC Berkeley)

• 2:15pm - 2:30pm | Break

• 2:30pm - 3:45pm | California at Risk: Regional Responses to Global Challenges

  • Chair: Susan Derwin (UC Santa Barbara)
  • Scholars at Risk: Christina Lux (UC Merced)
  • The Humanities & AI: Pranav Anand (UC Santa Cruz)
  • Environmental Humanities: Julia Lupton (UC Humanities Research Institute) and Amanda Swain (UC Irvine)

• 3:45pm - 4:00pm | Break

• 4:00pm - 5:30pm | Keynote: Judith Butler (UC Berkeley)

Friday, May 31

All events will take place at Pauley Ballroom (3rd floor, Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union, 2495 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA 94720).

• 8:00am - 9:00am | Breakfast and Patio Conversations

• 9:00am - 11:00am | Best Practices for Humanities Centers

  • Chair: Patricia Parker (UNC Chapel Hill)

• 11:00am - 11:15am | Coffee Break

• 11:15am - 12:45pm | Psychic Precarity | Recommended reading (PDF): Avgi Saketopoulou, “Erotics of the Terribly Beautiful”

  • Chair: Ranjana Khanna (Duke)
  • Avgi Saketopoulou

• 12:45pm - 1:45pm | Lunch & Optional Lunch Workshop: Addressing Transnational Repression on Your Campus | Freedom House's Nate Schenkkan leads a discussion on transnational repression (TNR) in university settings, based on Freedom House's recent research on North American campuses (2024 Report, pdf). Schenkkan explains Freedom House's research, policy engagements, and recommendations on how universities can address the issue without stigmatizing or marginalizing those targeted by TNR. This optional lunch discussion will be followed by time for questions.

• 1:45pm - 3:15pm | Humanities Research Infrastructure | Recommended readings (PDFs): 1. Christopher Newfield, “Criticism After This Crisis: Toward a National Strategy for Literary and Cultural Study” & 2. Caroline Levine, “Toward an Affirmative Instrumentality," The Activist Humanist: Form and Method in the Climate Crisis

  • Chair: Sara Guyer (UC Berkeley)
  • Caroline Levine (Cornell), participating remotely
  • Christopher Newfield (Independent Social Research Foundation)

• 3:15pm - 3:30pm | Coffee Break

• 3:30pm - 5:00pm | Srinivas Aravamudan Memorial Lecture: Robin D.G. Kelley (UCLA), ”Black Studies vs Fascism: The longue durée” | The current attacks of multicultural education, critical race theory, and on virtually all critical scholars has put many of us in the academy on the defensive. Again. […] While my talk acknowledges the latest wave of attacks, I will argue that Black Studies has a long history of being “under attack” precisely because it emerged as an offensive against fascism. | Full description

Saturday, June 1

• Lunchtime | mak-'amham/Cafe Ohlone (Optional, $90/person, max 40 registrants) | Lunch and education session at this Ohlone Indian cultural institution housed outside the UC Berkeley Hearst Museum of Anthropology on campus, presented by owners Louis and Vincent who will speak on indigenous gastronomy and Ohlone culture.

• 10:00am - 1:00pm | Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour (Optional, $25/person, max 25 registrants): Discover a century of South Asian American activist history on this two-mile walking tour of Berkeley with community historians Barnali Ghosh and Anirvan Chatterjee.

• 12:00pm - 2:00pm | Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA): (Optional, $5/person, max 30 registrants): Experience a behind-the-scenes tour of one of the world’s leading university museums.