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Environmental Storytelling symposium with Austin Walker
2026 Symposium in Environmental Storytelling:
Exploring connections between narrative, place, and digital environments
Keynote address — Austin Walker, game designer and critic:
“The Body is the World and the World is the Body”
Presentations by University of Utah faculty and graduate students
This event is sponsored by the Tanner Lab on Environmental Storytelling, co-directed by Nathan Wainstein, Justin Carpenter, and Sam Tett. Views expressed in Tanner Humanities Center events do not represent the official position of the Center or the University of Utah.
Join our mailing list for more updates about Tanner Humanities Center events and programming.
Event Categories: Colloquia. Lectures. Campus Locations: Alumni House - Eccles (ALUMNI). Cost: free. Ticket URL: https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/environmental-storytelling-symposium-austin-walker/. Contact Name: Beth James. Contact Phone: 801-581-7989. Contact Email: beth.james@utah.edu. Campus Wide Event: Yes.
Friday, February 20, 2026, 9:30 AM – 3:00 PM.
For more info visit tanner.utah.edu. Lightning Talks - Talks by new Humanities faculty
Lightning Talks
Talks by new Humanities faculty
Friday, February 20, 2026 // 2-3 PM
Mazza’s famous cardamom tea and baklava to follow, VENUE CHANGE! , Carolyn Tanner Irish Humanities Building
The Jewel Box, Room 143, One Piece, Pages to Protest: The Future King’s Flag Flies in Nepal, Dalaki Livingston, Postdoc Research Fellow
Communication, Community: An Andean History, Rohan Chatterjee, Assistant Professor
History
The shape of language: from learning to cross-linguistic typology, Yang Wang, Assistant Professor
Linguistics
Beneath the Surface: Communicating Enhanced Geothermal Systems, Meaghan Mckasy, Associate Professor (Lecturer)
Communication, Accommodations: contact John Boyack at 801-587-7351 or john.boyack@utah.edu.
Event Categories: Lectures. Campus Locations: Tanner Irish Humanities Building - Carolyn (CTIHB). Cost: Free and open to the public. Transportation / Parking: Paid parking in Union Lot 28. Contact Name: John Boyack. Contact Phone: 801-664-2297. Contact Email: john.boyack@utah.edu. Campus Wide Event: Yes.
Friday, February 20, 2026, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM.
National Theatre Live, The Fifth Step
The Fifth Step
by David Ireland
directed by Finn den Hertog
Olivier Award-winner Jack Lowden (Slow Horses, Dunkirk) is joined by Emmy and BAFTA-winner
Martin Freeman (The Hobbit, The Responder) in the critically acclaimed and subversively funny new
play by David Ireland.
After years in the 12-step programme of Alcoholics Anonymous, James becomes a sponsor to newcomer Luka. The pair bond over black coffee, trade stories and build a fragile friendship out of their shared experiences. But as Luka approaches step five – the moment of confession – dangerous truths emerge, threatening the trust on which both of their recoveries depend. Finn den Hertog directs the provocative and entertaining production filmed live from @sohoplace on London’s West End.
Alternate Location: Broadway Centre Cinemas, 111 E. Broadway. Cost: $15. Ticket URL: https://slfstix.org/. Contact Name: Beth James. Contact Phone: 8015818473. Contact Email: beth.james@utah.edu. Campus Wide Event: Yes.
Saturday, February 21, 2026, 12:00 PM – 3:00 PM.
Work in Progress Talk with Professor Steven Marsh, University of Illinois Chicago
The Portuguese Revolution as Geo-Filmic Event
Steven Marsh is Professor of Iberian studies and film at the University of Illinois, Chicago. He is the author of two monographs: Popular Film Under Franco: Comedy and the Weakening of the State (Palgrave 2006); and Spanish Film Against Itself: Cosmopolitanism, Experimentation, Militancy (Indiana University Press, 2020), translated into Spanish as El cine español contra sí mismo: Cosmopolitismo, experimentación, militancia (Cátedra, 2022). He has published many articles on Spanish film and politics. He is a member of the Editorial Collective of The Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies.
Campus Locations: Tanner Irish Humanities Building - Carolyn (CTIHB). Cost: Free. Contact Name: Beth James. Contact Phone: 8015818473. Contact Email: beth.james@utah.edu. Campus Wide Event: Yes.
Thursday, February 26, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM.
For more info visit tanner.utah.edu. Work in Progress Talk with Professor David Bresnahan, Department of History
The Bombay Africans and the Exploration of East Africa
David P. Bresnahan is an assistant professor of history at the University of Utah. His research focuses on East Africa’s historical connections to the Indian Ocean world during periods spanning the first millennium to the nineteenth century. He is the author of Inland from Mombasa: East Africa and the Making of the Indian Ocean World (University of California Press, 2025). He has published essays in the Journal of World History, the International Journal of African Historical Studies, and the Journal of Eastern African Studies, as well as public-facing venues like Edge Effects and World History Commons.
Campus Locations: Tanner Irish Humanities Building - Carolyn (CTIHB). Cost: Free. Contact Name: Beth James. Contact Phone: 8015818473. Contact Email: beth.james@utah.edu. Campus Wide Event: Yes.
Tuesday, March 3, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM.
For more info visit tanner.utah.edu. Work in Progress Talk with Professor Caleb Belth, Department of Linguistics
Language Acquisition and Scientific Explanation: The Case of Tone
Dr. Caleb A. Belth is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University of Utah. He holds degrees from Purdue University (B.S. 2018) and the University of Michigan (Ph.D. 2023). In his research, Belth seeks mechanistic explanations for how children acquire aspects of language—in particular sound structure—and explores the implications for linguistic theory and cognitive science. His research takes a computational perspective on the relationship between mental representations and the linguistic generalizations they support. He enjoys contextualizing his research in the history and philosophy of science. Belth’s research has been published in journals such as Linguistic Inquiry and Phonology. For his research, Belth has been awarded an NSF GRF, an NDSEG fellowship, and a Richard F. and Eleanor A. Towner Prize for Distinguished Academic Achievement.
Campus Locations: Tanner Irish Humanities Building - Carolyn (CTIHB). Cost: Free. Contact Name: Beth James. Contact Phone: 8015818473. Contact Email: beth.james@utah.edu. Campus Wide Event: Yes.
Thursday, March 5, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM.
For more info visit tanner.utah.edu. Work in Progress Talk with Julia Huddleston, Department of History
Another World is Possible: Anarchist Mutual Aid Organizing in the Twentieth Century
Juli Huddleston is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of Utah. She studies post-1865 U.S. history and specializes in subaltern history, women’s history, and the history of the American West. Before pursuing her doctorate, Juli worked as an archivist at the J. Williard Marriott Library Special Collections. She holds an MLIS with an emphasis in Archival Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Campus Locations: Tanner Irish Humanities Building - Carolyn (CTIHB). Cost: Free. Contact Name: Beth James. Contact Phone: 8015818473. Contact Email: beth.james@utah.edu. Campus Wide Event: Yes.
Thursday, March 19, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM.
For more info visit tanner.utah.edu. National Theatre Live, Hamlet
Hamlet
by William Shakespeare
directed by Robert Hastie
Olivier Award-winner Hiran Abeysekera (Life of Pi) is Hamlet in this fearless, contemporary take on Shakespeare’s famous tragedy.
Trapped between duty and doubt, surrounded by power and privilege, young Prince Hamlet dares to
ask the ultimate question – you know the one. National Theatre Deputy Artistic Director, Robert Hastie (Standing at the Sky’s Edge, Operation Mincemeat) directs this sharp, stylish and darkly funny reimagining.
Alternate Location: Broadway Centre Cinemas, 111 E. Broadway. Cost: $15. Ticket URL: https://slfstix.org/. Contact Name: Beth James. Contact Phone: 8015818473. Contact Email: beth.james@utah.edu. Campus Wide Event: Yes.
Saturday, March 21, 2026, 12:00 PM – 3:00 PM.
Tanner Lecture on Human Values with David Wengrow
Professor David Wengrow presents the annual Tanner Lecture on Human Values, "The Elementary Forms of Human Freedom".
Campus Locations: Dumke Auditorium (UMFA). Cost: Free. Contact Name: Beth James. Contact Phone: 8015818473. Contact Email: beth.james@utah.edu. Campus Wide Event: Yes.
Tuesday, March 24, 2026, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM.
For more info visit tanner.utah.edu. Tanner Lecture on Human Values Symposium with David Wengrow
Campus Locations: Tanner Irish Humanities Building - Carolyn (CTIHB). Cost: Free. Contact Name: Beth James. Contact Phone: 8015818473. Contact Email: beth.james@utah.edu. Campus Wide Event: Yes.
Wednesday, March 25, 2026, 12:00 PM – 3:00 PM.
For more info visit tanner.utah.edu. Work in Progress Talk with Professor Joshua Rivkin, Quest Program
On Hard Choices
Joshua Rivkin is the author of two books, Suitor: Poems (Red Hen) and Chalk: The Art and Erasure of Cy Twombly (Melville House), a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice and finalist for 2019 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography and a finalist for the National Award for Arts Writing. His poems and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, Georgia Review, Southern Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Best New Poets. He has received fellowships and awards from the Sustainable Arts Foundation, Ucross Foundation, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Poetry from Stanford University. A former Fulbright Fellow in Rome, Italy, he has been a Resident Associate at the National Humanities Center and a visiting fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh. An Assistant Professor (Lecturer) at the University of Utah, he lives in Salt Lake City, Utah with his family.…
Campus Locations: Tanner Irish Humanities Building - Carolyn (CTIHB). Cost: Free. Contact Name: Beth James. Contact Phone: 8015818473. Contact Email: beth.james@utah.edu. Campus Wide Event: Yes.
Thursday, March 26, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM.
For more info visit tanner.utah.edu. Tanner Conversation with Professor Joseph Metz, Department of World Languages and Cultures
Joseph R. Metz is Associate Professor, Department of World Languages and Cultures, and author of The Feeling of the Form: Empathy and Aesthetics from Büchner to Rilke. Metz’s book examines the emergence of “empathy” from nineteenth-century German aesthetics. Moving from the 1873 coinage of Einfuehlung—the projection of human feeling into inanimate forms—Metz traces how this aesthetic concept migrated into psychology and ethics, reshaping how we imagine our relations to others, to art, and to the material world. Close readings of Georg Büchner, Adalbert Stifter, and Rainer Maria Rilke, uncover surprising links between aesthetic and interpersonal empathy. Metz also shows how these early debates anticipate contemporary questions in affect theory, AI, object-oriented ontology, and media aesthetics. Views expressed in Tanner Humanities Center events do not represent the official position of the Center or the University of Utah. Join our mailing list for more updates about Tanner Humanities Center events and…
Campus Locations: Tanner Irish Humanities Building - Carolyn (CTIHB). Cost: Free. Contact Name: Beth James. Contact Phone: 8015818473. Contact Email: beth.james@utah.edu. Campus Wide Event: Yes.
Tuesday, March 31, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM.
Work in Progress Talk with Nicholas Shrum, University of Virginia
Alternative Zions: American Jewish, Mormon, and Black Visions of Sacred Nations, States, and Geographies, 1945–1976
Nicholas Shrum is a PhD Candidate in Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, where he studies postwar American religious nationalism. He earned an MA in Religion from Yale Divinity School and a BA in American Studies from Brigham Young University. His work has appeared in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Journal of Mormon History, Latter-day Saint Historical Studies, and The Conversation. His 2024 article with Dialogue, "Materializing Faith and Politics: The Unseen Power of the NCCS Pocket Constitution in American Religion," was awarded the Mormon Historical Association's “Best Article Award.” He is also the host of the UVA Mormon Studies podcast “Scholars & Saints.”.
Campus Locations: Tanner Irish Humanities Building - Carolyn (CTIHB). Cost: Free. Contact Name: Beth James. Contact Phone: 8015818473. Contact Email: beth.james@utah.edu. Campus Wide Event: Yes.
Thursday, April 2, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM.
For more info visit tanner.utah.edu. Work in Progress Talk with Professor Chrisoula Andreou, Department of Philosophy
Pervasive Pitfalls, Poor Health, and Population-Level Bioethics
Chrisoula Andreou (Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh) is a Professor in the Philosophy Department at the University of Utah and an Executive Editor of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy. Her current research projects lie in the areas of Practical Reasoning, Action Theory, Ethical Theory, and Applied Ethics. Her most recent book, Choosing Well: The Good, the Bad, and the Trivial (Oxford University Press, 2023) focuses on rationality, irrationality, and the challenges associated with effective choice over time given choice situations and preference structures that can prompt self-defeating patterns of choice.
Campus Locations: Tanner Irish Humanities Building - Carolyn (CTIHB). Cost: Free. Contact Name: Beth James. Contact Phone: 8015818473. Contact Email: beth.james@utah.edu. Campus Wide Event: Yes.
Tuesday, April 7, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM.
For more info visit tanner.utah.edu.