The University of Georgia is set to host its third annual Humanities Festival from March 11 through April 2, showcasing over 20 public lectures, discussions, performances, and various events, including a trivia evening and an open reception to celebrate recent achievements of the humanities community at UGA.

Notable participants include a National Book Award recipient, a sitar musician with 11 Grammy nominations, the author who won the 2024 Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, and one of two classical performers inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.

“Our aim is to spread the delight of writing, reading, contemplation, and creation, which form the pillars of all human interest,” stated Nicholas Allen, Baldwin Professor in Humanities, director of the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, and co-chair of the UGA Humanities Council. “Imagination drives all innovation, and the University of Georgia serves as a hub for ideas that influence the future of our state and nation. The Humanities Festival is a fantastic chance to glimpse the exceptional work occurring across the campus throughout the year, from the classroom to the global stage.”

The festival is coordinated by the Humanities Council, established in 2022 to enhance humanities research and practice at UGA and to highlight the humanities as an integral aspect of campus culture. The council receives backing from the Office of Research, the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, and the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, with contributions from over 30 colleges, schools, departments, and units throughout the university.

The Humanities Festival Student and Faculty Appreciation Reception will commence at 5:30 p.m. on March 17 in the Founders Memorial Garden. The next night will provide another chance for camaraderie and dialogue with Humanities Trivia Night at Ciné. Everyone is welcome to gather a team beforehand or spontaneously.

Internationally acclaimed sitarist Anoushka Shankar is scheduled to perform at Hodgson Concert Hall on March 20 as part of the UGA Performing Arts Center’s Voices of Asia spring series. Additionally, the series will feature the esteemed pianist and conductor Mitsuko Uchida with Berlin’s Mahler Chamber Orchestra on March 25.

Robert Spano, the music director of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Laureate of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, will be in residence at UGA and Atlanta from March 21-24 as the Willson Center’s Delta Visiting Chair for Global Understanding, presented in collaboration with the Hugh Hodgson School of Music. He will lead a workshop for UGA student composers alongside the ASO and deliver two public talks, including a discussion on the Atlanta School of Composers at the Hodgson School’s Edge Recital Hall.

Charles Johnson, a MacArthur “genius” grant recipient and National Book Award-winning author of “Middle Passage,” will hold a public reading and discussion on March 26 as the annual Betty Jean Craige Lecturer for the department of comparative literature and intercultural studies. On March 27, Ferdia Lennon, the 2024 Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize winner and recipient of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for comic fiction, will also conduct a reading and dialogue. This event is part of UGA’s spring Signature Lecture Series.

Other events at the festival will feature UGA faculty, including the launch of a book by Diana Graizbord, assistant professor of sociology and Latin American and Caribbean studies; gallery discussions at the Georgia Museum of Art led by Paola De Santo, associate professor of Italian, along with Asen Kirin, professor of art history and the museum’s Parker Curator of Russian Art; and a conversation along with a screening of Mai Zetterling’s 1968 modernist film “The Girls,” hosted by Anna Stenport, professor of communication studies within the Institute of Women’s and Gender Studies and dean of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

The festival will conclude on April 2 with the 2025 Odum Environmental Ethics Lecture delivered by ethnographer, writer, photographer, and filmmaker Wade Davis, focusing on his 2009 publication, “The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World.”

“Investigation and scholarship, education and practice in the humanities are crucial for enhancing our comprehension of ourselves and the world around us,” remarked S. Jack Hu, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost. “Through their esteemed scholarship in the humanities, UGA’s faculty, staff, and students offer profound insights that influence all realms of human learning and endeavor. This festival serves as an occasion for us to honor the individuals responsible for this exceptional work and to share it with our entire community.”

The complete schedule of the 2025 UGA Humanities Festival can be found here.

Participating entities in the Humanities Festival encompass the UGA Humanities Council; Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost; Office of Research; Franklin College of Arts and Sciences; Jere W. Morehead Honors College; College of Environment and Design; departments of classics, communication studies, comparative literature and intercultural studies, English, Germanic and Slavic studies, history, philosophy, religion, Romance languages, sociology, and theatre and film studies; Hugh Hodgson School of Music; Lamar Dodd School of Art; Odum School of Ecology; Willson Center for Humanities and Arts; Center for Asian Studies; Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities; African Studies Institute; Institute for African American Studies; Institute for Women’s and Gender Studies; Institute of Native American Studies; Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute; Creative Writing Program; Environmental Ethics Certificate Program; Music Business Program; UGA Libraries; Georgia Museum of Art; and The Georgia Review.

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