Department of English – UW News /news Tue, 14 Apr 2026 20:29:21 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 ArtSci Roundup: April 2026 /news/2026/03/20/artsci-roundup-april-2026/ Fri, 20 Mar 2026 21:47:23 +0000 /news/?p=90983

Come curious. Leave inspired.

The UW offers an exciting lineup of in-person and online events. From thought-provoking art and music to conversations on culture, history, and science, the UW community invites you to explore, learn, and connect across disciplines throughout the University.

And as April comes to a close, see what’s happening in May.

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ArtSci On Your Own Time or From Your Own Home

Video | (Simpson Center for the Humanities)
From “Mourning across Centuries and Languages: A Poem’s Six-Hundred-Year Journey” with Jahan Ramazani to “What Is Racial Capitalism and Why Does It Matter?” with Robin D. G. Kelley, the Katz Distinguished Lectures Playlist offers a rich, ever-growing archive to explore from wherever you are, inviting you to engage with a wide range of thought-provoking topics. Free.

Book Club | Chronicles fromthe Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole Soyinka(UW Alumni)
Readers’ Choice! A mix of mystery and political satire, this novel takes aim at corruption in modern Nigeria. Two old friends decide to investigate a local cartel that traffics in human body parts. But in a country where religious charlatans and dishonest officials abound, can they trust anyone in their search? Free.

EXHIBITIONS CLOSING:

Through April 4 | (School of Art + Art History + Design)Death is a fundamental first step toward rebirth—but this transition can feel daunting without a compassionate guide. In The Book of Zero, our 2026 Jacob Lawrence Legacy Resident indira allegra presents a multimedia, meditative experience shaped by their research into doula work, death care, and the cyclical nature of bodies and environments. Free.

Through April 26 | (Henry Art Gallery)
How might art respond when the conditions supporting artistic expression—its very ground—are under threat? Directly or more obliquely, at scales ranging from intimate to monumental, works by artists including Chakaia Booker, Denzil Hurley, Jennie C. Jones, and Stephanie Syjuco engage with the conditions that shape creative freedom. Free.

Through April 26 | (Henry Art Gallery)
we leak, we exceed activates the unique volume and multiple vantage points of the Henry’s double-height gallery, drawing together threads from physics, Black critical thought, and information theory to create an immersive environment that interrogates the spatial and social implications of compression. A common process used in data storage, spatial organization, and information systems, compression abbreviates and collapses complex ideas into more simplified forms. Kameelah Janan Rasheed questions the way compression comes at the cost of nuance and creates unrecoverable losses. She draws parallels between the compression of information and the containment of people, both physically and through the structuring and defining of identities. Through a network of video, sound, and architectural mark-making, Rasheed proposes alternatively what she calls “an embrace of Black excess and expansion” as a liberatory practice. Free.

Through May 3 | (Henry Art Gallery)
Deana Lawson’s photographs result from collaborations with strangers whom the artist encounters by chance or deliberately seeks out. The pictures often depict richly textured domestic scenes in which the details of decor, lighting, and pose are constructed. In this way, Lawson draws on the legacies of historical portraiture, documentary photography, and the family album, but transcends these traditions, constructing images that merge lived experience with imagined narratives. Free.


Week of March 30

March 31 | (College of Education)
EduTalks brings together educators, researchers and community leaders to share bold ideas shaping the future of education. In just five minutes — and with a single powerful image — each presenter explores innovative approaches to today’s most pressing challenges. In the College of Education, we’re “solving for x,” taking inspiration from high school algebra to step into the complicated, often uncertain challenges in education with imagination and heart. In math, x represents the unknown. In education, it symbolizes the complex questions we face as we strive for a more just, equitable and joyful future for all learners. Solving for these challenges takes imagination, persistence and, above all, community. Free.

April 1 | (Communication)
Dr. Kathleen Hall Jamieson argues that scientists and science communicators would be well served by use of a “mental models” approach to simultaneously increase consequential knowledge and reduce public susceptibility to misconceptions about controversial climate and health findings. By engaging audiences with visual, verbal, or animated models, this approach creates understandings of science on which the audience can draw to recognize and reject consequential misconceptions. Free.

April 1 | (School of Music)
A free lunchtime performance featuring UW School of Music students in the North Allen Library lobby. Presented in partnership with UW Libraries. Free.

April 2 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Libraries in French colonial Vietnam functioned as symbols of Western modernity and infrastructures of colonial knowledge. Yet Vietnamese readers pursued alternative uses of the library that exceeded imperial intentions. Bibliotactics examines the Hanoi and Saigon state libraries in colonial and postcolonial Vietnam, uncovering the emergence of a colonial public who reimagined the political meaning and social space of the library through public critique and day-to-day practice. Free.

April 2 | (Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
Part of Burke’s Free First Thursday series, the museum opens its collections spaces from 4:30 to 7:30 PM. Visitors can explore behind‑the-scenes labs and storage, and speak with researchers, staff, and volunteers about their work.Free.

April 2 | (Henry Art Gallery)
To celebrate the opening weekend of Eric-Paul Riege: ojo|-|ólǫ́, visit the artist offsite at the Burke Artist Studio, located in the Northwest Native Art Gallery at the Burke Museum, just a few blocks from the Henry. As part of Free First Thursday at the Burke, visitors will have the chance to watch the artist at work and speak with Riege about his process. Free.

April 3 | (UW Planetarium Arts x Colectivo Arte GUENDA)
An evening of guided gallery tours, lightning talks, and moderated panel discussions, featuring artists and scientists from Oaxaca, Seattle, Portland, UW, and UNAM. Guided tours are offered in English and Spanish. Lightning talks and panel will be conducted in English. Free.

April 3 | (Henry Art Gallery)
Be among the first to experience Eric-Paul Riege: ojo|-|ólǫ́, the artist’s largest solo exhibition to date. Featuring sculpture, textiles, collage, and video, the exhibition draws on Diné cultural memory and examines the (re)production of Indigeneity. A no-host bar and music by KEXP DJ Kevin Sur round out the night. Free.

April 4 | (Henry Art Gallery)
An immersive performance by Eric-Paul Riege. Working in close concert with exhibition objects, Riege utilizes performance as a means of care and relationality among materials and objects. At once haptic and visceral, Riege will perform his self-described “weaving dances” as an extension of his world building across and within exhibitions. After the performance, Riege will be joined by co-curators, Thea Quiray Tagle and Nina Bozicnik, for an in-depth conversation about the connections among his research, practice, and performance. Free.

April 2 – 4 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Feathers will fly in this exuberant take on Swan Lake by the Australian contemporary circus group Circa. The world’s most romantic ballet is re-imagined as a circus spectacular, full of Circa’s signature physicality and shot through with cheeky humor and a thoroughly contemporary energy. Be swept away by this tale of swans and hapless princes sparkling with quirky touches like the sequined flipper-wearing duck army and a burlesque black swan. There are sumptuous aerials, jaw-dropping acrobatics and of course…feathers! Touching, funny and utterly entertaining, Duck Pond is a tale of identity and finding your true self.


Week of April 6

Online – April 6 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Presented by Sean Jacobs, Professor and Director of the Graduate Program in International Affairs at The New School, and Martha Saavedra, former Associate Director of the Center for African Studies at UC Berkeley. The World (Cup) Comes To Seattle 2026 Lecture Series is an online series of talks and discussions hosted by the Global Sport Lab, featuring local and global experts to discuss the geopolitical, local, and sporting implications of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Seattle. Each week, Global Sport Lab will bring local and global experts to discuss the geopolitical, local, and sporting implications of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Seattle. Lectures will focus on teams coming to Seattle, as well as topics such as workers’ rights, World Cup histories, immigration and travel bans, the Pride Match controversy, and more. Free.

April 7 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Grammy-nominated documentary The Music of Strangers, which follows members of the Ensemble as they gather in locations across the world, exploring the ways art can both preserve traditions and shape cultural evolution. There will be a post-screening discussion with visionary Peter Sellars and Grammy Award-winning, multi-instrumentalist John-Carlos Perea, Chair of Ethnomusicology at UW. Free.

April 7 | (Asian Languages & Literature)
Japanese-language literature has been both read and written in Brazil for more than a century, creating an ever-expanding corpus of works. The talk will introduce these literary activities, focusing on the first decades of their production. In addition to presenting the authors, newspapers, bookstores, and readers in Brazil, the talk will also raise some questions about what makes up “Japanese literature” — and all other identity-based groupings of literary texts. Free.

Online option – April 7 | Unlocking Secrets: Interrogating the Epigenome to Reveal Pregnancy Risks in Moms with High Blood Pressure with Bertha Hidalgo (Public Lectures)
Dr. Bertha Hidalgo as she explores how epigenetics is reshaping our understanding of hypertensive pregnancy disorders. This lecture highlights population-based insights, early biomarkers of risk, and transformative strategies for prevention—advancing maternal health equity and innovation in public health. Free.

April 8 | (English)
Featuring Ange Mlinko, poet, critic, editor, & professor. Book signing and reception to follow. Free.

April 8 | (Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies)
Grrrilda Beausoleil is turning 50. All she wants is a reunion with her 1990s riot grrrl band—the one she abandoned just as they were about to make it big. With a scrappy film crew documenting the journey, she navigates old wounds, new-age platitudes, and a San Francisco transformed by tech and displacement. The band must decide whether they can trust Grrrilda again—and whether their DIY roots of wheat paste, stickers, and zines can still build community in a digital age.

Dubbed “SPINAL TAP with BIPOC and queers” by the Chicago Reader, the film is a hilarious improvised mockumentary that treats comedy as activism. At its heart, the production centers LGBTQ community building across generations—reconciling past and present, passing the mic, and finding solidarity through creativity. Free.

April 8 | (School of Music)
Seattle’s contemporary music orchestra performs György Ligeti’s piano concerto, featuring faculty pianist and SMO member Cristina Valdés, alongside new works for sinfonietta by faculty composers William Dougherty, Joël-François Durand, and Huck Hodge. SMO is joined onstage by select graduate-student members of the UW Modern Music Ensemble in this large-ensemble format.

April 10 | (Digital Arts & Experimental Media)
Anomalous Textualities re-imagines the Studio Theater as a traversable showroom. Inhabited by seven distinct works, the margins of language and meaning are re-mediated, embodied, and deconstructed through human-machine (mis)translations. In this performance-installation, spatial, temporal, and linguistic boundaries are blurred, giving way to slippages across models, bodies, and forms. Within this anomalous showroom, language models drive mechanical systems, glitching oracles, and choreographic prompts. Two further works explore non-verbal communication, seeking a physical vocabulary for a world shared with a “technological other.”

In this complex system, there is no fixed sequence. Light and sound are the conductors. As illumination fades in and out across the grid, models are sporadically activated. The audience is invited to navigate the showroom and explore multiple perspectives, moving through the partitions to witness interactions up close, or observing the entire system from the margins as it breathes and stutters as a single organism. Free.

April 10 | Sand Point Open Studios (School of Art + Art History + Design)
Visit the private studios of the Painting + Drawing MFA students and Division of Art faculty at the School’s Sand Point facilities. We will also be celebrating the opening of Rebecca Shippee’s show in the Sand Point Gallery. Students, alumni and the general public are invited for an evening of conversation, interaction, and art. Free.

April 10 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
What does democracy look like from below? This talk will look at how ordinary lives are reshaped by surveillance, majoritarianism, and corporate-political nexus in South Asia. Exploring media influence, gendered surveillance, majoritarian and casteist politics, the struggles of urban poor workers and the slow erosion of democratic rights in contemporary South Asia through Neha Dixit’s The Many Lives of Syeda X, this talk explores how journalism can recover erased histories, expose routine violence, and hold power to account.
Free.


Week of April 13

Online – April 13 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Presented by Mary V. Harvey, Chief Executive at the Center for Sport and Human Rights; Maya Mendoza-Exstrom, Board Member of the SeattleFWC26 Local Organizing Committee, Chief Business Officer of Seattle Reign Football Club, and Chief Operating Officer of Seattle Sounders Football Club; Leo Flor, Chief Legacy Officer of the SeattleFWC26 Local Organizing Committee; and Anita Ramasastry, Henry M. Jackson Professor of Law and Director of the Sustainable International Development Graduate Program at the ӰӴý School of Law. Free.

April 13 | (School of Music)
Faculty soprano Carrie Shaw’s new Seattle-based group Wind Up Vocal Project performs musical puzzles of the past and present, including Ming Tsao’s “DAS WASSERGEWORDENE KANONBUCH.”

April 13 | (School of Music)
The School of Music keyboard program presents a solo piano recital by Spencer Myer, associate professor of music at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, performing works by Haydn, Ravel, Liszt, and Carl Vine. Free.

April 14 | (School of Art + Art History + Design)
Our question to consider: We are all in this together, so, how do we actually do this work together? This year-long program series hopes to honor our commitment to social justice and to gather our community to think about the work of liberation through shared texts, art, film, music, conversation, and workshops. Unlike your traditional book club, all the reading and study happen together, so no need to prepare. Join us monthly as we approach the topic of liberation from a number of perspectives. Free.

April 14 | (Simpson Center for the Humanities)
Tiffany Tsao will discuss the challenges of translating Indonesian literature in the context of a publishing industry that has tended to value Indonesian works more for their “Indonesianness” than their literary value. Catering to a readership interested specifically in the history, culture, and living conditions of Indonesia has some near-term benefits, but does this approach do Indonesian writing a disservice over the long term? She will discuss, more specifically, how this state of affairs has shaped the decisions she has made as a translator – from the works she has chosen to translate, to her approach to the translation process itself. Free.

April 16 | (School of Music)
Faculty percussionist Bonnie Whiting celebrates the release of Through the Eye(s), her new CD out now on Neuma Records. Documenting a cycle of pieces for solo speaking and singing percussionist developed in collaboration with nine incarcerated people at the Indiana Women’s Prison, Through the Eye(s) is a collaboration with composer Eliza Brown, who facilitated the project. The program includes a short performance followed by a question-and-answer session. Free.

April 16 | (Henry Art Gallery)
Join The Black Embodiments Studio for The (Printed) Matter of Black Arts Writing: Archives for the Future, a panel discussion on the practice of collecting, preserving, and circulating Black arts writing ephemera. Featuring archivists and publishers of printed matter like flyers, zines, pamphlets, notebooks, and books, the program explores the significance of gathering around materials that are fragile and prone to disappearance—and reflects on what contemporary practices of preserving and circulating Black arts writing ephemera can tell us about the futures of the art world in general. This is the second of two programs for Public Scholarship + Practice: Black Futures + Archives, a new series highlighting ӰӴý-led research and practice at the intersections of visual art and culture. Free.

April 16 – 18 | (Drama)
The IGNITE New Works Festival is a three-day event celebrating UW student “ART” of all forms, including performance art, theatre, film, installation, multimedia, and sculpture. The festival’s goal is to ignite expression, community, accessibility, and belonging among UW students by showcasing art that is FRESH, RISKY, and ODD. Performances will be held in the Glenn Hughes Penthouse (GH Penthouse) or Hutchinson Hall (HUT). Free.

April 17 | (School of Music)
Ana Alonso Minutti, associate professor of musicology and ethnomusicology at the University of New Mexico, presents “Noising the Desert: Land and Memory in Raven Chacon’s Work.” Composer and installation artist Raven Chacon (Fort Defiance, 1977) has developed a body of work shaped by the sonic landscapes of the New Mexican desert. This presentation traces how his engagement with noise amplifies place and activates personal and cultural memory, positioning noising as a borderlands practice that unsettles colonial histories. Free.

April 17 | (School of Music)
Seattle orchestra Harmonia (William White, conductor) performs concerto excerpts with UW piano students. Kane Chang, Jiaxuan Wu, Eli Antony, and Yuchen Qi.

April 17 | (Political Science)
Presentation by Tongtian Xiao, Ph.D. Student, ӰӴý as a part of the Severyns Ravenholt Seminar in Comparative Politics. Free.

Online option – April 17 | (Classics)
Linda Gosner (Texas Tech) examines mining and its effects on the communities and ecologies of southeast Iberia following the conquest of this region during the Second Punic War. This region also had botanical and marine resources, long exploited by local communities, who reacted to Roman mining in divergent ways. Weavers of local grasses shifted their production strategies, supplying equipment for Roman mining. By contrast, harvesters of a large mollusk species, who once collaborated closely with miners, broke ties with the industry. Ultimately, the talk shows the important role local decision-making played in organizing production and in the empire’s experience in Roman Iberia. Free.

April 18 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Hailed as the “global ambassador of Spanish guitar” by Billboard Magazine, Pablo Sáinz-Villegas is widely acclaimed as the successor to Andrés Segovia. His playing dazzles with vibrant colors and deep emotion, captivating audiences with its expressiveness. Sáinz-Villegas’ guitar evokes intimacy and passion, weaving haunting melodies that transport listeners to a place of reverie and reflection. An exceptional performer, he stands as a living testament to music’s profound power to touch the depths of the human soul.


Week of April 20

Online – April 20 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Presented by César Wazen, Director of the International Affairs Office at Qatar University. The World (Cup) Comes To Seattle 2026 Lecture Series is an online series of talks and discussions hosted by the Global Sport Lab, featuring local and global experts to discuss the geopolitical, local, and sporting implications of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Seattle. Each week, Global Sport Lab will bring local and global experts to discuss the geopolitical, local, and sporting implications of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Seattle. Lectures will focus on teams coming to Seattle, as well as topics such as workers’ rights, World Cup histories, immigration and travel bans, the Pride Match controversy, and more. Free.

April 21 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Focusing on Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s public displays of crying, this talk examines what these moments signify, and why his supporters interpret them as authentic, drawing on insights from focus group discussions. It situates these performances within Erdoğan’s increased reliance on populist discourse and style, arguing that these emotional and performative dynamics have been central to mobilizing support and maintaining the cohesion of his constituency. In doing so, the talk shows how such strategies have contributed to the consolidation of an authoritarian regime sustained by popular backing, particularly in moments when legitimacy is under strain. Free.

April 22 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Yo-Yo Ma’s performance is currently sold out. Tickets may become available as some tickets get returned closer to the performance. A waitlist will open at the Meany Box Office starting at 6:30 p.m. on April 22. This special performance from Yo-Yo Ma pairs repertoire from the center of his musical firmament with reflections on how it has shaped his thinking about art, human nature and our search for meaning.

April 22 | (Communication)
Drawing on his research in media, technology, and public life, USC Associate Professor Mike Ananny examines how this framing shapes public understanding, limits accountability, and influences how societies respond to emerging technologies. The talk invites audiences to think more critically about what generative AI is, how it operates, and why treating it as a public problem is essential for addressing its broader social and political impacts. Free.

April 23 | (Henry Art Gallery)
Deana Lawson draws on the legacies of historical portraiture, documentary photography, and the family album, but transcends these traditions, constructing images that merge lived experience with imagined narratives. The aesthetics of intergenerational connectivity guide Lawson’s choice of subject matter, with each of her works taking its place in an overarching project that coheres into what she terms “an ever-expanding mythological extended family.” Lawson’s works also demonstrate a special attention to the element of light, as both part of the mechanical process by which photographs are realized, and as a manifestation of the divinity that suffuses her sitters. A focused presentation of Lawson’s work on the Henry’s mezzanine features photographs that highlight her ongoing exploration of female subjectivity through the photographic image. Free.

April 24 | (German)
German Studies Chair, Ellwood Wiggins, and Professor Andre Schütze present and discuss the enduring legacy of Faust.Discover what to look out for in Murnau’s revolutionary cinematic masterpiece and learn about the Faust story as a parable of modernity–and of German history–in its adaptations across the ages. What is the price of your soul? Following the discussion, please stick around as the community—students, alumni, faculty, and staff—gather over refreshments to celebrate German Studies’ own 21st Century learning. Free.

April 24 | (Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
The dinosaurs ruled the Earth for more than 150 million years — evolving into spectacular giants like Brontosaurus and T. rex, which captivate our imaginations. In this talk, University of Edinburgh professor and paleontologist Steve Brusatte will discuss the complete story of where dinosaurs came from, how they rose to dominance, how most of them went extinct when a giant asteroid hit, and how some of them live on as today’s birds. In doing so, he will recount stories of digging up dinosaurs and working with colleagues around the world. At a time when Homo sapiens has existed for less than 300,000 years and we are already talking about planetary extinction, dinosaurs are a timely reminder of what humans can learn from the magnificent creatures that ruled Earth before us. Free.

April 24-25 | Improvised Music Project Festival (IMPFEST): / (School of Music)
The School of Music and the student-run Improvised Music Project (IMP) present IMPFest, featuring UW Jazz Studies students and faculty performing with guest artists of international renown. Headliners for this year’s festival are Grammy-nominated drummer, producer, and emcee Kassa Overall and Icelandic composer and bass guitarist Skùli Sverisson.

April 24-25 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Seamlessly blending illusion, acrobatics, magic and whimsy, MOMIX sends audiences flying down the rabbit hole in Moses Pendleton’s ALICE, inspired by Lewis Carroll’s classic Alice in Wonderland. Join this dazzling company on a mind-bending adventure, as Alice encounters time-honored characters including the undulating Caterpillar, a lobster quadrille, frenzied White Rabbits, a mad Queen of Hearts and a variety of other surprises.

April 26 |(UW Alumni)
Join the UWAA and BECU for a day of service to help fight food insecurity. Free.

April 26 | (Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
Dig into paleontology at the Burke’s annual festival of fossils!
Celebrate all things fossilized with hands-on activities for all ages! View hundreds of specimens from the Burke’s collection and hear about groundbreaking research from Burke and UW scientists.

  • Fossil fun for everyone!
  • Watch paleontologists uncover a duck-billed dinosaur in the Fossil Prep Lab.
  • Learn about the fossils of Sucia Island, including the one and only dinosaur bone found in Washington state!
  • Chat with Burke paleontologists and students about fossils from the Burke’s extensive vertebrate, invertebrate, and paleobotany collections.
  • Check out the amazing T. rex skull unearthed by Burke scientists.
  • And more!

Week of April 27

Online – April 27 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Presented by Niki Akhavan, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Media and Communication Studies at The Catholic University of America. The World (Cup) Comes To Seattle 2026 Lecture Series is an online series of talks and discussions hosted by the Global Sport Lab, featuring local and global experts to discuss the geopolitical, local, and sporting implications of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Seattle. Each week, Global Sport Lab will bring local and global experts to discuss the geopolitical, local, and sporting implications of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Seattle. Lectures will focus on teams coming to Seattle, as well as topics such as workers’ rights, World Cup histories, immigration and travel bans, the Pride Match controversy, and more. Free.

April 28 | (School of Music)
Students of Dr. Stephen Price present a UW Organ studio spring recital. Dr. Price teaches Organ performance, Church music, and Keyboard Harmony courses. In addition, he leads ongoing initiatives to develop and revitalize the UW program, continuing the legacy of his predecessor, Dr. Carole Terry. Free.

April 28 | (School of Art + Art History + Design)
Celebrate the graduating seniors across the art programs: 3D4M, Photo/Media, Painting + Drawing, and Interdisciplinary Visual Art (IVA) during the 2026 BA in Art Graduation Exhibitions at the Jacob Lawrance Gallery. Ways of Becoming is split into three shows between April 28 – June 5, 2026. Free.

April 28 | (Simpson Center for the Humanities)
Stephanie LeMenager, Professor of English and Environmental Studies, considers the role of fiction as a form of resistant truth-telling in an era of lies, bullish*t, propaganda, GenAI fakes, and conspiracy theory, and in the shadow of the climate crisis. In our media atmosphere filled with falsehoods, fiction becomes a means of capturing messy realities unassimilable to propaganda. Moreover, the flexibility of fictional imagination allows for social responses to radical uncertainties, via new genres of storytelling that call climate-change publics into being. In this talk, we’ll consider stories of megafire. Free.

April 29 | (Philosophy)
The idea of space as the stage on which physical events play out dates at least as far back as the 5th century BC. The twentieth century saw a shift from theorising about space and time separately to thinking about spacetime, but the metaphor of spacetime as a stage or arena has continued. Twenty-first century physics looks likely to render this untenable – theories of quantum gravity do not appear to postulate spacetime as a fundamental container for physical contents. This talk examines an alternative way of thinking about spacetime based on the role that it plays in our physical theories – spacetime philosophy should focus on what spacetime does, rather than what it is. Free.

April 29 | (Psychology)
Presented by Maureen Craig, Associate Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience, Duke University. Free.

April 30 | (School of Music)
The Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band (Erin Bodnar, director) presents “Scenes and Portraits,” featuring music by Gustav Holst, Martin Ellerby, and others.

April 30 |(Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
What does it mean to live well as wildfire and smoke season becomes more a part of life in the Pacific Northwest and many other places around the world? As much as we focus on preparedness and reducing materials that fuel wildfires, we must also reckon with the human dimensions of fire, which shape how we interact with it. “Fire Humanities” is a book project and an emerging field of study that draws on the humanities and arts to center stories, representations, collaborations, and values that promote adaptation, resilience, and justice as we adapt to a world with more fire.

This program will feature a panel discussion with five contributors to the book, who will share their approaches to this emerging field of research. After the panel, you’ll be invited to share your stories of fire and smoke with each other, speak with the panelists, and participate in hands-on activities connected to the Fire Humanities project. Free.

April 30 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Panel discussion featuring Wang Feng, University of California, Irvine, and Yong Cai, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, along with UW faculty James Lin and Sara Curran.
Free.

May 1 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Writing history entails good editing—and accepting when material can’t make the final cut. Lengthy research projects require a command of sources but also analytical flexibility. Such flexibility can ensure rigor, sometimes at the expense of findings that, alas, must be shelved for some other future use. “The B-Sides of Unmaking Botany” will examine a set of sources that did not make it into the recently published monograph Unmaking Botany: Science and Vernacular in the Colonial Philippines (Duke University Press, 2025). The objectives of the talk are thus twofold: to provide a behind-the-scenes take on the production of a scholarly monograph and to offer a conceptual argument gleaned from the sources that nonetheless resonates with some of Unmaking Botany’s principal interventions. Free.

May 1-2 | (American Indian Studies)
Indigenous scholars, artists, community leaders, and practitioners come together to reflect on food sovereignty, wellness, cultural resurgence, and collective healing through land-based knowledge and practice. Keynote by Vina Brown (Haíɫzaqv and Nuu-chah-nulth), a scholar, artist, and wellness advocate, whose work centers on Indigenous law, cultural healing, and community well-being. Raised in her Haíɫzaqv homelands, Vina’s work is deeply grounded in cultural resurgence, ceremony, and Tribal Canoe Journeys. She is the founder of Copper Canoe Woman and co-founder of Rooted Resiliency, an Indigenous women-led nonprofit dedicated to community wellness, cultural healing, and reclamation. Across her work, Vina advocates for land, culture, and collective well-being, with particular attention to healing intergenerational and historical trauma through community, movement, and Indigenous knowledge systems. Free.

See all that’s to come in the May ArtSci Roundup.


ArtSci Roundup goes monthly!

The ArtSci Roundup is your guide to connecting with the UW—whether in person, on campus, or on your couch.

Previously shared on a quarterly basis, those who sign up for the Roundup email will receive them monthly, delivering timely updates and engaging content wherever you are. Check the roundup regularly, as events are added throughout the month. Make sure to check out the ArtSci On Your Own Time section for everything from podcasts to videos to exhibitions that can be enjoyed when it works for you!

In addition, if you like the ArtSci Roundup, sign up to receive a monthly notice when it’s been published.

Do you have an event that you would like to see featured in the ArtSci Roundup? Connect with Lauren Zondag (zondagld@uw.edu).uw.edu).

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ArtSci Roundup: September and October /news/2025/09/15/artsci-roundup-september-and-october/ Mon, 15 Sep 2025 22:31:12 +0000 /news/?p=89104

Come curious. Leave inspired.

We welcome you to connect with us this autumn quarter through an incredible lineup of more than 30 events, exhibitions, podcasts, and more. From thought-provoking talks on monsters to boundary-pushing performances by Grammy-nominated Mariachi ensembles, it’s a celebration of bold ideas and creative energy.


ArtSci On Your Own Time

Exhibition: (Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
Journey through the seasonal cycle of weaving, from gathering materials and spinning wool to dyeing with natural ingredients and weaving intricate designs. Along the way, learn firsthand from weavers and gain insight into the deep cultural and scientific knowledge embedded in every strand. Free entry for UW faculty, staff, and students.

Closing September 28 | (Henry Art Gallery)
This focused exhibition features works from Passing On (2022), a series of collaged newspaper obituaries of influential feminist activists and organizers. The clippings, presented with Winant’s handwritten annotations, reflect on a lineage of non-biological inheritance and how language shapes memory and history. Free.

Closing October 4 | (School of Art + Art History + Design)
The Jacob Lawrence Gallery presents Crossings, featuring new bricolage sculptures by Rob Rhee inspired by inosculated trees and experimental grafting processes. The exhibit includes work from his studio and ongoing developments at the UW Farm. Free.

Exhibitions: (ӰӴý Magazine)
Find art by UW alumni and faculty in solo exhibitions, group shows and art fairs across Seattle and beyond. Free.

Podcast: Ways of Knowing, Season 2
Faculty in the College of Arts & Sciences are facilitating critical conversations in the classroom and the sound booth! The second season of “Ways of Knowing,” a podcast collaboration with The World According to Sound, spotlights eight Arts & Sciences faculty members whose research shapes our knowledge of the world in real time—from digital humanities to mathematics to AI. Free.

Video: (Astronomy)
What will Rubin Observatory discover that no one’s expecting? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Chuck Nice learn and answer cosmic queries about the Vera Rubin Observatory, the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), and our next big tool to uncover more about the universe with Zeljko Ivezic, Director of Rubin Observatory Construction. Free.

Book Club: “The Four Winds” by Kristin Hannah(UW Alumni)
Readers’ Choice! Author (and UW alum – BA, Communication, ’83 ) Kristin Hannah highlights the struggles of the working poor during the Great Depression in this novel. Elsa is an awkward wallflower who is raising her two children on the family farm. As the Dust Bowl hits, she must choose between weathering the climate catastrophe in Texas or moving her family west to follow rumors of jobs in California. Free.


Week of September 22

September 25 | (Department of Chemistry)
A seminar featuring Professor Matt Golder. Free.

September 25 | (Henry Art Gallery)
A two-part series of readings by local authors exploring ghosts, familial histories, and the porousness between life and death. Free.

September 26 |
From the best-selling author of These Truths comes We the People, a stunning new history of the U.S. Constitution, for a troubling new era.


Week of September 29

October 1 | (School of Music)
Students of the UW School of Music perform in this lunchtime concert series co-hosted by UW Music and UW Libraries. Free.

October 3 | (Henry Art Gallery)
Celebrate fall at the Henry with an evening of bold, boundary‑pushing art and vibrant community, featuring exhibitions like Rodney McMillian: Neighbors, Kameelah Janan Rasheed: we leak, we exceed, Spirit House, and Sculpture Court Mural – Charlene Liu: Scallion. Meet the artists, enjoy a no‑host bar, and a curated playlist. Free.

October 3 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Award-winning pianist and cultural ambassador Mahani Teave is a pioneering artist who bridges the creative world with education and environmental activism.

October 3 | (School of Music)
A performance featuring special guests Stomu Takeishi (bass), Lucia Pulido (voice), Cuong Vu (trumpet), and Ted Poor (drums), performing the music of Chilean composer Violeta Parra. Free.

October 4 | (Henry Art Gallery)
An in-depth conversation between artist Rodney McMillian and curator Anthony Elms about the artistic process, themes, and the


Week of October 6

October 7 | (Department of Economics)
Distinguished economist and 2024 Nobel Laureate James Robinson delivers the Milliman Lecture. Free.

October 8 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
A literary conversation between novelist and artist Gerardo Sámano Córdova and UW professors María Elena García (CHID) and Vanessa Freije (JSIS/History), centered around Sámano Córdova’s recent novel, Monstrilio, exploring the major themes of the book, including queerness, monstrosity, and grief. Free.

October 9 | (American Indian Studies)
A series to prepare for the Film Screening & UW Symphony Performance: Healing Heart of the First People of This Land on February 6, 2026 (). Free.

October 10 | (School of Music)
A performance featuring UW Jazz Studies students Jai Kobi Kaleo ‘Okalani, Coen Rios, and Ethan Horn. Free.

October 10 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
The South Asia Center and Tasveer Film Festival host a screening and discussion of Farming the Revolution (1hr 45min, India, 2024, Nishtha Jain). Free.

October 12 | (Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
KEXP broadcasts live from the Burke Museum with music from Indigenous artists all day long! Visit the new special exhibition, Woven in Wool: Resilience in Coast Salish Weaving. While you’re here, say hello to Sammy the Sounder and celebrate the team’s new Salish Sea Kit, co-designed by local Coast Salish weavers. Enjoy free admission for all—plus, kids wearing any Sounders gear will receive a free soccer ball! Free.


Week of October 13

October 14 | (School of Music)
New UW strings faculty John Popham (cello) and Pala Garcia (violin) are joined by Mika Sasaki (piano) in a concert of contemporary works by their trio Longleash, including Nossas Mãos (Our Hands) by Igor Santos.

Online Option – October 14 | (Classics)
For three decades, the Centre d’Études Alexandrines has reshaped our understanding of Alexandria, moving its history from ancient texts to a tangible reality. Terrestrial digs reveal the city’s daily life, while underwater excavations at the site of the legendary Lighthouse have yielded spectacular monumental discoveries. These integrated findings present a multi-layered city, allowing us to write a new history of Alexandria grounded in its material culture of adaptation and reuse. Free.

President Robert J. Jones

October 15 |
President Jones will share his vision for advancing the UW’s public mission: expanding access to an excellent education for all students; strengthening connections with our communities; and accelerating research, discovery and innovation for the public good. Free.

Andrei Okounkov

October 15 | (Department of Mathematics)
Mathematics has its own language, which is used by all other sciences to describe our world. It is very important to use it correctly, and to appreciate how it changes with time. This importance is growing rapidly with the ever wider use of large language models. There is great potential here, but also many pitfalls, as discussed in this lecture. Free.

October 15 | (School of Art + Art History + Design)
This Fall MFA exhibition at the Jacob Lawrence Gallery showcases emerging artists’ work. On view through November 8. Free.

October 16 | (American Indian Studies)
A series to prepare for the Film Screening & UW Symphony Performance: Healing Heart of the First People of This Land on February 6, 2026 (). Free.

October 16 | (Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies)
Connect with local legislators. John Traynor, the Government Affairs Director from the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO, will facilitate the forum.

October 16 | (Simpson Center for the Humanities) Free.

October 17 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
The Grammy-nominated ensemble puts their unique spin on traditional mariachi, creating an explosion of colors and sounds all their own.

October 17 | (Department of Political Science)
UC Berkeley’s David Vogel joins the UW Center for Environmental Politics for a special guest lecture. Free.

October 18 | (Henry Art Gallery)
A curated selection of works explore the significance of branded products, examining how their ubiquity shapes perception, influences identity, and reflects broader cultural values. On view through January 28, 2026. Free.

October 18 | (School of Music)
Celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Fritts-Richards organ with a concert featuring UW students and faculty. A reception follows. Free.


Week of October 20

Emily M. Bender, Alex Hanna

Online Option – October 21 | The AI Con (Book Talk) with Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna (Office of Public Lectures)
Emily Bender (Linguistics) and Alex Hanna expose corporate-driven AI hype and provide essential tools to identify it, break it down, and expose the underlying power plays it seeks to conceal. Pay what you will.

David J. Staley

October 21 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Internationally acclaimed for their rich tone and precision, the Jerusalem Quartet brings a dynamic program featuring works by Haydn and Beethoven, plus Janáček’s dramatic “Kreutzer Sonata.

October 21 | (College of Arts & Sciences)
Staley is the author of Alternative Universities: Speculative Design for Innovation in Higher Education, which argues that too many innovations in education focus on delivery rather than transformative experience. Free.

October 22 | (Department of Chemistry)
Professor Wilfred van der Donk delivers this annual lecture in memory of Prof. Dauben, who helped shape modern organic chemistry. Free.

Dr. Carolyn Pinedo-Turnovsky

October 22 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
A forum discussing recent developments, diplomacy, and policy issues on the Korean Peninsula. Free.

October 23 | Samuel E. Kelly Distinguished Faculty Lecture – Beyond Status: Living Undocumented in Disruptive Times (Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity)
Dr. Carolyn Pinedo-Turnovsky is a sociologist in the Department of American Ethnic Studies at the ӰӴý, where she also holds an adjunct appointment in the Department of Sociology. Annual lecture honoring UW faculty focused on diversity and social justice. Free.

October 23 | (American Indian Studies)
A series to prepare for the Film Screening & UW Symphony Performance: Healing Heart of the First People of This Land on February 6, 2026 (). Free.

October 23 | (Education)
Filmmakers and College of Education (CoE) community members Dr. Edmundo Aguilar, Assistant Teaching Professor, and Tianna Mae Andresen, ECO alum and instructor of Filipinx American US History in SPS, bring us the story of “the students, teachers, and community members in their fight to preserve cross community liberatory ethnic studies and watch them reclaim their humanity along the way.” Free.

Online Option – October 24 | The Art of Refuge, Resistance and Regeneration with Peter Sellars (Office of Public Lectures)
Director Peter Sellars will share real-world examples drawn from a lifetime of cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary artistic collaborations around the globe—demonstrating how art responds to crisis and catalyzes social transformation in an era of profound stakes.Pay what you will.

October 24 | (Department of Political Science)
Jessica Weeks joins the UW International Security Colloquium to present current research in global politics and international relations. Free.

October 24 | (Department of Political Science)
This event is jointly hosted by the UW Political Theory Colloquium and the Washington Institute for the Study of Inequality and Race (WISIR). Free.

October 25 | (Henry Art Gallery)
Explore new exhibitions, catch captivating performances, get hands-on with an all-ages art-making workshop and museum bingo, and discover rarely seen works from the Henry’s collection. Free.

October 26 | (School of Music)
Chamber winds from the UW Wind Ensemble perform works by Caroline Shaw, Richard Strauss, and more, under the direction of Erin Bodnar. Free.


Week of October 27

David Baker

October 28 | (Department of Physics)
Nobel laureate David Baker discusses advanced protein design software and its use in developing molecules to address challenges in medicine, technology, and sustainability. Free.

October 28 | (School of Music)
Renowned pianist Santiago Rodriguez, from the Frost School of Music (Miami University), performs a solo recital presented by the keyboard program. Free.

October 30 | (American Indian Studies)
A series to prepare for the Film Screening & UW Symphony Performance: Healing Heart of the First People of This Land on February 6, 2026 (). Free.

October 31 | (Political Science)
Lecture by Egor Lazarev, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Yale University. Sponsored by the Severyns Ravenholt endowment and The ӰӴý International Security Colloquium (UWISC).

October 31 | (School of Music)
Dr. Stephen Price, UW Organ Studies students, and guests perform spooky organ works and Halloween-themed favorites in this festive concert. Free.

Curious about what’s ahead? Check out the November ArtSci Roundup.


ArtSci Roundup goes monthly!

The ArtSci Roundup is your guide to connecting with the UW—whether in person, on campus, or on your couch.

Previously shared on a quarterly basis, those who sign up for the Roundup email will receive them monthly, delivering timely updates and engaging content wherever you are. Check the roundup regularly, as events are added throughout the month. Make sure to check out the ArtSci On Your Own Time section for everything from podcasts to videos to exhibitions that can be enjoyed when it works for you!

In addition, if you like the ArtSci Roundup, sign up to receive a monthly notice when it’s been published.

Do you have an event that you would like to see featured in the ArtSci Roundup? Connect with Lauren Zondag (zondagld@uw.edu).

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ArtSci Roundup: June 2025 /news/2025/05/23/artsci-roundup-june-2025/ Fri, 23 May 2025 21:35:36 +0000 /news/?p=88071

From campus to wherever you call home, we welcome you to learn from and connect with the College of Arts & Sciences community through public events spanning the arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences. We hope to see you this June.


ArtSci on the Go

Looking for more ways to get more out of Arts & Sciences? Check out these resources to take ArtSci wherever you go!

Zev J. Handel, “Chinese Characters Across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese”()

Black Composers Project engages the School of Music faculty and students ()

Ladino Day Interview with Leigh Bardugo & MELC Professor Canan Bolel ()

Back to School Podcast with Liz Copland ()


Featured Podcast: “Ways of Knowing” (College of Arts & Sciences)

This podcast highlights how studies of the humanities can reflect everyday life. Through a partnership between and the ӰӴý, each episode features a faculty member from the UW College of Arts & Sciences, who discusses the work that inspires them and suggests resources to learn more about the topic.

Episode 1: Digital Humanities with assistant professor of English and data science, Anna Preus.

Episode 2: Paratext with associate professor of French, Richard Watts.

Episode 3: Ge’ez withassociate professor of Middle Eastern languages and cultures, Hamza Zafer.


Closing Exhibits

: Christine Sun Kim: Ghost(ed) Notes at the Henry Art Gallery

Week of June 2

Prof. Daniel Bessner

Monday, June 2, 5:00 – 6:20 pm | ONLINE ONLY: (Jackson School)

Join the Jackson School for Trump in the World 2.0, a series of talks and discussions on the international impact of the second Trump presidency.

This week: Daniel Bessner; Anne H.H. and Kenneth B. Pyle Associate Professor in American Foreign Policy at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies.


Monday, June 2, 5:00 – 7:00 pm | (Jackson School)

Mediha Sorma, Ph.D

This talk discusses the unconventional forms of care that emerge out of Kurdish resistance in Turkey, where mothering becomes a powerful response against necropolitical state violence. By centering the stories of two Kurdish mothers who had to care for their dead children and mother beyond life under the violent state of emergency regime declared in 2015; the talk examines how Kurdish mothers “rescue the dead” (Antoon, 2021) from the necropolitical state and create their necropolitical power through a radical embrace of death and decoupling of mothering from the corporeal link between the mother and the child.


Monday, June 2, 3:30 – 5:00 pm | (The Ellison Center for Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies)

Prof. Masaaki Higashijima

Why do some protests in autocracies attract popular participation while others do not? Masaaki Higashijima’s, University of Tokyo, paper argues that when opposition elites and the masses have divergent motivations for protesting, anti-regime mobilization struggles to gain momentum. Moreover, this weak elite-mass linkage is further exacerbated when autocrats selectively repress protests led by opposition elites while making concessions to those organized by ordinary citizens.

 


Tuesday, June 3, 5:00 – 6:30 pm | (Communications)

Mary Gates Hall

A conversation with local public media leaders about current challenges–including federal funding cuts–and pathways forward for sustaining public service journalism.

Speakers include:

Rob Dunlop, President and CEO, Cascade PBS
David Fischer, President and General Manager, KNKX
Tina Pamintuan, incoming President and CEO, KUOW
Matthew Powers, Professor and Co-Director, Center for Journalism, Media and Democracy


Wednesday, June 4, 3:30 – 4:30 pm | (Psychology)

Prof. Hadas Okon-Singer

Cognitive biases — such as attentional biases toward aversive cues, distorted expectations of negative events, and biased interpretations of ambiguity — are central features of many forms of psychopathology. Gaining a deeper understanding of the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying these biases is crucial for advancing theoretical models and clinical interventions.

In this talk, Prof. Hadas Okon-Singer will present a series of studies exploring emotional biases in both healthy individuals and participants diagnosed with social anxiety, major depressive disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder.


Wednesday, June 4, 12:30 – 1:30 pm | (Center for Statistics & Social Sciences)

Prof. Tyler McCormick

Many statistical analyses, in both observational data and randomized control trials, ask: how does the outcome of interest vary with combinations of observable covariates? How do various drug combinations affect health outcomes, or how does technology adoption depend on incentives and demographics? Tyler McCormick’s, Professor, Statistics & Sociology, ӰӴý, goal is to partition this factorial space into “pools” of covariate combinations where the outcome differs across the pools (but not within a pool).


Friday, June 6, 7:30 pm | (School of Music)

David Alexander Rahbee leads the UW Symphony in a program of concerto excerpts by York Bowen, Keiko Abe, and Camille Saint-Saëns, performed with winners of the 2024-25 School of Music Concerto Competitions: Flora Cummings, viola; Kaisho Barnhill, marimba; and Sandy Huang, piano. Also on the program, works by Mikhail Glinka, Richard Wagner, and Giuseppe Verdi.


Saturday, June 7 & Sunday, June 8, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm | (Burke Museum)

Artist Stewart Wong

Stewart Wong will share knowledge and personal experiences about working with Broussonetia Papyrifera. He will talk about the history, uses, and cultivation of the paper mulberry plant. In addition, Stewart plans on dyeing, drawing on, and printing kapa. Stewart will have printed information and material samples to supplement the talk.


Saturday, June 7, 11:00 am – 12:00 pm | On Our Terms with Wakulima USA (Burke Museum)

Join the Burke Museum for a short screening from “,” plus a conversation with co-producer Aaron McCanna and Wakulima USA’s David Bulindah and Maura Kizito about food sovereignty and community building.


Additional Events

June 2 | (Music)

June 2 | (Asian Languages & Literature)

June 2 – June 6 | (Astronomy)

June 3 | (Music)

June 4 | (Music)

June 4 | (Psychology)

June 5 | (Music)

June 5 | (Speech & Hearing)

June 5 | (Labor Studies)

June 5 | (Art + Art History + Design)

June 6 | (Dance)

June 6 | (Geography)

June 7 | (Music)


Week of June 9

Wednesday, June 11 to Friday, June 27 | (Jacob Lawrence Gallery)

At the end of the spring quarter, the academic year culminates in comprehensive exhibitions of design work created by graduating students. The UW Design Show 2025, showcasing the capstone projects of graduating BDes students, will be held from June 11 to June 27 in the Jacob Lawrence Gallery.


Additional Events

June 11 | (Henry Art Gallery)

June 11 | (Art + Art History + Design)

June 12 & June 13 | (DXARTS)

June 13 | (Art + Art History + Design)


Events for the week of June 23

June 24 | (Information Sessions)

June 25 | (Information Sessions)

June 26 | (Information Sessions)

June 27 | (Information Sessions)


Commencement

June marks the end of many College of Arts & Sciences students’ undergraduate experience. Interested in attending a graduation ceremony? Click here to find information on ceremonies across campus.


Have an event that you would like to see featured in the ArtSci Roundup? Connect with Kathrine Braseth (kbraseth@uw.edu).

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‘Ways of Knowing’ Episode 1: Digital Humanities /news/2025/05/20/ways-of-knowing-episode-1-digital-humanities/ Tue, 20 May 2025 17:15:10 +0000 /news/?p=88112 English, philosophy and comparative literature aren’t typically subjects that come to mind when thinking about big datasets. But the intersection between literature and data analysis is exactly where works.

Ways of Knowing

The World According to Sound

Season 2, Episode 1

Digital Humanities

[poetry reading begins]

Chris Hoff: British modernist literature is dominated by a few names: William Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound.

[reading continues]

CH: The story goes that these were the most important, famous poets of their time. And they’ve continued to be revered through the decades. But there were a host of other writers at the time who were also famous, but whose work was never part of the canon.

[reading of Tagore begins]

Who are you, reader, reading my poems a hundred years hence?
I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the spring, one single streak of gold from yonder clouds.
Open your doors and look abroad.

CH: This is Rabindranath [ruh BIN druh noth] Tagore [tuh GORE].

[reading of Tagore continues]

From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the vanished flowers of a hundred years before.
In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning, sending its glad voice across a hundred years.

CH: And this is Sarojini [ser OH juh knee] Naidu [NAI doo]

[reading of Naidu begins]

When from my cheek I lift my veil
The roses turn with envy pale
and from their pierced hearts rich with pain
send for their fragrances like a wail

Or if perchance one perfumed tress
Be loosened to the wind’s caress
The honeyed hyacinths complain
and languish in a sweet distress

[reading of Naidu fades]

CH: Tagore actually won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, the first Asian person to have ever done so. And Naidu was a political activist and poet, known throughout India by the nickname Gandhi gave her, “The Nightingale of India.” Yet their work is largely unknown in the West.

Anna Preus: I had gotten deep into a Ph.D program focusing on the early 20th century and no one had ever mentioned her name to me.

CH: Anna Preus, professor of English and data science at the ӰӴý.

AP: The received narratives about British modernism rely on a history of judgements by middle- and upper-class British and American men for the most part. You hear the same group of people talked about often: Ezra Pound, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot. We finally got a woman in there with Virginia Woolf in like the 70s and 80s, but she wasn’t always included. And yet there are all these other authors whose work has not been included in those received understanding of modernism.

CH: It’s a familiar idea: talented writers, thinkers and artists who have been marginalized based on their ethnicities and identities. The narrative is that they weren’t the most popular or revered in their time, and therefore weren’t included in the canon.

AP: That has resulted in the situation where they can sometimes be framed as less influential than they actually were, in my opinion, to not only literary cultures of Anglophone literature in South Asia or the Caribbean, but also to what we might refer to as British Modernism, capital B and capital M.

CH: But it turns out this narrative is not true. Writers like Naidu and Tagore were actually quite successful in their time. That fact becomes completely clear once you look at the data.

[reading of data begins]

CH: This is publishing data from colonial poets in the early 20th century in Great Britain. Anna pored over all this data for her research.

[reading of data continues]

CH: The number of times non-British authors were published was enormous, which convinced Anna that colonial authors like Naidu and Tagore were just as popular as their contemporaries in Eliot, Pound and Yeats. This means that the decision to exclude them from the canon was not because they were unknown or marginal. It was a conscious decision not to include these influential writers and to prioritize white, male authors like Eliot and Pound. To prove that these writers were popular in their time, Anna wanted to find out how many times the most well-known Indian authors were published in Britain. But getting at this information was tricky.

Publishing data is notoriously patchy. If the records exist at all, they could be stored away in some archive or library, perhaps not even labeled or easily accessible to the public.

AP: A few decades ago, a few institutions started digitizing historical text en masse. The English Catalogue of Books happens to be one of those texts that Google digitized. So, what we had when we started working on this with a team was all these kinds of PDFs, just static PDFs, and then plain text files with an endless stream of garbled, plain text. So we had to try to split that up so we could get usable data on each of the books published each year that we could both search and analyze computationally.

CH: This was no small task.

AP: There are years of work in just trying to take a PDF and turn it into a usable, correct list of books published at the time. And it’s digital humanities in part because of that process, of trying to transform a historical text — this publishing catalog — into a spreadsheet where people could see, for example, what the most popular publisher of 1913 was. Getting from Point A to Point B has involved a lot of different steps for trying to transform historical text but has also involved larger scale collaboration.

CH: Once Anna got all that publishing data into a spreadsheet, she could start asking some deeper questions.

AP: For me, particularly, I am interested in how the British publishing industry was a key institution in British imperialism. I was very interested in getting at this data to see what works were being published, especially in relation to British imperial projects. That’s why I am interested in 1902 to 1922. That’s the peak period of British imperialism in terms of land conquest.

[data reading begins]

CH: There are lots of books published about South Asia, but not so many literary texts by South Asian authors. There ended up being more than Anna thought. She combed through the data and established about 2,000 English-language texts by authors like Naidu, Tagore and others. Some Asian authors were prolific.

AP: Totally. It’s definitely caused me to shift my perspective. When I was initially looking at the data and I was in library databases looking at the number of works published by Tagore and Yeats, I saw that Tagore had doubled the library record to Yeats in at least the information I pulled. Even to me, I was like that’s striking. I’ve heard so much about Yeats.

[instrumental music begins]

CH: She started noticing something else. Another part of the story of why these writers had been excluded from the canon: Their work had been misclassified. Many works of poetry by these prominent South Asian writers were not published under the heading “poetry.” Instead, publishers labeled them as songs. Naidu’s poetry –– the readings we heard at the beginning of this piece –– are from a book titled “The Sceptred Flute: Songs of India.”

AP: Each of these authors’ first publications were so heavily, generically, associated with song. I was like, “What’s going on?” These authors are quite different, their poetry is quite different. It’s poetry. It keeps being called song. This was true for other writers all across the British colonies. I had this sort of sense that these works were being labeled as songs to associate them with oral cultures, with forms of oral literature and potentially to represent them not as necessarily literary text, high-elevated poetry or verse.

CH: It was happening not only to authors from Britain’s distant colonies, but also to those from the British Isles and Ireland.

AP: I found a ton of poetry books labeled as songs. So England, when it looked back at its own poetic history, found the kind of origins of poetry in these collectively produced ballads. They wrote a lot about that kind of poetic development in the places they colonized in the British Isles — so Wales, Ireland, Scotland. You see a lot of books of Welsh ballads, Scottish ballads, all talking about this early collective poetic culture. And so for me, that really seems like part of the reason authors like Naidu are not considered modernists is because from the beginning, they were associated with the old, and this earlier form of poetry, rather than the experimental, avant garde or boundary-pushing, or poetry of the now that you see some authors like T.S. Eliott sort of being marketed as

CH: For Anna, relegating these colonial authors to a more primitive style of poetry was no accident. And to prove it, she connected the texts of these South Asian authors with larger data sets. She could have done all this work without the aid of data analysis, but collecting this amount of information and making sense of it could take up the entire lifetime of one scholar. Digital tools can cut through a lot of the grunt work.

AP: Absolutely. If you wanted to do that for 1912, you would be reading through a 400-page publishing catalog that has 70 entries per page, and writing down each time a publisher was mentioned and then adding them up. So you’re absolutely right. What this allows us to do is break up the text, so essentially we have a column in the spreadsheet that’s publisher and then count so we don’t have to do that by hand.

CH: Instead, Anna and her team can get these results in a matter of days, which gets at a core aspect of her work: collaboration. All the tools you need are pretty easy to come by. As long as you have some coding skills, everything else –– the texts, the processing programs, and really all you need is a laptop –– it’s all basically free. But for Anna, she’s had staff members and both graduate and undergraduate colleagues helping her for years — all with a range of technical skills. This, she says, isn’t typical for humanities research, and it certainly doesn’t happen at many institutions.

In the end, though, this kind of humanistic work is not just about data. It’s about combining the work of studying primary sources, like a poem, with data analysis.

AP: The story comes from going back and forth between the books and the data. I don’t think the story comes through in the data alone. I don’t think it comes through in individual books alone. For me, it’s a constant back and forth of going to the data, looking at all these books, then seeing which of these books I can access, actually reading them, seeing how they’re marketed, what tropes are being called up, and then going back to the data and then seeing if that comes through more broadly. So it’s always this back-and-forth process.

CH: Anna Preus works in the more recent tradition of the digital humanities. It’s about applying the analysis of large sets of data in fields that aren’t typically known for using such methods, like English, philosophy or comparative literature. Using digital tools to study humanistic material allows access to the humanities that would otherwise not be possible.

CH: Here are five texts that’ll help you learn more about publishing culture and the digital humanities as a way of knowing.

“A World of Fiction: Digital Collections and the Future of Literary History,” by Katherine Bode

CH: This book uses the world’s largest collection of mass-digitized newspapers to understand how Anglophone fiction in the 19th century traveled around the world.

“Debates in the Digital Humanities,” edited by Matthew Gould and Lauren Klein

CH: A state of the digital humanities union, so to speak — at least as of 2023. This collection of essays highlights the major questions, problems,and practical knowledge of the field.

“New Digital Worlds: Postcolonial Digital Humanities in Theory, Praxis, and
Pedagogy,” by Roopika Risam

CH: Risam’s book examines the role of colonial violence in the development of digital archives and the possibilities of postcolonial digital archives for resisting this violence.

“Postcolonial Writers in the Global Literary Marketplace,” by Sarah Brouillette.

CH: A book about the relationship between postcolonial authors and the international marketplace where their work is published.

“In Another Country: Colonialism, Culture, and the English Novel in India,” by Priya Joshi

CH: Joshi explores how Indian writers of the English novel indigenized the once-imperial form and put it to their own uses.

CREDITS

SH: Ways of Knowing is a production of The World According to Sound. This season is about the different interpretative and analytical methods in the humanities. It was made in collaboration with the ӰӴý and its College of Arts & Sciences. Thanks to Casey Miner and Ben Trefny for their voice work. Music provided by Ketsa, Serge Quadrado, Graffiti Mechanism, Oootini, and our friends, Matmos.

 

Preus, a ӰӴý assistant professor of English and of data science, digitally streamlined the process of documenting the number of non-British poets published in early 20th-century Great Britain. Anna Preus The number was enormous, but these poets are still absent from the literary canon — a discrepancy that led Preus to believe their exclusion was a conscious decision. In this episode, Preus discusses her research and the infrastructure needed for similar digital humanities projects.

This is the first episode of Season 2 of “Ways of Knowing,” a podcast highlighting how studies of the humanities can reflect everyday life. Through a partnership between and the ӰӴý, each episode features a faculty member from the UW College of Arts & Sciences, who discuss the work that inspires them and suggest resources to learn more about the topic.

Next | Episode 2: Paratext

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ArtSci Roundup: May 2025 /news/2025/04/15/artsci-roundup-may-2025/ Wed, 16 Apr 2025 03:01:34 +0000 /news/?p=87939

From campus to wherever you call home, we welcome you to learn from and connect with the College of Arts & Sciences community through public events spanning the arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences. We hope to see you this May.


Innovation Month

April 30 | An Evening with Christine Sun Kim (Public Lecture)

May 1 | (Public Lecture)

May 3 | (Meany Center)

May 6 | (Chemistry)

May 13 | (Physics)

May 14 | (Dance)

May 14 | (Music)

May 15 | (Music)

May 16 | (Linguistics)

May 19 | (Linguistics)

May 21 | (DXARTS)

May 21 | (Chemistry)

May 27 | (Music)


ArtSci on the Go

Looking for more ways to get more out of Arts & Sciences? Check out these resources to take ArtSci wherever you go!

Zev J. Handel, “Chinese Characters Across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese”()

“Ways of Knowing” Podcast (College of Arts & Sciences)

Black Composers Project engages the School of Music faculty and students ()

Ladino Day Interview with Leigh Bardugo & MELC Professor Canan Bolel ()


Week of April 28

Thursday, May 1, 6:30 – 7:30 pm | (Public Lecture)

Afrofuturism began as a concept coined by scholar Mark Dery in 1993. It was his way of grouping ideas regarding how Black people used the technology of stories to deal with racial oppression, disrupted history, and the challenge of moving into a positive future. In recent years, we have seen an explosion of interest from various fields around the critical making space that we call Afrofuturism.

In this lecture, John Jennings will explore the major themes in the Afrofuturism movement, track the timeline of its growth, and posit future possibilities around this vibrant and ever-changing way of seeing the world.


Friday, May 2 to Saturday, May 3 | (American Indian Studies)

This symposium brings people together to share knowledge on topics such as traditional foods, plants, and medicines; environmental and food justice; food sovereignty/security; health and wellness; and treaty rights. This event serves to foster dialogue and build collaborative networks as we, Native peoples, strive to sustain our cultural food practices and preserve our healthy relationships with the land, water, and all living things. Save the Date for this year’s event. The theme is: “Generational Food Sovereignty.”


Friday, May 2, 5:00 pm | (Burke Museum)

Join the Burke Museum for an exclusive tour of the Burke’s extensive collection of oversized items at our Sand Point facility, followed by a reception, dinner, and auction.


Additional Events

April 30 | An Evening with Christine Sun Kim (Public Lecture)

May 1 | (Music)

May 1 | (South Asia Center)

May 1 | (Simpson Center)

May 2 | (Music)

May 3 | (Meany Center)


Week of May 5

Monday, May 4, 5:00 – 6:20 pm | ONLINE ONLY (Jackson School)

Join the Jackson School for Trump in the World 2.0, a series of talks and discussions on the international impact of the second Trump presidency.

This week: Mark Ward, U.S. Foreign Service (ret.) and Instructor in the Department of History, Philosophy and Religion at Oregon State University.


Tuesday, May 6, 4:00 – 5:00 pm | (Department of Chemistry)

“Mosquitoes, earwax, and bird baths”
Professor David Hu – School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Tech
Host: Sarah Keller

Wednesday, May 7, 5:00 – 7:00 pm | (Department of Scandinavian Studies)

There is a common misconception in literary publishing that books for children and young adults are “simple” and are, therefore, easy to translate. But translating literature for younger people is not simple at all.

Join the panel of three distinguished translators—Sawad Hussain (Arabic), Shelley Fairweather-Vega (Russian and Uzbek), and Takami Nieda (Japanese)—for an engaging discussion of these issues.


Thursday, May 8, 6:00 – 7:30 pm | (Henry Art Gallery)

The Henry is excited to welcome distinguished artist Carmen Winant as the 2025 Monsen Photography Lecture speaker. This annual lecture brings key makers and thinkers in photographic practice to the Henry. Named after Drs. Elaine and Joseph Monsen, the series is designed to further knowledge about and appreciation for the art of photography.

Thursday, May 8, 11:30 am – 12:00 pm | (Department of English)

Theodore Roethke taught at the ӰӴý from 1947 until his death in 1963. The Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Readings began in 1964 to honor his memory by bringing notable contemporary poets to the UW campus to give a reading of their works and, when possible, to meet with students enrolled in the department’s advanced poetry writing courses. The annual Roethke Readings, co-sponsored by the Department of English, the UW Graduate School, and the Theodore Roethke Memorial Fund Committee. This event is free and open to the public and regularly attracts large audiences of poetry lovers from around the Pacific Northwest.


Saturday, May 10, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm | (Burke Museum)

Hear about groundbreaking research from the Burke and UW scientists, enjoy hundreds of specimens from the Burke’s collection, and celebrate all things fossilized with fossil digs, ancient animal identification, microfossil sorting, crafts, and more!


Additional Events

May 5 | (Music)

May 6 | (Simpson Center)

May 7 | (Jackson School)

May 7 | (Music)

May 7 | (Scandinavian Studies)

May 8 | (Chemistry)

May 8 | (Meany Center)

May 8 | (Simpson Center)

May 8 | (Simpson Center)

May 9 | (Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies)

May 9 | (Political Science)

May 9 | (Classics)

May 9 | (German Studies)

May 10 | (Music)


Week of May 12

Monday, May 12, 5:00 – 6:20 pm | ONLINE ONLY (Jackson School)

Join the Jackson School for Trump in the World 2.0, a series of talks and discussions on the international impact of the second Trump presidency.

This week: Vanessa Freije, James D. Long, Tony Lucero, and Christopher Tounsel.


Tuesday, May 13, 7:30 pm | (Department of Physics)

When we think of engineering materials, we often picture solid blocks such as steel or plastic with fixed properties—soft, lightweight, or strong. In contrast, granular materials such as sand or rice flow and shear. What if a material could do both? Polycatenated Architected Materials (PAMs) are a new class of structures that bridge the gap between solids and fluids. Made of interlocked particles forming intricate 3D networks—akin to modern-day chainmail—PAMs can switch from flowing like granular matter to behaving as solid elastic materials. Join the Department of Physics to discover how the geometry and topology of PAMs are redefining what’s possible in material science and engineering.


May 13, 15, and 16 | (Department of Applied Mathematics)

The Frederic and Julia Wan Lecturer Prize aims to invite renowned mathematicians to visit the Department of Applied Mathematics. The lecturer delivers three lectures, ranging from technical talks to experts to expository talks. Additionally, the lecturer actively engages with members of the department and the broader UW community.

Tuesday, May 13, 4:00 pm:

Thursday, May 15, 4:00 pm:

Friday, May 16, 3:30 pm:


Thursday, May 15, 11:00 am – 12:30 pm | (Jackson School)

Join us for a retrospective reflection on the future of African women and football, followed by a Q&A featuring guest speaker Martha Saavedra, faculty and associate director of the Center for African Studies at the University of California in Berkeley. This event is part of the Global Sport Lab initiative.

This event is free and open to all.


Additional Events

May 12 | (Classics)

May 12 | (Simpson Center)

May 12 | (Biology)

May 13 | (Simpson Center)

May 13 to May 23 | (Art + Art History + Design)

May 13 | (Meany Center)

May 14 | (Dance)

May 14 | (Music)

May 14 | (Jackson School)

May 14 | (Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies)

May 14| (CSSS)

May 14 | (Burke Museum)

May 15 | (Music)

May 15 | (Simpson Center)

May 15 | (Speech & Hearing)

May 16 | (Political Science)

May 16 | (Linguistics)

May 16 | Undergraduate Research Symposium (Undergraduate Academic Affairs)

May 16 | (Asian Languages & Literature)

May 16 | (Classics)

May 16 | (Statistics)

May 17 | (Meany Center)

May 17 | (Burke Museum)

May 17 | (Henry Art Gallery)


Week of May 19

Monday, May 18, 5:00 – 6:20 pm | ONLINE ONLY: (Jackson School)

Join the Jackson School for Trump in the World 2.0, a series of talks and discussions on the international impact of the second Trump presidency.

This week: Scott L. Montgomery.


Monday, May 19, 5:00 – 8:00 pm | (Asian Languages & Literature)

This lecture, Recipes for the Life Politics of Domesticity in Global Korea with Hyaeweol Choi, takes food as an entry for understanding gender history and culture in general, and the politics of domesticity in particular, by focusing specifically on the gendered history of street food in South Korea, exploring its evolution through the forces of war, poverty, industrialization, and nation-branding in the age of globalization.


Wednesday, May 21, 7:30 pm | (DXARTS)

Composer John Chowning is considered one of the pioneers of Computer Music. His contributions to this field, such as the invention of FM Digital Synthesis, had a strong cultural impact on the worlds of both classical and popular music. His invention allowed the production of one of the most popular digital synthesizers, the Yamaha DX7, which sold millions of units in the 1980s and was used by virtually every band from that era. Revenues from the licensing of this technology to Yamaha Corporation allowed Chowning to create the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University, one of the most important Computer Music research centers in the world.


Thursday, May 22, 7:30 pm | (American Indian Studies)

The Department of American Indian Studies at the UW hosts an annual literary and storytelling series. Sacred Breath features Indigenous writers and storytellers sharing their craft at the beautiful wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ Intellectual House on the UW Seattle campus. Storytelling offers a spiritual connection and a sharing of sacred breath. Literature, similarly, preserves human experience and ideals. Both forms are durable and transmit power that teaches us how to live. Both storytelling and reading aloud can impact audiences through the power of presence, allowing for the experience of the transfer of sacred breath as audiences are immersed in the experience of being inside stories and works of literature.


Thursday, May 22 to Sunday, June 1, Times Vary | (Drama)

THRIVE, OR WHAT YOU WILLtells the story of Jeanne Baret, a gender-nonconforming 18th-century herb woman, who embarks on an 11-year voyage around the world disguised as a(male)botanist’s assistant.Thefirst woman to circumnavigate the globe, Jeanne’s journey is depicted through a blend of historical fiction and contemporary issues. The play interrogates themes of “discovery,” survival, power, access, gender, and identity while highlighting the subjective nature of history and self. With a style that merges past and present, this epic tale is funny, gripping, poignant, and wild.


Additional Events

May 19 | (Music)

May 19 | (Linguistics)

May 19 | (Asian Languages & Literature)

May 19 | (Asian Languages & Literature)

May 19 | (Biology)

May 20 | (Music)

May 20 | (Music)

May 20 | (CHID)

May 21 | (Slavic Languages & Literatures)

May 21 | (CHID)

May 21 | (Chemistry)

May 21 | (Chemistry)

May 21 | Judge Joel Ngugi (Public Lecture)

May 21 | (Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies)

May 21 | (CSSS)

May 21 | (Communication)

May 21 | (Statistics)

May 21 | (Simpson Center)

May 22 | (Music)

May 22 | (Jackson School)

May 22 | (Asian Languages & Literature)

May 23 | (Political Science)

May 23 | (Music)

May 23 | (Music)

May 23 | (Statistics)

May 23 | (Simpson Center)

May 24 – June 15 | (Art + Art History + Design)

May 25| (Asian Languages & Literature)


Week of May 26

Thursday, May 29, 7:30 pm | (School of Music)

The University Singers, Treble Choir, and UW Glee Club present an eclectic program of music from around the world, folk tunes, and arrangements of popular music standards.


Thursday, May 29, 7:30 pm | (School of Music)

The UW Percussion Ensemble (Bonnie Whiting, director) and the UW Steelband (Gary Gibson, director) present an end-of-year percussion bash.


Additional Events

May 27 to June 6 | (Art + Art History + Design)

May 27 | (Music)

May 28 to May 30 | (Philosophy)

May 28 | (Jackson School)

May 28 | (History)

May 28 | (CSSS)

May 29 | (Indigenous Studies)

May 29 | (Simpson Center)

May 29 | (Philosophy)

May 30 | (Political Science)

May 30 | (Music)

May 30 | (Music)

May 30 | (China Studies)

May 30 | (Burke Museum)


Have an event that you would like to see featured in the ArtSci Roundup? Connect with Kathrine Braseth (kbraseth@uw.edu).

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UW Information School ties for 1st; other UW programs place highly in US News & World Report Best Graduate Schools ranking /news/2025/04/07/uw-information-school-ties-for-1st-other-uw-programs-place-highly-in-us-news-world-report-best-graduate-schools-ranking/ Tue, 08 Apr 2025 04:06:29 +0000 /news/?p=87887 Drone shot
The UW’s graduate and professional degree programs were widely recognized as among the best in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2026 Best Graduate Schools rankings. Photo: ӰӴý

UPDATE April 8,2025: An earlier version of this story included outdated rankings that were erroneously posted by U.S. News and have since been removed from the U.S. News ranking site. This story has been updated to reflect most recent rankings.

Many of the ӰӴý’s graduate and professional degree programs were widely recognized as among the best in the nation, according to .

The UW Information School tied for No. 1 alongside the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for library and information studies. And, more than 80 UW schools and departments placed prominently in the 2026 rankings.

While the UW celebrates the success and impact of the programs recognized by U.S. News — and notes that many applicants use these rankings to help them select schools and discover potential areas of study — the University also recognizes shortcomings inherent in the ranking systems.

The UW School of Law and the UW School of Medicine withdrew from the U.S. News rankings in 2022 and 2023, respectively, citing concerns that some of the methodology in the rankings for those specific disciplines incentivize actions and policies that run counter to the schools’ public service missions.

UW leaders continue to work with U.S. News and other ranking organizations to improve their methodologies, to the extent that the organizations are open to it. Schools, colleges and departments continually reevaluate the benefits and potential shortfalls of participating in specific rankings.

“As these rankings demonstrate, the UW’s outstanding graduate and professional degree programs are leading the way in training highly skilled people to fill critical workforce needs and advance discovery and innovation in a wide range of fields,” said UW President Ana Mari Cauce. “It has never been more important to recognize how much graduate and professional education benefit our nation and people everywhere, and the UW is proud to see these exceptional programs be celebrated.”

Excluding the School of Law and the School of Medicine, 32 UW programs placed in the top 10, and more than 80 are in the top 35.

In new rankings released this year, the UW placed in the top 10 nationwide in library and information studies, public affairs, nursing, speech and language pathology, education, public health, computer science, psychology and civil engineering, according to U.S. News.

The UW’s Evans School of Public Policy & Governance has maintained its top-10 ranking for more than a decade and placed seventh in the nation. The Evans School’s environmental policy program was ranked second and nonprofit management and social policy each were ranked at No. 8.

This year’s rankings highlighted UW’s leadership in nursing and public health: The UW School of Nursing held the No. 1 overall ranking for a public school offering a doctor of nursing practice program, and nursing schools at UW Bothell and UW Tacoma are among the top 10 public institutions that offer a master’s degree. The School of Public Health has maintained its top-10 ranking for more than a decade, coming in this year tied for No. 10. The school also had three programs in the top 10: biostatistics, environmental health sciences and epidemiology. And overall, the U.S. News rankings noted UW’s strength in health sciences: The School of Social Work was ranked No. 7 and the School of Pharmacy tied for 12th — or third among public institutions on the West Coast — on last year’s list, while dentistry programs are not ranked.

The UW’s programs in speech and language pathology tied for No. 5, topping schools on the West Coast. Three programs from the College of Education placed in the top 10. And the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering this year tied for seventh place overall, and four programs ranked in the top 10, including artificial intelligence, programming language, systems and theory.

In some cases, such as the College of Arts & Science and the Foster School of Business, U.S. News ranks several professional disciplines housed within academic units. The rankings below are based on preliminary data and may be updated. relies on both expert opinions and statistical indicators.

TOP 10:

Library and Information Studies (overall): Two-way tie for 1st

Public Affairs (environmental policy): 2nd

Library and information studies (digital librarianship): Two-way for 2nd (ranked in 2022)

Library and Information Studies (information systems): 2nd (ranked in 2022)

Nurse practitioner (doctor of nursing practice): 3rd

Physics (nuclear): Two-way tie for 3rd (ranked in 2024)

Library and Information Studies (library services for children and youth): Two-way for 5th (ranked in 2022)

Nursing (midwifery): 5th

Nurse practitioner (pediatric acute care): Two-way tie for 5th (ranked in 2022)

Speech-language pathology: Six-way tie for 5th

Education (elementary education): 6th

Education (secondary education): 6th

Public Health (biostatistics): 6th

Computer science (overall): Four-way tie for 7th

Computer science (programming language): 7th

Public Health (environmental health sciences): 7th

School of Social Work (overall): 7th (ranked in 2025)

Statistics: Tie for 7th (ranked in 2022)

Computer science (artificial intelligence): 8th

Computer science (systems): 8th

Education (curriculum/instruction): 8th

Evans School of Public Policy & Governance (overall): Two-way tie for 7th

Psychology (clinical): Six-way tie for 8th

Public Affairs (nonprofit management): 8th

Public Affairs (social policy): 8th

Public Health (epidemiology): Two-way tie for 8th

Computer science (theory): Three-way tie for 9th

Earth sciences: Five-way tie for 9th (ranked in 2024)

Geophysics: Three-way tie for 9th (ranked in 2024)

Engineering (civil): Three-way tie for 10th

Public Affairs (public finance and budgeting): 10th

School of Public Health (overall): Two-way tie for 10th

TOP 25:

Biological sciences: Three-way tie for 23rd (ranked in 2022)

Business (part-time MBA): Two-way tie for 17th

Business (information systems): Two-way tie for 12th

Business (international MBA): Three-way tie for 20th

Business (supply chain management): Three-way tie for 21st (ranked in 2025)

Business (full-time MBA): Two-way tie for 22nd

Business (entrepreneurship): Three-way tie for 23rd

Business (executive MBA): Three-way tie for 25th

Chemistry (analytical): Four-way tie for 16th (ranked in 2024)

Chemistry: Three-way tie for 24th (ranked in 2024)

Chemistry (inorganic): Three-way tie for 22nd (ranked in 2024)

College of Education (overall): Two-way tie for 22nd

Education (administration): Two-way tie for 12th

Education (policy): Three-way tie for 16th

Education (psychology): 19th

Education (special education): Two-way tie for 11th

College of Engineering (overall): Three-way tie for 20th

Engineering (aerospace/aeronautical/astronautical): Three-way tie for 15th

Engineering (biomedical/bioengineering): Four-way tie for 12th

Engineering (chemical): Two-way tie for 25th

Engineering (computer): Two-way tie for 13th

Engineering (electrical): Four-way tie for 18th

Engineering (environmental/environmental health): Four-way tie for 18th (ranked in 2025)

Engineering (materials engineering): Three-way tie for 24th

Library and Information Studies (school library media): Two-way tie for 11th (ranked in 2022)

Mathematics (applied math): 21st (ranked in 2024)

Nursing master’s (overall): Three-way tie for 12th

Nurse practitioner (family): Three-way tie for 11th (ranked in 2025)

College of Pharmacy (overall): Three-way tie for 12th (ranked in 2025)

Physics (overall): 20th (ranked in 2024)

Public Health (healthcare management): Three-way tie for 16th

Public Health (health policy and management): 13th

Public Health (social behavior): Two-way tie for 12th

Public Affairs (global policy and administration): 14th

Public Affairs (public management and leadership): Three-way tie for 11th

Public Affairs (public policy analysis): 13th

Sociology (overall): Two-way tie for 22nd

Sociology (population): Two-way tie for 15th (ranked in 2022)

TOP 35:

Business (accounting): Three-way tie for 27th

Business (management): Three-way tie for 29th

Business (finance): Three-way tie for 31st

Business (marketing): Two-way tie for 32nd

Engineering (industrial/manufacturing/systems): Three-way tie for 30th

Engineering (mechanical): Three-way tie for 30th

English: Two-way tie for 34th

History: Three-way tie for 31st

Mathematics: Three-way tie for 27th (ranked in 2024)

Political science: Five-way tie for 33rd

Psychology: Nine-way way tie for 30th

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ArtSci Roundup: April 2025 /news/2025/03/12/artsci-roundup-april-2025/ Wed, 12 Mar 2025 19:08:19 +0000 /news/?p=87712

From campus to wherever you call home, we welcome you to learn from and connect with the College of Arts & Sciences community through public events spanning the arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences. We hope to see you this April.


Worldwide Conversations

April 4 | (Political Science)

April 4 | (Political Science)

April 7 | (Jackson School)

April 8 | (Department of Asian Languages & Literature)

April 9 | (Political Science)

April 10 – April 11 | (Middle Easter Languages and Cultures)

April 10 – April 12 | (Jackson School)

April 11 | (Classics)

April 14 | (Jackson School)

April 14 | (Jackson School)

April 15 | (French & Italian)

April 21 | (Jackson School)

April 23 | (Astronomy)

April 24 | (Middle Easter Languages and Cultures)

April 28 | (Jackson School)


ArtSci on the Go

Looking for more ways to get more out of Arts & Sciences? Check out these resources to take ArtSci wherever you go!

“Ways of Knowing” Podcast (College of Arts & Sciences)

Black Composers Project engages School of Music faculty, students ()

Ladino Day Interview with Leigh Bardugo & MELC professor Canan Bolel()


Week of March 31

Dr. Victoria Meadows

Wednesday, April 2, 7 pm – 8 pm | (Department of Astronomy)

UWAB is excited to announce that we are hosting a public lecture series to celebrate the program’s 25th anniversary in April 2025! All talks will occur in Kane Hall (Room 120), with doors opening at 6:30 p.m. and lectures beginning at 7 p.m. Each event will feature an hour-long lecture and up to 45 minutes of Q&A with our speaker.

This week’s lecturer: Dr. Victoria Meadows, UW Astrobiology Program DirectorProfessor of Astronomy at the ӰӴý

s are required for both in-person and Zoom attendance


Wednesday, April 2, 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm | (Department of English)

Pádraig Ó Tuama (photo credit: David Pugh)

Poet and theologian, Pádraig Ó Tuama’s work centers around themes of language, power, conflict, and religion. Working fluently on the page and in public, he is a compelling poet, skilled speaker, teacher, and group worker. He presents Poetry Unbound with On Being Studios. Following the lecture, there will be a book signing and reception.


Friday, April 4, 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm | (Department of Political Science)

Join the ӰӴý Department of Political Science for a UWISC featuring Ian Callison and his lecture “The Blame Game: Militias, civilians, and the States’ accountability-effectiveness Trade-off.”


Friday, April 4, 7:30 pm | (School of Music)

The Bennardo Larson Duo (Photo: Pat_Swoboda)

The violin and piano duo—Maya Bennardo (violin) and Karl Larson (piano)—perform works by recent Rome Prize winner (and School of Music alumnus) Anthony Vine and others.

The Bennardo-Larson Duo is an NYC/Stockholm-based contemporary classical duo committed to the performance and promotion of forward-thinking works for violin and piano. Their programming features the complete Sonatas for Violin and Piano by Charles Ives, Morton Feldman’s monumental ‘For John Cage,’ and ‘a Wind’s Whisper,’ a program featuring works by John Cage, Michael Pisaro, Eva Maria Houben, and two commissions by Adrian Knight and Kristofer Svensson. In April of 2024, the duo will present the world premiere of two substantial new commissions by Anthony Vine and Maya Bennardo on the Bowerbird Series in Philadelphia, PA.

Beyond the concert stage, Bennardo and Larson are passionate educators, offering workshops in contemporary string and piano techniques for performers and composers.


Friday, April 4, 12 pm – 1:30 pm | (Department of Political Science)

Brian Leung

Brian Leung: Firm Lobbying and the Political Economy of US-China Trade


Additional Events

April 1 | (Music)

April 2 | (Music)

April 3 – 5 | (Meany Center)

April 3 | (Applied Mathematics)

April 3 | (Jackson School)

April 4 | (Classics)

April 4 | (Mathematics)


Week of April 7

Monday, April 7, 5 pm – 6:20 pm | (Jackson School)

Prof. David Bachman

Trump in the World 2.0, is a series of talks and discussions from March 31 to June 2 on the international impact of the second Trump presidency. Faculty and guest speaker presentations will explore how different regions and global issues are affected by the Trump administration’s policies.

This week’s speakers: David Bachman, Radhika Govindrajan, and James Lin.

Livestream only for the public. In-person for students only.


Tuesday, April 8, 5:30 pm – 8 pm | (Asian Languages & Literature)

Prof. Davinder Bhowmik

TheOmoro Sōshiis an indigenous compilation of 1500 songs, poems, and prayers that extoll the golden age of the Ryukyu Islands. It offers insights absent from official histories that focus on great heroes. The collection sheds light on the Ryukyu’s semitropical flora and fauna, and by extension, the everyday life of the common people.

This presentation will be held by Professor Davinder Bhowmik and will introduce the main features of the Omoro Sōshi and pay particular attention to key aspects of the landscape that shaped traditional communal formations. It aims to consider whether the compilation reflects a history of the region as top-down (Yamato) or bottom-up (Ryukyu).


Wednesday, April 9, 11:30 am – 12 pm | (Henry Art Gallery)

James Turrell Skyspace (photo credit: Lara Swimmer)

JoinAshwini Sadekar, founder of the Conscious Creative Circle, in theJames Turrell Skyspace for a guided meditation to cultivate calm and presence through mind-body-breath connection. Immersed within the awe-inspiring interior of Turrell’s artwork, participants will enjoy a 20-minute guided meditation followed by a 10-minute small group reflection. All are welcome, no previous experience is required. Registration is encouraged.


Wednesday, April 9, 7 pm – 8 pm | (Department of Astronomy)

Dr. Giada Arney

UWAB is excited to announce that we are hosting a public lecture series to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the program in April 2025! ll talks will take place in Kane Hall (Room 120) with doors open at 6:30 pm, and lectures beginning at 7 pm. Each event will feature an hour-long lecture followed by up to 45 min of Q&A with our speaker.

This week’s lecturers: Dr. Giada Arney, UW Astrobiology Program Graduate 2016, NASA Research Scientist & Interim Project Scientist for Habitable Worlds Observatory, and Dr. Rika Anderson, UWAB Graduate 2013,Associate Professor of Biology at Carleton College

s are required for both in-person and Zoom attendance


Thursday, April 10 – Saturday, April 12 | (Jackson School)

2022 Ellison Center Director Scott Radnitz speaking at the REECAS Northwest Conference

REECAS Northwestwelcomes students, faculty, independent scholars, and language educators from the United States and abroad.Established in 1994, REECAS Northwest is an annual event for scholars and students in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. The interdisciplinary conference is organized by the ӰӴý’s Ellison Center for Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies.

The conference hosts many panels on a variety of topics from a wide diversity of disciplines including political science, history, literature, linguistics, anthropology, culture, migration studies, gender studies, LGBTQ studies, film studies, and more.


Additional Events

April 8 | (Meany Center)

April 9 | (Political Science)

April 10 | (Music)

April 10 | (Political Science)

April 10 | (Sociology)

April 10 – April 11 | (Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures) – ONLINE

April 11 | (Geography)

April 11 | (Music)

April 12 | (Meany Center)

April 12 | (Taiwan Studies)


Week of April 14

Prof. Sabine Lang

Monday, April 14, 5 pm – 6:20 pm | (Jackson School)

Trump in the World 2.0, is a series of talks and discussions from March 31 to June 2 on the international impact of the second Trump presidency. Faculty and guest speaker presentations will explore how different regions and global issues are affected by the Trump administration’s policies.

This week’s speakers: Sabine Lang in conversation with U.S. Ambassadors (ret.) Jeff Hovenier and John Koenig

Livestream only for the public. In-person for students only.


Wednesday, April 16 | (Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures)

Farhat J. Ziadeh

This annual lectureship was established in honor of Farhat J. Ziadeh, whose contributions to the fields of Islamic law, Arabic language, and Islamic Studies are truly unparalleled.

The Ziadeh fund was formally endowed in 2001 and since that time, it has allowed MELC to strengthen its educational reach and showcase the most outstanding scholarship in Arab and Islamic Studies.


Wednesday, April 16, 7 pm – 8 pm | (Department of Astronomy)

Dr. Ken Williford

UWAB is excited to announce that we are hosting a public lecture series to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the program in April 2025! ll talks will take place in Kane Hall (Room 120) with doors open at 6:30 pm, and lectures beginning at 7 pm. Each event will feature an hour-long lecture followed by up to 45 min of Q&A with our speaker.

This week’s lecturer: Dr. Ken Williford, UW Astrobiology Program Graduate 2007,Deputy Project Scientist for the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover

s are required for both in-person and Zoom attendance


Friday, April 18, 12 pm – 1:30 pm | (Department of Political Science)

Emily Broad Leib

Emily Broad Leib is a Clinical Professor of Law, Director of the Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, and Founding Director of the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic, the nation’s first law school clinic devoted to providing legal and policy solutions to the health, economic, and environmental challenges facing our food system. Working directly with clients and communities, Broad Leib champions community-led food system change, reduction in food waste, food access, food is medicine interventions and equity and sustainability in food production.


Saturday, April 19 | (School of Art + Art History + Design)

Don’t miss your last chance to experienceartists & poets at the Jacob Lawrence Gallery!

Working to emulate the interdisciplinary artistic environment Jacob Lawrence experienced in his formative years, this exhibition explores a legacy of collaboration between artists and poets.artists & poetsis a part of the re-grounding of the Jacob Lawrence Gallery in its mission of education, experimentation, and social justice.


Additional Events

April 14 | (Jackson School)

April 14 | (Communication)

April 14 | (Simpson Center)

April 14 | (Jackson School)

April 15| (Political Science)

April 15 | (Philosophy)

April 15 | (French & Italian)

April 16 | (Music)

April 17 | (Art + Art History + Design)

April 18 | (Political Science)

April 18 | (Music)

April 18 | (Simpson Center)

April 18 | (Linguistics)

April 18 | (Speech and Hearing Sciences)


Week of April 21

Monday, April 21, 5 pm – 6:20 pm | (Jackson School)

Trump in the World 2.0, is a series of talks and discussions from March 31 to June 2 on the international impact of the second Trump presidency. Faculty and guest speaker presentations will explore how different regions and global issues are affected by the Trump administration’s policies.

This week’s speakers: Liora R. Halperin, Randa Tawil, and Reşat Kasaba

Livestream only for the public. In-person for students only.


Wednesday, April 23, 7 pm – 8 pm | (Department of Astronomy)

Dr. Aomawa Shields

UWAB is excited to announce that we are hosting a public lecture series to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the program in April 2025! ll talks will take place in Kane Hall (Room 120) with doors open at 6:30 pm, and lectures beginning at 7 pm. Each event will feature an hour-long lecture followed by up to 45 min of Q&A with our speaker.

This week’s lecturer: Dr. Aomawa Shields, UW Astrobiology Program Graduate 2014, Clare Boothe Luce Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California Irvine

s are required for both in-person and Zoom attendance


Wednesday, April 23, 7 pm – 9 pm | (Department of Psychology)

Allen L. Edwards

The 17th Annual Allen L. Edwards Psychology Lectures presents The Science of Altruism. This interdisciplinary panel brings together leading experts from psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, and animal behavior to explore the biological, cognitive, and social foundations of altruistic behaviors.

Moderatedby KUOW Host Bill Radke, the event features the following panelists:

  • Abigail Marsh, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Psychology & Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience, Georgetown University
  • Kristen Hawkes, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor in Anthropology, University of Utah
  • John M. Marzluff, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Wildlife Science, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, ӰӴý
  • Andrew Meltzoff, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at the ӰӴý.

Thursday, April 24, 6 pm – 7:30 pm | (Center for Child & Family Well-Being)

Lucía Magis-Weinberg, M.D., Ph.D.

Thiswebinarwill include a panel of experts discussing parents,ٱԲ’,and preteens’digital technology andsocial media use and its relation to mental health.Panel members will be asked to discuss current patterns of social media use by parents andyouth, and share aboutthe potential for both positive and detrimentaleffects of social media,includingthe role of technology and social media in supporting social connectedness and awareness, while also contributing to mental health challenges. Panelists willsuggestapproaches to social media use that incorporate mindfulness andsupportwell-being.


Thursday, April 24, 7 pm – 8:30 pm | (Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures)

After the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Ottoman elites at the imperial court turned to poetry to craft distinctive modes of expression to articulate their place within the Ottoman sultanate.

In this talk, Oscar Aguirre-Mandujano will discuss his new book, Occasions for Poetry: Politics, Literature, and Imagination Among the Early Modern Ottomans (Penn Press, 2025), where he explores how scholars and bureaucrats interacted with each other through poetic imagery, revealing how literary language affected bureaucratic practice.


Friday, April 25, 7:30 pm | (School of Music)

Guitarist Bill Frisell (Photo: Monica Jane Frisell).

The School of Music and the student-run Improvised Music Project present IMPFest, featuring UW Jazz Studies students and faculty performing with special guests: renowned guitarist Bill Frisell; saxophonistJosh Johnson; and bassist (and School of Music alumnus)Luke Bergman.

Seating is limited; please order tickets in advance.


Additional Events

April 21 | (Political Science)

April 22 | (Music)

April 22 | (East Asia Center)

April 22 – April 26 | (Drama)

April 24 | (Music)

April 24 | (Taiwan Studies)

April 24| (Slavic Languages)

April 27 | (Henry Art Gallery)


Week of April 28

Monday, April 28, 5 pm – 6:20 pm | (Jackson School)

Prof. Jessica L. Beyer and Prof. Scott Radnitz

Trump in the World 2.0, is a series of talks and discussions from March 31 to June 2 on the international impact of the second Trump presidency. Faculty and guest speaker presentations will explore how different regions and global issues are affected by the Trump administration’s policies.

This week’s speakers: Jessica L. Beyer and Scott Radnitz

Livestream only for the public. In-person for students only.


Tuesday, April 29 – Friday, May 9 | (School of Art + Art History + Design)

Join the School of Art + Art History + Design in celebrating the work of this year’s students. There will be four student exhibits throughout the spring quarter!


Wednesday, April 30, 4 pm – 5:30 pm | (Department of History)

Prof. Nathan Connolly

In “Letters from the Ancestors,” Prof. Connolly follows the experiences of four generations of his Caribbean family, offering an intimate view of the history of late capitalism in the Atlantic World. Under twentieth-century colonialism, he argues, working people developed uniquely gendered coping strategies for managing the precarities of racism and reputation. Even in post-colonial times, these strategies continue to govern how we relate to institutions, set our aspirations, and even narrate our own personal and political histories. More than just a tour through a single family’s experience, “Letter from the Ancestors” seeks to retain and advance our fluency in the history of colonized families. This history, Connolly suggests, seems all the more relevant today, in a nation and world of dwindling government protections for women and people of color.


Wednesday, April 30, 5 pm – 6:30 pm | (Department of Political Science)

“Populist Power Plays: Erdogan’s Turkey, Trump’s USA, and the Future of Democracy,” Garo Paylan, former Member of the Turkish Parliament, in conversation with UW ProfessorAsli Cansunar.


Additional Events

April 29 | (Mathematics)

April 29 | (Political Science)

April 30 | (China Studies Program)

April 30 | An Evening with Christine Sun Kim (Public Lectures)

April 30 | (Art + Art History + Design)


Have an event that you would like to see featured in the ArtSci Roundup? Connect with Kathrine Braseth (kbraseth@uw.edu).

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ArtSci Roundup: History Lecture Series, Dorothy Roberts Lecture, Gallery Exhibits, and more /news/2024/01/04/artsci-roundup-history-lecture-series-dorothy-roberts-lecture-gallery-exhibits-and-more/ Fri, 05 Jan 2024 00:16:50 +0000 /news/?p=84006 Start the new year at the Jacob Lawrence Gallery for an exhibition, spend an evening listening to Dr. Dorothy Roberts’ lecture, attend the History Lecture Series, and more.


Henry Art Galleries Events

January 4, 5:30 – 7:00pm | Auditorium

January 11, 5:30 – 7:00 pm | Auditorium

January 12, 3:00 – 4:00 pm | Education Studio

January 13, 3:00 – 4:00 pm | Education Studio

Through January 14 | Upper Level Galleries

Through January 14 | Upper Level Galleries


January 9, 6:30 – 7:30 pm | Online

The Department of Comparative History of Ideas invites Alice Wong, disabled activist and writer, to address topics on raising the visibility of disabled people through her book: “Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life.”

Alice Wong (she/her) is a disabled activist, writer, media maker, and consultant. She is the founder and director of theDisability Visibility Project, an online community dedicated to creating, sharing, and amplifying disability media and culture created in 2014.

Free |


January 9 – 27 | Jacob Lawrence Gallery

Here in the dark weeks, the School of Art + Art History + Design has invited a mix of artists to bring some light in. Through animation and lightbox, by mechanical means and historical exploration, the Jacob Lawrence Gallery will be hosting several beacons to visit with while the days start growing longer again.

Free |


January 9, 7:30 pm | Meany Hall

Faculty artist Ted Poor continues his exploration of the drum set with an evening of solo performances. This concert will show the drum’s versatility.

Buy Tickets |


January 10, 7:30 pm | Husky Union Building

The Simpson Center for the Humanities invites Dorothy Roberts to discuss the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health.

Dorothy Robertsis the George A. Weiss University Professor of Law & Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, with joint appointments in the Departments of Africana Studies and Sociology and the Law School, where she is the inaugural Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights. She is also founding director of the Penn Program on Race, Science & Society.

Free |


HISTORY LECTURE SERIES | Seattle and the Salish Sea: Building and Belonging

January 10, 7:00 pm | Kane Hall

January 17, 7:00 pm | Kane Hall

January 24, 7:00 pm | Kane Hall

January 31, 7:00 pm | Kane Hall

February 7, 7:00 pm | Kane Hall

All lectures will be recorded and made available in the


January 11, 3:00 – 6:00 pm | Husky Union Building Lyceum

Join the Center for Anti-Racism & Community Health for an interdisciplinary panel discussion with Professor Dorothy Roberts. Panelists will discuss the impacts of Roberts’ scholarship across law, public policy, medical ethics, nursing, and sociology.

Free |


January 12, 7:30 pm | Meany Hall

Artist-in-Residence Tekla Cunningham and guest pianist Sheila Weidendorf presents “Between Heaven and Earth: A Year with Brahms,” a performance of the Brahms violin sonatas.

Buy Tickets |


January 13, 8:00 am – 9:00 pm | Husky Union Building

The one-day conference, consciously scheduled for the Saturday before MLK Day, will begin with a series of roundtables and panels featuring scholars and activists to present on and discuss the Black Radical Tradition in honor of Jack O’Dell’s life and work.

Jack O’Dell (1923-2019) was a visionary intellectual and an astute organizer who helped shape the course of the Black freedom movement in the second half of the twentieth century.

Free |


January 15, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm | Northwest African American Museum

The Center for Communication, Difference, and Equity (CCDE) will host its first Interrupting Privilege Museum Exhibition featuring an immersive mixed-media exhibit. Attendees will learn the history and methodology of Interrupting Privilege and get the unique opportunity to listen to recorded dialogues from the Interrupting Privilege catalog to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

Free |


Have an event that you would like to see featured in the ArtSci Roundup? Connect with Lauren Zondag (zondagld@uw.edu)

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ArtSci Roundup: Diversity Lecture Series, Jacob Lawrence Gallery Reopening, Sacred Breath, and more. /news/2023/11/08/artsci-roundup-diversity-lecture-series-jacob-lawrence-gallery-reopening-sacred-breath-and-more/ Thu, 09 Nov 2023 00:02:05 +0000 /news/?p=83423 This week, attend the Diversity Lecture Series “Unveiling Maternal Morbidity and Mortality in the United States”, celebrate the Jacob Lawrence Gallery Reopening, listen to Indigenous storytellers at Sacred Breath, and more.


November 13, 3:00 – 4:30pm | Online

In this Diversity Lecture Series, Denova Collaborative Health’s executive director, Angela Roumain, will explore the maternal rate of illness and rate of death in the United States, including health complications and harmful outcomes that can occur during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum. Poor maternal health outcomes affects Black and Indigenous women and women of color significantly more, and Roumain will highlight this stark and deeply rooted problem in the United States’ healthcare system.

Free |


November 13, 3:30 – 5:00pm | Communications Building

The Simpson Center for the Humanities presents the AI, Creativity, and the Humanities Workshop. The workshop offers a hands-on, technical introduction to large language models (LLMs) for humanities researchers, led by Melanie Walsh, an Assistant Professor in the Information School and co-Principal Investigator of the National Endowment for the Humanities-funded AI for Humanists project, and Maria Antoniak, a Young Investigator at the Allen Institute for AI. Walsh and Antoniak will focus on building practical knowledge of (1) how these models work and how they are trained and (2) how practitioners can apply particularly for these models to humanistic texts.

Free |


November 14, 5:30 – 7:00pm | Jacob Lawrence Gallery

Join the School of Art + Art History + Design to celebrate the official reopening of the Jacob Lawrence Gallery. Dedicated to Professor Jacob Lawrence, the gallery is a space for education, social justice, and experimentation, honoring the memory of one of the School’s most beloved faculty. The newly transformed gallery, now equipped with climate control, modern lighting, and new exhibition infrastructure, was made possible by the generous supporters of the UW Art + Music Capital Campaign.

Free |


November 14, 6:30 – 8:00pm | Washington State Labor Council

The Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies is hosting a reading group focused on the writings of Jack O’Dell in anticipation for the Reckoning with the Black Radical Tradition Conference, which will be held on Saturday, January 13, 2024 at the UW.
Jack O’Dell (1923-2019) was a visionary intellectual and an astute organizer who helped shape the course of the Black freedom movement in the second half of the twentieth century. Though driven out of the spotlight by anticommunism, O’Dell worked creatively and tirelessly to advance the Black Radical Tradition through labor activism, piercing analysis, and political mobilization.

Free |


November 15, 3:00 – 5:00pm | Communications Building

The Department of American Ethnic Studies is proud to sponsor a book talk at the Simpson Center with author Elmer Dixon. Rick Bonus, chair of the Department of American Ethnic studies and professor, will be speaking to Dixon about his new book: “Die Standing: From Black Panther Revolutionary to Global Diversity Consultant.”Students and faculty in the Department of Ethnic Studies are encouraged to attend this event.

Free |


November 16, 5:00 – 8:00pm | wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ Intellectual House

The Department of American Indian Studies hosts an annual literary and storytelling series, Sacred Breath, which features Indigenous writers and storytellers sharing their craft at the beautiful wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ Intellectual House on the UW campus. This year, Christopher B. Teuton (Cherokee Nation), professor and chair of the Department of American Indian Studies, and Tami Hohn (Puyallup), assistant teaching professor of the Department of Indian Studies, will be leading the event. Both storytelling and reading aloud can impact audiences through the power of presence, allowing for the experience of the transfer of sacred breath, as audiences are immersed in the experience of being inside stories and works of literature.

Free |


November 16, 6:00 – 7:00pm | Jacob Lawrence Gallery

The Jacob Lawrence Gallery presents What Do You Make of This? featuring the work of Kristine Matthews, Associate Professor of Design and Chair of the Visual Communication Design program at the UW School of Art + Art History + Design.

Free |


November 16 – 18, 8:00 pm | Meany Hall

Inspired by the drawings and paintings of Francisco de Goya, Noche Flamenca’s new work references the artist’s response to the political turmoil and injustices of 18th and 19th century Spain, echoing conflict prevalent in contemporary time. Choreographed by artistic director Martin Santangelo and award-winning principal dancer Soledad Barrio, Searching for Goya features a company of dancers, singers, and musicians whose mastery of flamenco stretches the boundaries of the art form to a journey through Goya’s imagination.

Buy Tickets |


November 16, 7:00 – 8:30pm | Thomson Hall

The Stroum Center celebrates its 50th anniversary with a discussion on how putting mothers at the center of Jewish history can provide unexpected insights and startlingly unfamiliar perspectives. From ancient biblical narratives to cutting-edge genomic research, author Cynthia Baker will point out how this is especially true in relation to issues of race/ethnicity and its entanglements with gender, religion, and nationality.

Free |


October – November | “Ways of Knowing” Podcast: Episode 5

“Ways of Knowing” is an eight-episode podcast connecting humanities research with current events and issues. This week’s episode is with José Alaniz, professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, analyzes the physical depictions of superheroes and villains through the decades.

This season features faculty from the UW College of Arts & Sciences as they explore race, immigration, history, the natural world—even comic books. Each episode analyzes a work, or an idea, and provides additional resources for learning more.

More info


Have an event that you would like to see featured in the ArtSci Roundup? Connect with Lauren Zondag (zondagld@uw.edu)

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“Ways of Knowing” Episode 3: Close Reading Redux /news/2023/10/10/ways-of-knowing-episode-3-habiba-ibrahim-close-reading-redux/ Tue, 10 Oct 2023 16:09:54 +0000 /news/?p=82281 The , published in 1845, was a standard bearer of the abolitionist movement. Having escaped slavery as a young man, Douglass became a famous activist, orator, statesman and businessman.

·

Ways of Knowing

Season 1: the Humanities

Episode 3: Close Reading Redux

 

[person reading]

Chapter 1 of “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave,” written by himself. I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about 12 miles from Easton, in Talbot County, Maryland.

 

Sam Harnett: Frederick Douglass’ 1845 autobiography is one of the most famous narratives written by a formerly enslaved person. The intimate details about growing up in slavery helped make the book a fundamental text in the abolitionist movement.

 

[person continues reading]

 

My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant, before I knew her as my mother. It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very early age. Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off, and the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field labor.

For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child’s affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child. This is the inevitable result.

 

SH: Contemporary scholars from across the humanities and social sciences have pored over this text — historians, literary theorists, sociologists. They’ve analyzed everything from the structure of the narrative to the style of the prose. But there’s an important detail in the work that is often overlooked, and it happens right in the first paragraph.

 

Habiba Ibrahim: And so Douglass, right after mentioning where he was born, goes into this explanation as to why he doesn’t know his own age.

 

SH: Habiba Ibrahim, professor of English at the ӰӴý.

 

[person reading]

 

I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot county, Maryland. I have no accurate knowledge of my age…

[Habiba Ibrahim reads the passage]

 

…I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it.

By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs. And it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep slaves thus ignorant.

SH: Douglass is comparing a human who doesn’t know their own age to a work animal, a horse.

 

HI: Having the entitlement of knowing one’s relationship to time is, you know, what distinguishes a human being from chattel. Age is part of what makes us human. Having some relationship to time, developmental time, is a constitutive aspect of humanity.

 

SH: For the entire first paragraph of his story, Douglass writes about how he was severed from his age.

 

[person reading]

 

I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday. They seldom come near to it than planting time, harvest time, cherry time, or fall time. A want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during my childhood. The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege. I was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master concerning it. He deemed all such inquiries on the part of a slave improper and impertinent and evidence of a restless spirit. The nearest estimate that I can give makes me now between 27 and 28 years of age. I come to this hearing from my master say some time during 1835 I was about 17 years old…

 

HI: The fact that the master withholds time from the enslaved. That the master counts time. That the master knows how old the enslaved are but withholds this information from the enslaved. In a sense it is an accounting of what possession looks like. The slavemaster can possess the time of the enslaved, right? They can possess knowledge of the ages of the enslaved. The enslaved are treated as if they don’t have human time.

 

SH: Denying enslaved people knowledge of their relationship to time was part of the process of trying to turn them from people into property.

 

HI: We can think about the dispossession of age when it comes to Blackness by virtue of thinking of this commercial process of enslavement. There was a process that occurred in which a logic had to be put in place for this trade to make sense, right? And so it’s through that logic that Blackness itself was constituted.

 

[music]

 

SH: The commercial process of slavery shaped everything from social categories like race and gender to attributes like intelligence, beauty, strength and age. Age might seem unarguable. Your age is the number of years since you were born. But it’s not that simple. Age is not a fixed category. It is, in part, a social construct, similar to gender or race. Just because someone has been alive for 17 years doesn’t mean they will be thought of or treated like a 17-year-old.

 

This very example is what started Habiba’s inquiry into the relationship between Blackness and age.

 

HI: It was the moment after Trayvon Martin’s murder.

 

SH: February 26th, 2012. Trayvon Martin was seventeen years old when he was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, a resident of a gated community in Sanford, Florida. At the time of the shooting, Martin was unarmed and walking back to his relative’s home from a nearby convenience store.

 

HI: How is it that a 17-year-old can be murdered in the way he was? Why wasn’t his innocence discerned, why wasn’t he seen as someone who was young? How was it that Blackness seems to be in some ways related to the concept of age in non-normative ways? What does it mean when Black people seem to be unaged, to not have an age, to age differently?

 

SH: These questions led Habiba back to Frederick Douglass and the effects of the commercial process of slavery. She traced the relationship of Blackness and age from those historical roots up through contemporary culture, where it affects not just the young but the old.At the same time Black children are denied the protections and privileges of childhood, Habiba has documented how elder Black people are often portrayed as inhumanly aged, symbols of history that stretch back many generations. They get used to evoke a distant past, one that is far removed from our present reality.

[Former President Barack Obama speaks]

 

This election had many firsts, many stories that will be told for generations. But one that is on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta.

 

SH: 2008, an excerpt from Barack Obama’s victory speech.

 

[Obama continues speaking]

 

She is a lot like the millions of others that stood in line to make their voices heard this election, except for one thing, Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old. She was born just a generation past slavery, a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky, when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons, because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight I think about all she has seen through her century in America. The heartache and the hope. The struggle and the progress…The times we were told we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American freedom, yes we can.

 

SH: For Habiba, one of the most illuminating sources on the contemporary relationship between Blackness and age is a book by Octavia Butler. It’s called “Fledgling.”“Fledgling” is the story of a seemingly young girl who discovers that she is actually a genetically modified, 53-year-old vampire. The character is simultaneously young and middle-aged, an innocent child and an inhuman vampire; she’s at the start of her life, but she’s also frozen in time… ageless.

 

 

SH: Habiba is close reading literature, historical documents and contemporary media in order to interpret the world outside of the text, particularly the relationship between Blackness and age. Her work is in the tradition of Black Studies, an interdisciplinary field focused on the history, culture, and politics of people of African descent — topics that were long excluded from higher education. Black Studies is one of the many fields in the humanities where literature and other culture productions are analyzed through a focused theoretical framework. There’s postcolonial studies, critical theory, environmental humanities, queer theory, disability studies…Each one uses the analysis of cultural productions to better understand the world outside of the text. We’re going to introduce you to some of these theoretical frameworks later on in the series.

 

 

SH: Here are five sources that will help you learn more about close Reading as it relates to Blackness and age.

 

Robin Bernstein

 

This book looks at how the concept of “childhood innocence” has played out in American history. If most white children have it, and most Black children are denied it, what does that tell us about the racial formation of the United States?

 

“Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Bookby Hortense Spillers

 

Age is just one of the many social constructs shaped by slavery. This essay helps make sense of how it impacted gender.

 

“,” edited by Charles T. Davis and Henry Louis Gates

 

If you are interested in knowing more about texts like Fredrick Douglass’s autobiography, read this collection of critical essays and reviews on the autobiographies of ex-slaves.

 

“,” Paul Gilroy

 

Gilroy offers a modernist view that there aren’t separate African, Caribbean, American or British Black cultures, but one Black Atlantic culture that transcends nationality and ethnicity.

 

And of course, there’s Habiba’s book, “”

 

 

Chris Hoff: Ways of Knowing is a production of The World According to Sound. This season is about the different interpretative and analytical methods in the humanities. It was made in collaboration with the ӰӴý and its College of Arts & Sciences. All the interviews with UW faculty were conducted on campus in Seattle. Music provided by Ketsa, John Bartmann and our friends, Matmos.

 

SH: The World According to Sound is made by Chris Hoff and Sam Harnett.

 

 

Habiba Ibrahim, professor of English
Habiba Ibrahim, professor of English

But it is another aspect of his story that is just as intriguing to , professor of English at the ӰӴý: Douglass never knew, nor is there an official record of, his exact age. Then, with the murder of 17-year-old in Florida more than a decade ago, Ibrahim began studying age as it relates to race. While slave owners withheld information such as age, viewing people as property, there remains a larger disconnect, Ibrahim argues, between Blackness and age. She asks: “What does it mean when Black people seem to be un-aged?”

A portrait of Frederick Douglass
A portrait of Frederick Douglass Photo:

This is the third of eight episodes of “Ways of Knowing,” a podcast highlighting how studies of the humanities can reflect everyday life. Through a partnership between The World According to Sound and the ӰӴý, each episode features a faculty member from the UW College of Arts & Sciences, the work that inspires them, and suggested resources for learning more about the topic.

Next | Episode 4: Environmental Studies

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