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The Water Commons: Living Legacies of Utah Waterways

A comprehensive symposium dedicated to preserving the vital waterways that sustain life, health, and prosperity throughout Utah.  Water narratives from acclaimed voices including Lisa Bickmore, Utah’s poet laureate; nan seymour, prominent Great Salt Lake advocate; Paisley Rekdal, Director of the University of Utah American West Center; and Leia Larsen, water and land use reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune. Researchers will present scholarship and advocacy work, including Jack Schmidt from Utah State University, Greg Smoak from the University of Utah, and Daniel Hernandez from Utah Valley University.  The symposium will conclude with an exclusive screening of Wild Hope: The Shoshone Nation's Quest to Reclaim Bear River, followed by a discussion with Brad Parry, Tribal Council Vice Chairman for Natural Resources, Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation. Local artists will also have artwork on display.   This initiative connects regional water scholars, environmental stewards, and artists while fostering net… Event Categories: Colloquia. Exhibitions. Films. Lectures. Public Event. Sustainability. Campus Locations: Gould Auditorium (M LIB). Cost: Free. Ticket URL: https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/water-commons/. Contact Name: Beth James. Contact Phone: 801-581-8473. Contact Email: beth.james@utah.edu. Campus Wide Event: Yes. Friday, September 19, 2025, 9:00 AM – 4:15 PM. For more info visit tanner.utah.edu.

Daniel Mendelsohn, translator of Homer’s Odyssey

Daniel Mendelsohn will discuss his acclaimed new translation of Homer’s Odyssey, published in April 2025 by the University of Chicago Press. His talk will be followed by a conversation with Scott Black, Professor of English and Director of the Tanner Humanities Center.  A book-signing with The King’s English Bookshop will follow the event.  Mendelsohn is Editor-at-large of The New York Review of Books, and author of several influential works, including Ecstasy and Terror: From the Greeks to Game of Thrones (2019) and Three Rings: A Tale of Exile, Narrative, and Fate (2020). His essays and reviews have appeared widely, including in The New Yorker, Esquire, Harper’s, and The New York Times. In 2025, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, recognizing his significant contributions to literature and criticism. The Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah supports academic research, public engagement, and educational programming in the humanities. Views… Event Categories: Lectures. Public Event. Campus Locations: Quinney College of Law - S. J. (LAW). Room Name/Number: Moot Courtroom. Cost: Free. Ticket URL: https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/daniel-mendelsohn/. Contact Name: Beth James. Contact Phone: 801-581-8473. Contact Email: beth.james@utah.edu. Campus Wide Event: Yes. Wednesday, September 24, 2025, 7:00 PM. For more info visit tanner.utah.edu.

Jesmyn Ward, author of Let Us Descend

Jesmyn Ward, celebrated as “the heir apparent to Toni Morrison” (LitHub) and one of the most acclaimed novelists of her generation, will deliver the 2025 David P. Gardner Graduate Lecture in the Humanities and Fine Arts.  Book signing to follow, with sales by The King’s English Bookshop Ward is the author of Salvage the Bones (2011) and Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017), both winners of the National Book Award, as well as editor of the influential anthology, The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race (2016). Her work explores the rural South, race, environmental justice, and historical memory. Her most recent novel, Let Us Descend (2023), an Oprah Book Club pick, was named one of the year’s best books by The Washington Post, Time, The New Yorker, and others. The title, drawn from Dante’s Inferno, reflects the novel’s engagement with history and spirit. NPR described it as “the literary equivalent of an open wound from which poetry pours.” Ward is professor of English and Andrew W. Mellon Professor… Event Categories: Lectures. Public Event. Alternate Location: Salt Lake City Public Library. Cost: Free. Ticket URL: https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/jesmyn-ward/. Contact Name: Beth James. Contact Phone: 801-581-8473. Contact Email: beth.james@utah.edu. Campus Wide Event: Yes. Thursday, October 23, 2025, 7:00 PM. For more info visit tanner.utah.edu.

Readings by Utah Book Award honorees from the U

The Utah Center for the Book at Utah Humanities and the Tanner Humanities Center are hosting a reading by University of Utah writers who have been honored by the Utah Book Awards for 2025. Free and open to the public. Limited seating. Ticket reservations strongly recommended. Writers who will be reading from their celebrated works: Paisley Rekdal, author of West: A Translation (Copper Canyon Press) — Winner, 2025 Utah Book Award for Poetry An unflinching hybrid collection of poems and essays drawing a powerful connection between the railroad's completion and the Chinese Exclusion Act. Winner, 2024 Kingsley Tufts Award; longlist, 2023 National Book Award. Rekdal is Distinguished Professor of English and Creative Writing and director of the American West Center. Lindsey Drager, author of The Avian Hourglass (Dzanc Books) — Finalist, 2025 Utah Book Award for Speculative Fiction A reflection on the intersecting crises of mental health, the climate emergency, political polarization, and the exponentially… Event Categories: Lectures. Public Event. Colloquia. Competitions. Campus Locations: Tanner Irish Humanities Building - Carolyn (CTIHB). Room Name/Number: Jewel Box. Cost: Free. Ticket URL: https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/readings-by-utah-book-award-honorees/. Contact Name: Beth James. Contact Phone: 801-581-8473. Contact Email: beth.james@utah.edu. Campus Wide Event: Yes. Tuesday, October 28, 2025, 3:00 PM. For more info visit tanner.utah.edu.

Cindi Textor, Department of World Languages and Cultures

Cindi Textor, Associate Professor in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at the University of Utah, will give a public talk this spring drawing from her research on transnational Japan. Her scholarship examines Japan not as an isolated culture, but as a site where ideas and empires meet, focusing especially on the enduring legacies of Japanese imperialism and its intersections with American and other western empires. Her first book, Intersectional Incoherence: Zainichi Literature and the Ethics of Illegibility (University of California Press, 2024), analyzes moments of incoherence and unintelligibility in the work of Koreans in Japan, challenging conventional approaches to literary representation. She is now at work on a second book that explores how modern Japan has engaged with and reconfigured white supremacist ideology, often through processes of translation. This new project argues that, even in a population largely considered non-white, white supremacy can operate and thrive when whiteness… Event Categories: Lectures. Public Event. Campus Locations: Tanner Irish Humanities Building - Carolyn (CTIHB). Room Name/Number: Jewel Box. Cost: Free. Ticket URL: https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cindi-textor/. Contact Name: Beth James. Contact Phone: 801-581-8473. Contact Email: beth.james@utah.edu. Campus Wide Event: Yes. Thursday, November 13, 2025, 12:00 PM. For more info visit tanner.utah.edu.