Book talk: Serge Gregory's The Sirens of the Hotel Louvre: An Actress, A Writer, and the Creative Life in the Silver Age of Chekhov (2025).
Serge Gregory is a Russian cultural historian and the author of The Sirens of the Hotel Louvre: An Actress, A Writer, and the Creative Life in the Silver Age of Chekhov (2025). His previous book, Antosha & Levitasha: The Shared Lives and Art of Anton Chekhov and Isaac Levitan, was published in 2015. He is currently working on a third book Longing for the Homeland: The Tale of Alexander Vertinsky. Gregory has contributed chapters to two books: Chekhov’s Letters (2018) and Chekhov in Context (2023). He has also curated two evenings of staged readings at ACT Theatre as part of the Great Soul of Russia series organized by Seattle’s Seagull Project. His two-act play Sweet Lika, based on the correspondence between Anton Chekhov and Lidia Mizinova, premiered at ACT in June 2017. Gregory has a BA in English Literature from the College of William & Mary, which included spending his junior year at Exeter University in England. He has a PhD in Russian Language and Literature from the University of Washington. While…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Padelford Hall (PDL). Campus room: A216. Accessibility Contact: Jose Alaniz. Event Types: Academics. Lectures/Seminars. Target Audience: Students, faculty, those interested in Anton Chekhov and Slavic literature/drama.
Wednesday, November 12, 2025, 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM.
Healing Heart of Lushootseed Speaker Series
A series to prepare for the UW Symphony performance of Healing Heart of the First People of This Land (February 2026)
Open to the public – doors open at 10:30am for coffee & pastries
Featuring
10/9 łuutiis Charlotte Coté (Nuu-chah-nulth) with Dian Million (Tanana) as discussant.
10/16 Tami Hohn (Puyallup) with McKenna Sweet Dorman (Snoqualmie) as discussant
10/23 Laurel Sercombe with John Vallier as discussant
10/30 John LaPointe (Swinomish)
11/6 Jill tsisqʷux̌ʷaʔł LaPointe (Upper Skagit/Nooksack) with Janet Yoder
11/13 Composer Bruce Ruddell, Musicians Adia tsi sʔuyuʔaɫ Bowen (Upper Skagit) and
Ben Workman Smith (Tolowa), Conductors Ryan Dudenbostel and David Rahbee,
with John-Carlos Perea (Mescalero Apache/German/Irish/Chicano) as discussant
11/20 Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe (Upper Skagit/Nooksack)
For more information on this series: https://healingheartproject.org/
For more information on the Feb. 2026 performance: https://music.washington.edu/upcoming.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Intellectual House (INT). Campus room: Gathering Hall. Accessibility Contact: jbperea@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics. Lectures/Seminars. Performances. Target Audience: students, faculty. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1664BnEscg/.
Thursday, November 13, 2025, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM.
For more info visit healingheartproject.org. Acts of Seeing, Ways of Knowing: Visual Culture in the Making of Modern India.
"Acts of Seeing, Ways of Knowing refracts the 19th and 20th century history of India through reception of the first two ‘mass’ forms of visual culture, photography and posters (those with the capacity to produce multiple copies). India’s responses to a changing public world are revealed, intriguingly, through this visual-culture repertoire. Production and consumption of these material objects revolve especially around visual culture’s capacity to prompt and express identity - narratives that draw on the nexus of a dramatic expansion of consumption practices with individual efforts to construct meaning by collecting, displaying, designing, and interacting with mass-produced materials. They emerge as markers of those intending to be good, modern, citizens, who are drawn, significantly, from both middle- and lower-class/caste participants. It is an important aspect of such interactions that these visuals begin as ‘mass-produced’ items. Paradoxically, perhaps, this means that such items though in multiples, provi…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Thomson Hall (THO). Campus room: THO 317. Accessibility Contact: sascuw@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Thursday, November 13, 2025, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM.
Evo-Hub Lecture: Marshall Abrams, "The Uniqueness of Organisms in Evolution"
If natural selection is “the survival of the fittest” and being fittest means having more offspring, then survival of the fittest is just the survival of those that survive. In this talk, Abrams explains how evolutionary biology avoids this puzzling conclusion, and why research practices motivate the idea that evolution takes place in “population-environment systems”—complex analogs of dice-tossing. But traditional research practices have been criticized as focusing too much on populations, and not enough on each individual organism’s unique dance with its environment. Abrams argues that his approach allows us to see what is right about each perspective.
Marshall Abrams is a Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He has a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Chicago. Abrams’ book Evolution and the Machinery of Chance is the basis of ongoing research
This event is free and open to the public. Accommodation requests related to a disability or health condition should be made by November…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: 120. Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center for the Humanities, 206-543-3920, schadmin@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Thursday, November 13, 2025, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM.
Digital & Data Humanities Meet & Greet
RSVP Encouraged: bit.ly/dhmg
The Simpson Center invites current UW faculty, students, and staff working in the digital and data humanities, broadly defined, to a fall meet-and-greet to make connections and learn about upcoming events, workshops, and ongoing projects. RSVP encouraged. Refreshments provided. Featured Projects & Resources, Black Digital Studies in the Age of Techno-Fascism, Cultural Analytics Praxis, Digital Humanities Reading & Research Cluster, Graduate Certificate in Textual and Digital Studies, Humanities Data Lab , Minor in Textual Studies and Digital Humanities, Society + Technology at UW, Free and open to UW faculty, students, and staff; RSVP encouraged. Accommodation requests related to a disability or health condition should be made by November 4, 2025 to the Simpson Center, 206.543.3920, schadmin@uw.edu.
Generously made possible by the Digital Humanities Commons Endowed Fund.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: 204 (enter through CMU 206). Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center for the Humanities, 206-543-3920, schadmin@uw.edu. Event Types: Information Sessions. Target Audience: UW Faculty, Students, & Staff.
Friday, November 14, 2025, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
Helen and the Horse between myth and reality: hippophilic heroines and the Lefkandi shaft graves
It goes without saying that the horse rears his majestic head at the very heart of Trojan mythology, but as we seek to sharpen our understanding of the complex semiotic communication encoded into the hippological component of this culturally essential narrative network, it behooves us to expand the parameters of our scholarly pasture so that we begin to snuffle at and eventually graze on conceptually overlapping archaeological evidence, as well as genealogically related mythico-religious evidence from North India and Ireland. As a contribution to the ongoing examination of the equine lore in question, this presentation will scrutinize the persistent interrelationship between socially prominent women and horses in the mythical and ritual traditions of Greece, North India, and Ireland. Topics investigated during the presentation include the roles of Helen and of other hippophilic princesses and queens belonging to Helen’s extended family tree, North Indian stallion sacrifice, Irish mare sacrifice, and the coope…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Denny Hall (DEN). Online Meeting Link: https://washington.zoom.us/meeting/register/RLxo5OJ-QPGpwZMxRjUSqQ#/registration. Campus room: DEN 212. Accessibility Contact: olevan@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Target Audience: faculty, students, general public.
Friday, November 14, 2025, 3:30 PM – 5:30 PM.
For more info visit classics.washington.edu. Ghazal Celebration: Poetry Readings Across Languages
This event brings together colleagues and students for a collective celebration of the ghazal, a poetic form that has flourished in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu, and many other languages. Each participant will read one of their favorite ghazals in its original language, followed by a translation into English.
By foregrounding oral recitation and the experience of listening across languages, the gathering highlights the ghazal’s role as a transregional and transhistorical form of poetic expression. Together, we will reflect on the pleasures of sound, the challenges of translation, and the enduring vitality of the ghazal across literary traditions.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Denny Hall (DEN). Campus room: Denny 211. Accessibility Contact: ariafani@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics. Lectures/Seminars.
Friday, November 14, 2025, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM.
Ladino Day 2025: Sephardic Homelands: Spanish and Portuguese Citizenship and the Question of Belonging Today
Join us for Ladino Day 2025, featuring speakers Rina Benmayor, Dalia Kandiyoti, Devin Naar, and Isaac Alhadeff for a conversation on “Sephardic Homelands: Spanish and Portuguese Citizenship and the Question of Belonging Today.” The program will be followed by a modest reception featuring Sephardic foods.
Event will be live-streamed. Registration is only required for in-person attendance. View the live-stream here.
This year’s program critically examines the significance of the decision of the Spanish and Portuguese governments–exactly ten years ago in 2015–to offer citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled five centuries ago. The discussion will situate Spain and Portugal’s offers within broader debates about the homelands that Sephardic Jews have claimed as their own over the generations, while also recognizing that millions of people in the world remain stateless today.
Isaac Alhadeff Professor in Sephardic Studies and program Chair, Devin E. Naar, will host Professor Emerita Rina…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Kane Hall (KNE). Campus room: Kane Hall 210. Accessibility Contact: jewishst@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Information Sessions. Special Events. Target Audience: Free and open to the public. Registration required.
Sunday, November 16, 2025, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM.
Film Screening and Discussion | Vietnamerica
Join the Center for Southeast Asia and Its Diasporas (CSEAD) and Graduate Education and Training in Southeast Asia (GETSEA) for a simulcast screening of Vietnamerica.
Following the wars in Vietnam, over two million people fled to country with the collapse of the Republic of Vietnam. That exodus, referred to by many as “the boat people” resulted in nearly half dying while in flight, battling the elements, starvation, and pirates.
Vietnamerica follows Master Nguyen Hoa as he returns to former refugee camps in Southeast Asia after three decades abroad to search for the graves of his wife and two children. Having fled Vietnam in 1981 on a boat with his family and friends, Hoa was the only survivor.
Executive Producer Nancy Bui of the Vietnamese Heritage Foundation joins GETSEA and 25 universities across North America to watch Vietnamerica together simultaneously and connect via Zoom for a discussion with the filmmaker about the Vietnamese diaspora, their struggle, and how Master Hoa’s story is a prism to see…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Thomson Hall (THO). Campus room: 317. Accessibility Contact: csead@uw.edu. Event Types: Screenings.
Tuesday, November 18, 2025, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM.
Exquisite Corpus. A Practical Workshop on Natural Language Processing for Creative Expression
This workshop, led by Laura Luna Castillo (UW, DX Arts), merges computational linguistics and creative experimentation. We will use Python’s Natural Language Toolkit (NTLK) to analyze, deconstruct and algorithmically expand text corpora in a Dadaist spirit. Participants will be guided through hands-on code examples to learn techniques for data augmentation and synthetic data generation. We will explore grammatical patterns, linguistic visualizations and randomization as meaning-making tools that introduce surreal linguistic styles into a corpus, generating endless variations of source texts. This process provides insight into how Large Language Models learn and adapt to linguistic styles, albeit on a much larger scale. Time allowing, we will use our augmented corpus to fine-tune our own, rustic, language model. A laptop is required for this hands-on session.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Suzzallo Library (SUZ). Campus room: Open Scholarship Commons. Accessibility Contact: text@uw.edu. Event Types: Workshops. Target Audience: Faculty and students.
Tuesday, November 18, 2025, 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
Panel: Pathways to Faculty Positions in Two-Year Colleges
This panel will feature the voices of two-year college faculty from the Seattle District Colleges who will describe their paths to these teaching-intensive institutions and offer advice to graduate students who are considering community college careers. Panelists will discuss effective approaches to the job search and application materials, the classroom experience, service expectations, and the unique rewards of working in this critically important part of the higher education sector. Panelist remarks will be followed by Q&A with the audience.
Panelists
Deepa Bhandaru, PhD (Humanities, North Seattle College)
Cristóbal A. Borges, PhD (History, North Seattle College)
Steph Hankinson, PhD (Humanities, Drama, & English, South Seattle College)
Free and open to graduate students. Accommodation requests related to a disability or health condition should be made by November 9 to the Simpson Center: 206.543.3920, schadmin@uw.edu.
Generously made possible by the Walter Chapin Simpson Center Endowment for the…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Allen Library (ALB). Campus room: Allen Auditorium. Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center for the Humanities, 206-543-3920, schadmin@uw.edu. Event Types: Information Sessions.
Wednesday, November 19, 2025, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM.
ROK Consul General Lecture: Consul-General Eunji Seo, "Towards the New Chapter of US-ROK Partnership and Korea's Smart Power"
TOWARDS THE NEW CHAPTER OF US-ROK PARTNERSHIP AND KOREA’S SMART POWER
A lecture by Ms. Eunji Seo, Consul-General of the Republic of Korea in Seattle
The US-ROK relationship has evolved from a military alliance forged during the Korean War into a comprehensive strategic partnership grounded in shared values such as democracy, innovation, and cultural exchange. Korea has emerged as a global leader in technology, economy, and culture—demonstrating smart power, which blends hard power like economic and military strength with the soft power of cultural influence. From K-pop and K-content to advancements in AI and global diplomacy, Korea’s growing role on the world stage reflects the dynamic potential of this modern partnership.
19 November 2025
4:00–5:00PM
Communications 120 | University of Washington
Lecture open to the public. Reception to follow at the Simpson Center for the Humanities (CMU 204), 5:00 – 6:00pm. Reception restricted to UW students, faculty, and staff. Consul-General Eunji Seo joined the…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: 120. Accessibility Contact: asianll@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Wednesday, November 19, 2025, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
Healing Heart of Lushootseed Speaker Series
A series to prepare for the UW Symphony performance of Healing Heart of the First People of This Land (February 2026)
Open to the public – doors open at 10:30am for coffee & pastries
Featuring
10/9 łuutiis Charlotte Coté (Nuu-chah-nulth) with Dian Million (Tanana) as discussant.
10/16 Tami Hohn (Puyallup) with McKenna Sweet Dorman (Snoqualmie) as discussant
10/23 Laurel Sercombe with John Vallier as discussant
10/30 John LaPointe (Swinomish)
11/6 Jill tsisqʷux̌ʷaʔł LaPointe (Upper Skagit/Nooksack) with Janet Yoder
11/13 Composer Bruce Ruddell, Musicians Adia tsi sʔuyuʔaɫ Bowen (Upper Skagit) and
Ben Workman Smith (Tolowa), Conductors Ryan Dudenbostel and David Rahbee,
with John-Carlos Perea (Mescalero Apache/German/Irish/Chicano) as discussant
11/20 Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe (Upper Skagit/Nooksack)
For more information on this series: https://healingheartproject.org/
For more information on the Feb. 2026 performance: https://music.washington.edu/upcoming.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Intellectual House (INT). Campus room: Gathering Hall. Accessibility Contact: jbperea@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics. Lectures/Seminars. Performances. Target Audience: students, faculty. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1664BnEscg/.
Thursday, November 20, 2025, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM.
For more info visit healingheartproject.org. Pilgrimage in Mexico: A Dynamic Tradition: a Talk by Edward Wright-Ríos
From a distance nearly all of us misunderstand pilgrimage. Influenced by movies, memoirs, and travel influencers we tend to think of the practice as a personal reboot, a self-imposed extended, sweaty therapy session that leads to the authentic and better self. Alternatively, we conjure notions of stoic devotees preserving ancient traditions. But in Mexico a small subset of Catholics numbering the millions embrace pilgrimage as a lifelong practice knit into the complexities of their hectic modern lives. Why and how do they sustain this mode to religious devotion at considerable cost and effort? Why does pilgrimage endure, and why is it experiencing something of a renaissance? Edward Wright-Rios (Professor of History, Vanderbilt University) will explore these questions in his talk.
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Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: 202. Accessibility Contact: jsisevents@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Thursday, November 20, 2025, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM.
Wetlandia!: Analytics for a Global Terraqueous Humanities
Wetlandia! reframes the wetland as an analytic constituted by far more than nature. Situated in terraqueous terrains where land meets rivers, oceans, and other bodies of water, wetlands serve as homes to a rich collection of flora, fauna, and people. At the intersection of this physical and social geography, we will rethink and reclaim the wetland from a conservationist and statist paradigm, to a political, social, economic, and historical frame.
RSVP Requested: bit.ly/Wetlandia
9:00 am – Coffee & light refreshments
9:30 am – Opening remarks
9:45-11:00 am – Panel 1
Malini Ranganathan (Associate Professor, School of International Service, American University)
Camelia Dewan (Associate Professor, Cultural Anthropology & Ethnology, Uppsala University)
Morgan P. Vickers (Assistant Professor, Law, Societies & Justice, UW)
Moderated by Patrick Trent Greiner (Assistant Professor, Sociology, UW)
11:15 am-12:30 pm – Panel 2
Molly Roy (Designer and Guerilla Cartographer)
Rozalinda Borcilă (Independent Scholar,…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Allen Library (ALB). Campus room: Petersen Room. Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center, 206.543.3920, schadmin@uw.edu. Event Types: Conferences.
Friday, November 21, 2025, 9:00 AM – 3:30 PM.
Sacred Breath: Indigenous Writing and Storytelling Series
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.
As the days grow shorter, we gather in for a gathering with friends, family, and community to appreciate some long-form storytelling.
3:00pm Weaving Workshop
4:00pm Storytelling Session 1 with Roger Fernandes and youth storytellers
5:00pm Dinner served
6:00pm Storytelling Session 2 with a special…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Intellectual House (INT). Campus room: Gathering Hall. Accessibility Contact: jedge18@uw.edu. Event Types: Performances. Special Events.
Friday, November 21, 2025, 3:00 PM – 8:00 PM.
For more info visit ais.washington.edu. STSS Encounters | Fall 2025 Research Mixer
The interdisciplinary STSS community at UW is both unfunded and robust. This fall meeting brings together faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and staff who are curious about and committed to the critical, cultural, historical, and philosophical study of science and technology. The convening is designed to foreground encounters: it will be a space to share what we’re encountering from our various vantage points across UW, with reports from 4S, the First Monday STSS reading group, the certificate, and the undergraduate major. We’ll introduce new students and end with a game to spark discussion of emerging research.
Register: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdNkXAVcaUjV9T1JNfgxMjs8QcgbOSIThqic8eGdTN1KUe35A/viewform.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: 202. Accessibility Contact: mmjones@uw.edu. Event Types: Meetings. Workshops. Target Audience: STSS faculty, staff, and students from UW Bothell, Seattle, and Tacoma.
Tuesday, November 25, 2025, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM.
A Celebration of 25 Years of the Simpson Center and a Legacy of Leadership
Please join us in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities. Over the past quarter century, the Simpson Center has established itself as an internationally recognized model for leading-edge humanities research. Its work—from scholarly gatherings to fellowship programs to publications—has been transformative for faculty, students, and staff at the University of Washington. The new faculty director of the Simpson Center, Professor Lynn M. Thomas, invites you to join us from 3:30 – 5:00 pm in the Walker-Ames Room, Kane Hall 225. Brief remarks will begin at 4:00 pm, after which we will raise a glass to honor Professor Kathleen Woodward’s legacy of leadership at the Simpson Center.
RSVP here: https://simpsoncenter.org/form/dec4-simpson-center-celebration.
Free and open to the public. Accommodation requests related to a disability or health condition should be made by November 20, 2025 to the Simpson Center, 206.543.3920, schadmin@uw.edu.
Generously made possible…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Kane Hall (KNE). Campus room: 225. Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center for the Humanities, 206-543-3920, schadmin@uw.edu. Event Types: Special Events.
Thursday, December 4, 2025, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM.
"Comics of the Anthropocene: Graphic Narrative at the End of Nature" Book Talk
UW professor, translator, and writer José Alaniz visits the store to discuss his latest book, Comics of the Anthropocene: Graphic Narrative at the End of Nature, the first full-length monograph to explore how US comics artists have depicted environmental destruction, mass extinctions, and climate change. He will be joined in conversation by fellow artists Megan Kelso, Leonard Rifas, and T Edward Bak.
Registration is not required, but helps us anticipate audience size. If you'd like to RSVP, please do so here!
Since the first Earth Day in 1970, how have US comics artists depicted the human-caused destruction of the natural world? How do these representations manifest in different genres of comics like superheroes, biography, underground comix, and journalism? What resources unique to the comics medium do they bring to their tasks? How do these works resonate with the ethical and environmental issues raised by global conversations about the anthropogenic sixth mass extinction and climate change? How have com…
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: Jose Alaniz. Event Types: Academics. Lectures/Seminars. Diversity Equity Inclusion. Target Audience: Environmental Humanities scholars, Comics Studies scholars, lay readers.
Thursday, January 1, 2026, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM.
For more info visit www.elliottbaybook.com.