Events
Each year, the Humanities Scholars Program sponsors and co-sponsors exciting events for the university community.
Interested in sponsoring an event with the Humanities Scholars Program? Contact Therese Tardio, director.
2024-2025 Events
Real Farmers, Dream Cities: Agrarian Change, Demonstration and the Politics of Visibility in Myanmar
Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024
4:30 p.m.
Peter & Wright Rooms, Cohon University Center
Introduction by Dr. Judith Schachter, Professor Emerita of Anthropology and History, Carnegie Mellon University
This presentation examines a series of demonstrations held in the southwestern outskirts of Yangon, Myanmar, the site of a 20,000-acre proposal to transform the region’s farmland into a built-from-scratch “new city.” Slogans and speeches — both in support of and in opposition to the new city — tied demonstrators' demands to the desires of the region’s “real farmer,” a figure hyper-visible in the popular protest movements from Myanmar and Southeast Asian history. Tracing contested claims about Southwest Yangon’s farmers circulating in the popular press and state propaganda, this lecture explores the political and pragmatic tactics of future-making amid authoritarian resurgence, rapid urbanization and the pressures of a changing climate. At stake is a broader politics of visibility, wherein the boundary between the seen and unseen becomes a site through which what is “real” is debated in contemporary Myanmar.
2023-2024 Events
Dinner and a Movie Series
- Feb. 28, 2024 - Sugar Cage with Filmmaker Zeina Al Qahwaji
- Jan. 31, 2023 - A Letter to the President with Director Roya Sadat and Writer/Actor Aziz Dildar
- Oct. 25, 2023 - Chaos with Director Sara Fattahi
- Sept. 14, 2023 - Hava, Maryam, Ayesha with Director Sahraa Karimi
Co-sponsored with the Center for the Arts in Society.
Women in Animation Series
- April 8, 2024 - Brooke Keesling
- March 27, 2024 - JooYoung Choi
- March 13, 2024 - Rebecca Ruige Xu
- Feb. 26, 2024 - Lisa Crafts
- Feb. 19, 2024 - Laura Harrison
Co-sponsored with the School of Art's Studio for Creative Inquiry
CMU International Film Festival
March 21-April 7, 2024
Titled "Faces of Fear," the 2024 CMU IFF seeks to explore the unique ways in which each of us cope with, face and learn from all our different sets of worries. How does fear affect us, and how do we continue rising from our beds to face it down each morning? Can we exist without fear, and how can we how can we overcome the fears that block us from our deepest aspirations?
Explore the 2024 schedule of films.
Co-sponsored with the Humanities Center
Council of Three Rivers American Indian Center Powwow Demonstration
Sept. 23-24, 2023
Artist's Talk by Sujin Kim
Nov. 13, 2023
New Book Talk with Professor Robin Visser on Questioning Borders: Ecoliterature of China and Taiwan
Nov. 30, 2023
Acción, Verbo, Movimiento: A Workshop with Filmmaker Amer Bemak and Performance Artist Nadia Granados
Dec. 7, 2023