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A Humanities Year in Review:
2025-2026
For more than 25 years, the Center for the Humanities at UW-Madison has been a nexus for interdisciplinary programs and events within and across the humanities and social sciences.
As we look back on the year and celebrate nearly three decades of championing the humanities, we want to thank you—the students, faculty, staff, partners, and community members who made this all possible.
Read on for a few highlights and stories from the past year.
| | Great World Texts in Wisconsin | | | | |
On April 7, 2026, we welcomed students and teachers from 25 high schools across Wisconsin to the UW-Madison campus for the annual Great World Texts in Wisconsin student conference.
This year's program focused on Nnedi Okorafor's Death of the Author, a masterpiece of metafiction that is surprisingly funny, deeply poignant, and endlessly discussable. It is at once the tale of a woman on the margins risking everything to be heard as well as a testament to the power of storytelling.
| | During the day, high school students shared a wide range of projects created in response to Death of the Author and had the chance to meet Okorafor, who delivered the keynote address and joined the student poster sessions. | | Following the Great World Texts student conference, Nnedi Okorafor spoke at an an engaging, public Humanities Without Boundaries conversation. The event was presented in partnership with Wisconsin Book Festival and was moderated by Ainehi Edoro, Mellon Morgridge Assistant Professor of English and African Cultural Studies at UW–Madison and founder and editor of Brittle Paper, a leading online platform for African literary culture. | | |
Public Humanities Fellows
Each year, we invite applications for the Public Humanities Graduate Fellowship, designed to provide advanced graduate students in the humanities with experience outside of academia. By placing fellows in community partner organizations around Madison, the program facilitates the reciprocal sharing of resources and expertise and highlights the significance of the humanities both on and off campus.
Please join us to recognize our 2025-2026 fellows:
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Srijan (Sri) Pandey, doctoral researcher in the Information School, Clean Energy Access and Community Engagement Fellow with RENEW Wisconsin
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Tarah Connolly, PhD Candidate in Curriculum and Instruction, Engagement Fellow with the Chazen Museum of Art; please also read Connolly's blog post on Engaging in Slow Museum Education at the Chazen
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Jared Lee, PhD student in Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies
Goodman Nonprofit Center
Community Engagement and Outreach Fellow
Jared Lee is a PhD student in Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies at UW-Madison. He brings a background in directing, producing, marketing, and artistic leadership. His research focuses on how immersive and interactive theatre has the potential to create financially sustainable, community-centered models for U.S. regional theatres. Lee challenges conventions and seeks theatre experiences that move beyond traditional infrastructure and focus on civic dialogue, flexible storytelling, and environmental adaptability.
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Conversations that
Inspire and Challenge Us
We hosted or sponsored more than 40 always-free public events and workshops during the 2025-2026 academic year to engage thousands of people from our campus, community, and beyond. Highlights include:
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Spotlight:
"1776/2026: The Declaration at 250"
This year-long series of campus events and public conversations offers historical, literary, rhetorical, and political-theoretical interpretations of what this document means a quarter millennium after its signing. Recent 1776/2026 events included a conversation with Colleen Shogan, former Archivist of the United States, on pluralistic democracy in a partisan age, and the Freedom Seekers Symposium, which shared stories of Black liberation in the American Revolutionary era and beyond.
1776/2026 is a program of the Paul Martin Wolff Center, with additional support from the College of Letters & Science and the Center for the Humanities.
Stay tuned for more 1776/2026 events planned for the upcoming academic year.
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Suggest a Speaker
As we chart our future events, who would you like to hear from? The suggestions we receive from you will help our Steering Committee, composed of faculty and community partners, create a slate of exciting and diverse speakers.
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Public Humanities Exchange
The Public Humanities Exchange (HEX) program funds innovative public humanities projects that forge partnerships between community organizations and UW-Madison students. Begun in 2005, HEX goes beyond volunteerism to offer both students and community partners the chance to build mutually rewarding relationships that cultivate community.
Read about a recent project from HEX Scholar Mia Hicks
(PhD candidate, Curriculum and Instruction)
on Reimagining Social Emotional Learning Through Latinx Cultural Values of Care.
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Borghesi-Mellon
Interdisciplinary Workshops
Each year, the Center provides an opportunity for working groups of students and faculty to come together outside of the classroom to investigate interdisciplinary topics. Support from the Mellon Foundation and UW-Madison alumni Nancy Borghesi (BA ’69, Economics) and David Borghesi (BBA '70, Accounting) allows these groups to produce research and teaching innovations as well as hold public talks and events.
2025-2026 workshops included: The Empire Strikes Back: Reinventing the Interdisciplinary for the Everyday and a
Seminar on Artificial Intelligence and Responsibility
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First Book Workshop
The Center’s First Book Workshop provides both scholarly and collegial support for junior faculty members revising their first academic book. This was a banner year for first books; recent publications include:
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Support the Center for the Humanities
Our mission is to champion the humanities as a means to spark civic engagement, build community, educate, inspire, and make long-lasting change. Your contribution supports innovative and publicly-engaged programming, preparing students for full participation in a democratic society.
We’ve also established the Friends of the UW-Madison Center for the Humanities that helps advise and support our programming and initiatives. Individuals with an interest in supporting the humanities at UW-Madison can reach out to info@humanities.wisc.edu
to learn more.
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Please stay tuned for our 2026-2027
public events calendar!
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The Center for the Humanities catalyzes innovative, interdisciplinary, and collaborative inquiry in core and emerging humanities fields at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and beyond.
Our programs establish a coordinated vision for scholarly and public engagement with literature, history, philosophy, and culture through workshops, fellowships, seminars, and conferences. Each year we welcome world-renowned scholars from across campus and around the globe for public lectures, events, and projects.
We are grateful for the essential support of the College of Letters & Science, the A. W. Mellon Foundation, the Anonymous Fund of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Brittingham Fund Inc., the Evjue Foundation, the Paul Martin Wolff Center, the Cleary-Kumm Foundation Inc., UW-Madison Libraries, Madison Public Library, the Friends of the Center for the Humanities, and individual donors.
| | | UW-Madison Center for the Humanities | https://humanities.wisc.edu/ | | | | |
