Safia Aidid Lecture — The Unruly Frontier: Mapping the British Somaliland-Ethiopia Border
Registration required. Safia Aidid is an interdisciplinary historian of modern Africa and Assistant Professor in the Department of History and the African Studies Centre at University of Toronto. She holds a PhD from Harvard University. Her research addresses anticolonial nationalism, territorial imaginations, borders, and state formation in the Horn of Africa, with a particular focus on modern Somalia and Ethiopia. She is currently working on a book manuscript entitled "Pan-Somali Dreams: Ethiopia, Greater Somalia, and the Somali Nationalist Imagination."
Made possible by the Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities. This event is free and open to the public . Accommodation requests related to a disability or health condition should be made by October 29, 2026 to the Simpson Center, 206.543.3920, schadmin@uw.edu.
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center for the Humanities, 206-543-3920, humanities@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Thursday, November 12, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM.
Zoom.
Grants Workshop for Faculty & Graduate Students: ACLS 101: Programs and Tips
In this workshop, attendees will learn about ACLS grant and fellowship programs, the application and review process, and eligibility considerations. A detailed overview of funding opportunities will be followed by an in-depth workshop, with advice for strengthening proposals and avoiding common mistakes in the application process. There will be time for questions and discussion. Open to UW faculty and graduate students.
Presenters:
Christopher Thornton, Chief Programs Officer, American Council of Learned Societies
Tami Shaloum, Program Manager, US Programs, American Council of Learned Societies.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: 202. Accessibility Contact: Rachel Arteaga. Event Types: Workshops. Academics.
Monday, November 16, 2026, 2:30 PM – 4:00 PM.
Joy Connolly Lecture "Parable of the Scholar: The Humanities in Conditions of Abundance"
Registration recommended.
We humanists are hoping for, and many of us are fighting for, a new day in the United States when the production and circulation of knowledge are understood as keystones of democracy and of human thriving – and thus as deserving of substantial public investment. Having worked so long in the spirit of doing a lot with a little, how do we envision the humanities in conditions of abundance? What shifts in traditional academic culture and policy will help us meet those conditions? In the spirit of Octavia Butler’s future-oriented thinking, this talk draws together many threads of contemporary thinking to sketch a future where American universities center the values and practices of liberal arts-grounded humanistic inquiry.
Joy Connolly has served as President of the American Council of Learned Societies since 2019. Previously, she was Provost and Interim President of The Graduate Center at the City University of New York and Dean for the Humanities at New York University. She has a…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: 202. Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center for the Humanities, 206-543-3920, humanities@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Tuesday, November 17, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:15 PM.
Workshop: Medieval Manuscripts at UW
Renowned medieval manuscript scholar Dr. Lisa Fagin Davis, Executive Director of the Medieval Academy of America and adjunct faculty at Simmons University's School of Library and Information Science, will lead a workshop on medieval manuscripts and manuscript fragments held by UW Special Collections.
Please register for this workshop by 5:00pm, November 17, 2026. Workshop capacity is 24.
All are welcome, but preference will be given to students.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe0O4pCDkstSn0M1I6_8LLmTc3PRY3dDTSWoJTU7yY355x_4g/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=110434663420772396880.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Allen Library (ALB). Campus room: Special Collections Classroom, B069, Allen Library South, Basement. Accessibility Contact: jktanaka@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics. Workshops. Target Audience: students, faculty, staff, community members.
Wednesday, November 18, 2026, 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM.
"Medieval Manuscripts in the Emerald City" by Lisa Fagin Davis
Renowned medieval manuscript scholar Dr. Lisa Fagin Davis, Executive Director of the Medieval Academy of America and adjunct faculty at Simmons University's School of Library and Information Science, will present on medieval manuscripts preserved in collections throughout the Emerald City.
Dr. Davis is internationally recognized for her work on manuscript fragments, paleography, and digital manuscript reconstruction. She is also a leading researcher of the mysterious Voynich manuscript, an undeciphered text that has captivated scholars and the public alike for centuries.
Please join us for this fascinating lecture exploring Seattle's medieval manuscript holdings. A reception with refreshments and an opportunity to meet and speak with Dr. Davis will follow the presentation.
Please help give us an idea about attendance by registering for this event. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSer5hlPIUOUBkpJUgFCJ0nJ9cUEyUIrGL1A0viRQNRy7EAtVQ/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=110434663420772396880.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Allen Library (ALB). Campus room: Petersen Room, 4th floor, Allen Library North. Accessibility Contact: jktanaka@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Special Events. Academics. Target Audience: students, faculty, staff, public.
Wednesday, November 18, 2026, 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM.
Sean Jacobs | Eleven Named People: Global Sport and Society
Drawing on Eric Hobsbawm's claim that “the imagined community of millions seems more real as a team of eleven named people,” this talk explores the power of sports teams. Using examples from post-apartheid South Africa and elsewhere, Jacobs asks: Can sports teams expand the boundaries of “the nation,” or can they really overcome xenophobia? Or does sport's celebrated power ultimately reveal the limits of nationalism and identity?
About the speaker
Sean Jacobs is a South African-born scholar and writer, trained in political science and culture and media studies. He spent 20 years at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (2005–09) and The New School (2009–26), where he became a tenured full professor, before becoming an independent author this year. He founded and long edited Africa Is a Country and recently launched Eleven Named People, inspired by Eric Hobsbawm, exploring the intersections of sport and politics globally. He is writing a biography of NEA Jazz Master Abdullah Ibrahim and recently published a…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: CMU 120. Accessibility Contact: globalsportlab@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Special Events.
Wednesday, November 18, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM.
Community Film Screening - SN + Q&A with Fred Camper
For four decades, critic and experimental filmmaker Fred Camper's most ambitious work, SN (1976-84), has been unviewable. Recently restored by the Chicago Film Society, and following its debut at this year's New York Film Festival, SN will be shown here at UW on a beautiful new 16mm print. Camper himself has described the film as "a portrait of the way humans occupy space," while other commentators, more poetically, have called it "a bittersweet twelve-tone song for the cinema" and "a vivid tapestry of society on the brink." Camper will be present at the screening to introduce the film, and to answer questions after the screening.
About the artist:
Fred Camper is a film critic, filmmaker, and fine artist who lives in Chicago, where he teaches film criticism and theory. Since the 1960s, his writing on the avant-garde has been influential in establishing a critical lexicon for abstract and experimental cinema. Between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s, Camper produced six films, five of which were restored by…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Art Building (ART). Campus room: 227. Accessibility Contact: tfsherm@uw.edu. Event Types: Screenings. Special Events.
Wednesday, November 18, 2026, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM.
Sacred Breath: Indigenous Writing and Storytelling Series
RSVP Now!
Thursday, November 19th, 5:00-7:30pm at wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ Intellectual House
The Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Washington hosts an annual literary and storytelling series. Sacred Breath features Indigenous writers and storytellers sharing their craft at the beautiful wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ Intellectual House on the UW Seattle campus. Storytelling offers a spiritual connection, a sharing of sacred breath. Literature, similarly, preserves human experience and ideals. Both forms are durable and transmit power that teaches us how to live. Both storytelling and reading aloud can impact audiences through the power of presence, allowing for the experience of the transfer of sacred breath as audiences are immersed in the experience of being inside stories and works of literature.
Free and open to the public. Doors open at 4:30pm with light refreshments. Event begins at 5pm with readings from Simon Ortiz and Sara Marie Ortiz, followed by audience Q&A. Event is free, but reservations are…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Intellectual House (INT). Campus room: Gathering Hall. Accessibility Contact: jedge18@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Performances. Special Events. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AIS.department.
Thursday, November 19, 2026, 5:00 PM – 7:30 PM.
For more info visit events.uw.edu. First Book Manuscript Panel with Diana Flores Ruíz, "Borders, Surveillance, and Solidarity: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructures Now"
In what ways might critical studies of media infrastructures expand our understanding of border regimes? How can analyses of the materialities, sites, practices, and labor of media infrastructures inform strategies of resistance to state surveillance? Join feminist media and science and technology scholars Lisa Parks (UCSB), Felicity Amaya Schaeffer (UCSC), and Diana Flores Ruíz (UW) for a panel discussion on the sociotechnical relations of borders, surveillance, and solidarity.
Lisa Parks is a Distinguished Professor of Film and Media Studies at UC Santa Barbara, where she serves as Director of the Global Media Technologies and Cultures Lab, and a 2018 MacArthur Fellow. She is a media scholar whose research focuses on satellite technologies and global media cultures; critical studies of media infrastructures; environmental media; and media, militarization and surveillance.
Felicity Amaya Schaeffer is Professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies and Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz. Her research and…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: 202. Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center for the Humanities, 206-543-3920, humanities@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Friday, November 20, 2026, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM.
Pedagogies and Practices of Relational Memory in the Classroom and Beyond
Join UW’s Relational Memory Studies research cluster for a panel discussion by UW faculty of their pedagogies and practices of relational memory in the classroom and beyond. Panelists will briefly introduce a course or module on relational memory as a way to open a forum on teaching cultural memory relationally. A light lunch will be provided.
Panelists:
Jason Groves, Department of German Studies
Liora Halperin, Department of History and Jackson School of International Studies
Linh Thủy Nguyễn, Department of Ethnic Studies
Alys Weinbaum, Department of English.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus room: Denny 359. Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center for the Humanities, humanities@uw.edu, 206.543.3920. Event Types: Not Specified.
Monday, November 30, 2026, 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM.
Amal Eqeiq | "On a Different Terrain: From Palestine to Abya Yala"
Free and open to all. At the Jackson School, opportunities and events are open to all eligible persons regardless of race, sex or other identity. About the talk
Drawing on her book Indigenous Affinities: Toward Solidarity Across the Global South (Fordham University Press, 2025), Amal Eqeiq tells a story of South-South affinity between Chiapas and Palestine. Moving from Zapatista murals to commemorations of the massacres of Kfar Qasem and Acteal, the talk shows how the terrain for comparison has shifted, away from the national-liberation internationalisms of the 1960s and toward Indigenous struggles over land and against the ongoing structures of imperialism, settler colonialism, racialized border regimes, and genocide. Eqeiq explores what it means to speak of solidarity between “Latin” America, the Caribbean, and Palestine today, on what grounds these distinct geographies can be brought into comparison, and what becomes visible when we view Palestine from Abya Yala.
About the speaker
Amal Eqeiq is…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: CMU 120. Accessibility Contact: lasuw@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Tuesday, December 1, 2026, 4:30 PM – 6:00 PM.
Forum on the Place of Sports in the University
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center for the Humanities, humanities@uw.edu, 206.543.3920. Event Types: Not Specified.
Tuesday, February 2, 2027, 3:30 PM – 5:30 PM.
TBA.
Global Antiquities & Early Modernisms Lecture
Details TBA.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: 202. Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center for the Humanities, 206.543.3920, humanities@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Wednesday, February 3, 2027, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM.
Katz Distinguished Lecture: Benjamin R. Teitelbaum, "Limitless: Silicon Valley and the Dream of Apocalypse"
Registration required. Link coming soon.
Based on years of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with tech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists like Peter Thiel and Bryan Johnson, Benjamin R. Teitelbaum argues that renegade leaders in Silicon Valley are crafting a theory of time. In a reversal of the right-wing populist playbook, the tech right dreams not of recovering a golden age of order, but of summoning a world without limits or responsibilities from the future. In this lecture, Teitelbaum shows how tech leaders convey this vision through the languages of religion, physics, and geography. One refrain sounds throughout: that humanity's fate is not to reform, but to transcend, society and politics.
Benjamin R. Teitelbaum is an associate professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. An award-winning expert on the radical right, he is author of War for Eternity and Lions of the North. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, Foreign Policy, The Wall Street Journal, The New Statesman, The…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Kane Hall (KNE). Campus room: 210. Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center for the Humanities, 206.543.3920, humanities@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Tuesday, February 9, 2027, 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM.