Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Lecture: Michael Puett, "Why Classical Chinese Philosophy Still Matters"
What is the best way to live a flourishing life? How does one make ethical choices? And what should we concretely do to live in a fuller and more inspiring way? Questions such as these were at the heart of philosophical debates in China. The answers that classical Chinese thinkers developed in response to these questions are among the most powerful in human history. The goal of this talk is to ask what we can learn if we take some of these ideas seriously.
Michael Puett is the Walter C. Klein Professor of Chinese History and Anthropology and the Victor and William Fung Director of the Asia Center at Harvard University. He is a 2025-2026 Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar.
Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholars travel to more than 100 colleges and universities each year, spending two days on each campus and taking full part in the academic life of the institution. They meet informally with students and faculty members, participate in classroom discussions and seminars, and give a public lecture open to the academic c…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: CMU 120. Accessibility Contact: Caitlin Palo, cpalo@uw.edu, 206-685-5260. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Monday, March 2, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM.
TALK | Trump in the World 2.0: What Was Intelligence What Was Intelligence and What Comes Next?
Join us for a free livestream talk and discussion on What Was Intelligence What Was Intelligence and What Comes Next? as part of our Trump in the World 2.0 Winter Lecture Series on the international impact of the second Trump presidency. RSVP here for the online link, Featured speakers: Ambassador (ret.) Jeff Hovenier and Kelly McGannon
Moderator: Danny Hoffman, Director of the Jackson School of International Studies and Stanley D. Golub Chair of International Studies
This event is free and open to the public. At the Jackson School, opportunities and events are open to all eligible persons regardless of race, sex or other identity. Questions? Email jsisevents@uw.edu.
Event interval: Single day event. Online Meeting Link: https://bit.ly/Trump-in-World-2026. Campus room: Online. Accessibility Contact: jsisevents@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Special Events.
Monday, March 2, 2026, 5:00 PM – 6:20 PM.
For more info visit bit.ly. Op-Eds for Academics | IN-PERSON Workshop
Op-eds for Academics (In-PERSON) is a hands-on workshop hosted by Society + Technology at UW and the Center for an Informed Public designed to help you translate your research into compelling public commentary. Academic research is deeply relevant to pressing issues of our times, but it can be challenging to know how to reach audiences beyond the academy.
This workshop helps you build practical skills for bringing your expertise to a wider audience by focusing on the ins and outs of op-ed writing. We’ll kick off with a brief panel discussion from members of the UW community who have written op-eds, then we’ll discuss how you can do the same -- from identifying a timely hook, crafting a persuasive short piece, and navigating the submissions process. Come prepared to hear from colleagues, use resources, and participate in interactive exercises. The ambitious may leave with a draft op-ed and a concrete plan for submitting it. Everyone will gain a clearer understanding about how to write for new audiences.
RE…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus room: 115 ABC. Accessibility Contact: mmjones@uw.edu. Event Types: Workshops. Target Audience: Society + Technology at UW and CIP community of researchers interested in translating their work.
Tuesday, March 3, 2026, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM.
Room 115 ABC - Perkins Coie Room
School of Law, William Gates Hall
University of Washington
4293 Memorial Way NE, Seattle, WA 98195.
For more info visit tinyurl.com. "Red Harbor: Radical Workers and Community Struggle in the Pacific Northwest"
Please join us for a talk by the historian Aaron Goings as he discusses his recently published book Red Harbor: Radical Workers and Community Struggle in the Pacific Northwest. In the book, Goings resurrects the forgotten history of lumber workers in Grays Harbor, a bastion of labor radicalism, examining the conflict as workers faced down an alliance of employers, police, and violent antiradicals, including the Ku Klux Klan. He goes beyond these clashes to illuminate the vital roles of families, immigrants, and working-class women in the labor movement, revealing how people fought not only for labor rights but also for the good of their communities.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Allen Library (ALB). Campus room: Allen Auditorium. Accessibility Contact: CSPN@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Target Audience: Students, Labor historians.
Tuesday, March 3, 2026, 3:30 PM – 5:30 PM.
For more info visit sites.uw.edu. Op-Eds for Academics | ONLINE Workshop
Op-eds for Academics (ONLINE) is a hands-on workshop hosted by Society + Technology at UW and the Center for an Informed Public designed to help you translate your research into compelling public commentary. Academic research is deeply relevant to pressing issues of our times, but it can be challenging to know how to reach audiences beyond the academy.
This workshop helps you build practical skills for bringing your expertise to a wider audience by focusing on the ins and outs of op-ed writing. We’ll kick off with a brief panel discussion from members of the UW community who have written op-eds, then we’ll discuss how you can do the same -- from identifying a timely hook, crafting a persuasive short piece, and navigating the submissions process. Come prepared to hear from colleagues, use resources, and participate in interactive exercises. The ambitious may leave with a draft op-ed and a concrete plan for submitting it. Everyone will gain a clearer understanding about how to write for new audiences.
REGIST…
Event interval: Single day event. Online Meeting Link: https://washington.zoom.us/j/99188530818?pwd=nSPkfsSWUUu0sDzd6bPXi5EaZwXk98.1. Campus room: 115 ABC. Accessibility Contact: mmjones@uw.edu. Event Types: Workshops. Target Audience: Society + Technology at UW and CIP community of researchers interested in translating their work.
Thursday, March 5, 2026, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM.
ONLINE.
For more info visit tinyurl.com. Evo-Hub Lecture: Gregory Radick, "Nurturing Science: An Enhanced Role for the Humanities"
The traditional role of history and philosophy of science (HPS) in the science classroom is to stir some “human interest” into the pedagogic mix. HPS has been the stuff of the sidebar, where textbook authors put information that they regard as interesting, yet non-essential. Radick will advocate for the potential of HPS to enliven the creative critical thinking from which science benefits. He will describe how his HPS research has opened up a new option for teaching introductory genetics, more in line with present-day emphases on the modifying roles of internal and external environments than the standard start-with-Mendel curriculum. Radick will leave us with a sketch of how to broadly extend this more radical integration of HPS perspectives into science education.
Gregory Radick is Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Leeds, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Metascience, and a Trustee of the Science Museum. In 2025, he became the first humanities scholar to win the J. B. S.…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: CMU 120. Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center for the Humanities, 206-543-3920, schadmin@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Thursday, March 5, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM.
Partition & Solidarity: Anticolonial Struggles in the Colonial Present Symposium
Over the past five centuries, empires have used partition and division to justify and advance colonialialism. We can see that ongoing history of colonial rule and racial violence exploding around the world today—from Palestine to Minnesota and beyond.
How might we forge diasporic imaginaries and solidarity movements to contest that colonial world order toward collective liberation?
Join us on this one-day symposium where scholars and activists will gather to engage in conversations about anticolonial struggles of the past and the present.
RSVP here: https://events.uw.edu/partition-solidarity.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Student Union Building (HUB). Campus room: HUB Lyceum. Accessibility Contact: hbcls@uw.edu. Event Types: Conferences.
Friday, March 6, 2026, 9:30 AM – 5:30 PM.
For more info visit events.uw.edu. TALK | Trump in the World 2.0: A Conversation with Rep. Adam Smith
Join us for a free livestream talk and discussion on global issues and U.S. foreign policy as part of our Trump in the World 2.0 Winter Lecture Series on the international impact of the second Trump presidency. RSVP here for the online link, Featured speaker: Representative Adam Smith
Moderator: Danny Hoffman, Director of the Jackson School of International Studies and Stanley D. Golub Chair of International Studies
This event is free and open to the public. At the Jackson School, opportunities and events are open to all eligible persons regardless of race, sex or other identity.
Questions? Email jsisevents@uw.edu.
Event interval: Single day event. Online Meeting Link: https://bit.ly/Trump-in-World-2026. Campus room: Online. Accessibility Contact: jsiscom@uw.edu. Event Types: Special Events. Lectures/Seminars.
Monday, March 9, 2026, 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM.
For more info visit bit.ly. Sexuality & Queer Studies Lecture: "The Value Turn in Queer Theory" with Petrus Liu
We are pleased to invite you to our upcoming Sexuality & Queer Studies lecture featuring Petrus Liu. Professor Liu will be presenting on 'The Value Turn in Queer Theory.' Please find the event details below:
Description: In recent years, queer theorists have increasingly turned to value as an analytic for exploring marginalized bodies' structural relations to political and economic institutions. In this talk, Petrus Liu explores an unresolved tension between two contradictory accounts of value—a subjectivizing power that generates intelligible categories of personhood and an impersonal algorithm of capitalist accumulation and extraction. By tracing unexpected continuities between contemporary queer debates and Marx’s original reading of the value-form, this talk proposes a dialectical, historically grounded model of “queer value” for understanding how identities are shaped by systems of power and exchange.
Bio: Petrus Liu is Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature, and of Women’s, Gender, and…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: CMU 120. Accessibility Contact: gwss@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Special Events.
Tuesday, March 10, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM.
Book Launch - Sasha Senderovich - In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union
Please join the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies in celebrating a new book edited and translated by SCJS faculty member Sasha Senderovich, In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union.
The short fiction collected in In the Shadow of the Holocaust, translated by Senderovich and Harriet Murav, recovers a range of compelling voices that had been scarcely known or translated, with particular emphasis on the work of women writers. Jewish authors from Ukraine, Lithuania, Russia, and Belarus—some writing in Yiddish and others in Russian—tell stories of ordinary people living on after the massive devastation of the Holocaust on Soviet territory, depicting memory, conflict, love, and loss. Writers in this collection offer especially powerful perspectives on survival in the aftermath of genocide. These are not stories only about how people died, but about how they continued to live and make meaning.
Senderovich will be joined by Stroum Center faculty and iSchool professor Ben…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Kane Hall (KNE). Campus room: Walker Ames Room, Kane 225. Accessibility Contact: jewishst@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Target Audience: Open to public. Registration required.
Tuesday, March 10, 2026, 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM.
Digital Humanities Lecture: Tonia Sutherland, "Resurrecting the Black Body: Race and the Digital Afterlife"
RSVP Recommended: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/resurrecting-the-black-body-race-and-the-digital-afterlife-tickets-1981903329209?aff=oddtdtcreator
In this talk, Resurrecting the Black Body, Sutherland examines the consequences of digitally raising the dead. Attending to the violent deaths of Black Americans–and the records that document them–from slavery through the present, Sutherland explores media evidence, digital acts of remembering, and the rights and desires of humans to be forgotten.
Tonia Sutherland is an Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Faculty Development in the School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the author of Resurrecting the Black Body: Race and the Digital Afterlife (University of California Press, 2023). In addition to being the Founder and Director of PENDULUM and The Black Memory Collective. She also serves as Co-Director of the Community Archives Lab at UCLA and Co-Founder and Co-Director of AfterLab at the University…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Henry Art Gallery (HAG). Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center for the Humanities, 206-543-3920, schadmin@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Thursday, March 12, 2026, 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM.
Crisis Alarm: Conversations Across Asian Cinema and Media
We are living through a time of crisis: the crisis of humanity vis-à-vis political violence and technological advancement, the crisis of the environment under accumulation, urbanization, and capitalism, the crisis of cinema in the age of digital, censorship, piracy, and ephemerality, and the crisis of area studies in the age of world target.
What is the role of cinema and media in responding to these crises? How do area studies provide us with alternative directions and new inspirations in the temporality of history, present, and future? AM Session (10-11:30am) – Keynote Speech: “Conditions for Trust: Filming The Light of East Asia in Wartime Chongqing”
Presented by Ying Qian, Columbia University
, PM Session (1-4pm) – Roundtable Discussion on “Crisis”
Moderated by James Tweedie, University of Washington
Yomi Braester, University of Washington
Belinda Qian He, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Ungsan Kim, University of Washington
Sudhir Mahadevan, University of Washington
Tze-Lan Sang, Michigan…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: CMU 202. Accessibility Contact: msiu2@uw.edu. Event Types: Conferences.
Monday, March 16, 2026, 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM.
'The Neighborhood: Space, State, and Daily Life in a Manchurian City' with Nianshen Song
What can one neighborhood reveal about the making of a modern nation? This talk deciphers the unexpected significance of Xita, a half-square-mile quarter in Shenyang, in Northeast China. It shows that over nearly four centuries, Xita has been shaped and reshaped by empire, war, migration, and urban transformation. The history of this small area mirrors large-scale changes, including and especially China’s metamorphosis from a multi-ethnic Eurasian empire to a postindustrial society. By studying how global and local forces play out in everyday spaces, the talk reveals a perspective for understanding China’s past—not from the top down, but through the streets and people who lived it. Nianshen Song is a historian and professor at Tsinghua Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences. His research and teaching focus on late imperial and modern East Asia, with special interest in frontiers, trans-regional networks and historical geography. His monographies in English include The Neighborhood:…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Thomson Hall (THO). Campus room: Thomson Hall 317. Accessibility Contact: Contact chinast@uw.edu. At the Jackson School, opportunities and events are open to all eligible persons regardless of race, sex or other identity. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Target Audience: Students encouraged to attend. REGISTRATION REQUIRED.
Monday, March 16, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM.
Cindy Anh Nguyen | Bibliotactics: Libraries and the Colonial Public in Vietnam
Libraries in French colonial Vietnam functioned as symbols of Western modernity and infrastructures of colonial knowledge. Yet Vietnamese readers pursued alternative uses of the library that exceeded imperial intentions. Bibliotactics examines the Hanoi and Saigon state libraries in colonial and postcolonial Vietnam, uncovering the emergence of a colonial public who reimagined the political meaning and social space of the library through public critique and day-to-day practice. Comprising government bureaucrats, library personnel, journalists, and everyday library readers, this colonial public debated the role of libraries as educational resource, civilizing instrument, and literary heritage. Moving beyond procolonial or anticolonial nationalism framings, Bibliotactics advances a relational theory of power that centers public reading culture contextualized within the library infrastructure of the colonial information order. As the first comprehensive history of the colonial and national library in Asia, this…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Allen Library (ALB). Campus room: Petersen Room. Accessibility Contact: csead@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Target Audience: Free and open to the public.
Thursday, April 2, 2026, 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM.
Literary Translator Lecture: Tiffany Tsao, "Beyond Novelty and Exoticism: Taking the Long View in Translating Indonesian Literature "
Tiffany Tsao will discuss the challenges of translating Indonesian literature in the context of a publishing industry that has tended to value Indonesian works more for their “Indonesianness” than their literary value. Catering to a readership interested specifically in the history, culture, and living conditions of Indonesia has some near-term benefits, but does this approach do Indonesian writing a disservice over the long term? She will discuss, more specifically, how this state of affairs has shaped the decisions she has made as a translator – from the works she has chosen to translate, to her approach to the translation process itself.
Tiffany Tsao’s translations of Indonesian literature have received the PEN Translation Prize, the Republic of Consciousness Prize, and a longlisting for the International Booker Prize. She is also the author of The Majesties (2018) and But Won’t I Miss Me (2026), and Deputy Editor at the Sydney Review of Books.
*author photo by Joy Mei En Lai
Generously made possible by…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Student Union Building (HUB). Campus room: 332. Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center for the Humanities, humanities@uw.edu, 206.543.3920. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Tuesday, April 14, 2026, 4:30 PM – 6:30 PM.
Literary Translator Colloquium: Tiffany Tsao, "The Art of Reviewing Translations"
RSVP Required: https://simpsoncenter.org/form/tsao-colloquium
The past several years have seen an increase in the literary world’s appetite and appreciation for translated works. But what progress has been made when it comes to reviewing translations as translations? Speaking from both her current position as Deputy Editor at the Sydney Review of Books and as a literary translator who follows with great interest how translations are reviewed, Tiffany Tsao will discuss various patterns (and pitfalls) that reviewers of translated works tend to fall into, and share some ideas for how a reviewer might better engage with a translator’s labor and the “translatedness” of a text. Tiffany Tsao’s translations of Indonesian literature have received the PEN Translation Prize, the Republic of Consciousness Prize, and a longlisting for the International Booker Prize. She is also the author of The Majesties (2018) and But Won’t I Miss Me (2026), and Deputy Editor at the Sydney Review of Books.
*author photo by Joy Mei…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: 202. Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center for the Humanities, humanities@uw.edu, 206.543.3920. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Thursday, April 16, 2026, 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM.
For more info visit simpsoncenter.org. TEAL Digital Scholarship Series 2025-26: When NLP Meets Korean Language Education
The Tateuchi East Asia Library (TEAL) is proud to present the 2025-2026 TEAL Digital Scholarship Series, a dynamic program showcasing cutting-edge research by scholars in the fields of Chinese, Japanese and Korean studies. This series highlights how innovative digital tools and methodologies are transforming East Asian scholarship, fostering interdisciplinary dialogue, and broadening the impact of research within and beyond academia. When NLP Meets Korean Language Education, Dr. Sanghoun Song, Associate Professor, Korea University, Abstract:
As K-culture such as K-pop and K-drama continues to gain worldwide popularity, Korean has emerged as one of the most widely studied foreign languages across many countries. Meanwhile, Natural Language Processing has advanced rapidly, with AI-powered solutions achieving remarkable success in diverse fields. Yet these two developments have not fully converged. Leveraging NLP techniques can offer significant benefits for foreign language teaching and learning, particularly…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Gowen Hall (GWN). Campus room: Tateuchi East Asia Library (Gowen 3rd) Seminar Room. Accessibility Contact: hkyi@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics. Lectures/Seminars. Workshops.
Wednesday, April 22, 2026, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM.
Public Lecture - Uncertain Empire: Jews, Nationalism, and the Fate of British Imperialism
Join us for a talk on Elizabeth E. Imber’s award-winning new book: Uncertain Empire: Jews, Nationalism, and the Fate of British Imperialism
Following the British conquest of Ottoman Palestine, Jews across the British Empire—from Jerusalem to Johannesburg, London to Calcutta—found themselves at the heart of global Jewish political discourse. As these intellectuals, politicians, activists, and communal elites navigated shifting political landscapes, some envisioned Palestine as a British dominion, leveraging imperial power for Jewish state-building, while others fostered ties with anticolonial movements, contemplating independent national aspirations. This talk will explore this intricate interplay between British imperialism, Zionism, and anticolonial movements from the 1917 British conquest of Palestine to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. In doing so, it will show how the British Empire’s fate became central to Zionist and broader Jewish political thought during a time marked by profound…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: 120. Accessibility Contact: jewishst@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics. Target Audience: Open to public. Registration Required.
Wednesday, April 22, 2026, 4:30 PM – 6:00 PM.
Research and Relationality in the Peruvian Amazon
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.
THIS IS A HYBRID EVENT.
ZOOM REGISTRATION HERE: https://washington.zoom.us/meeting/register/jQSegZVzQFu9Sq-3hhRivg
IN-PERSON LOCATION: HUB 145
This panel features talks on conducting research in the Peruvian Amazon by Justin Perez (UCSC) and Amanda Smith (UCSC). Perez will present “Queer Emergent: Scandalous Stories from the Twilight of AIDS in Peru.” Amidst growing enthusiasm over the 2010s around the possibility of ending AIDS as a threat to global public by 2030, communities of gay men and transgender women in Peru’s Amazonian region paradoxically experienced an intensifying epidemic at the same time. Queer Emergent is an ethnography that explores how they experienced this contradiction. In Peru, efforts to “end AIDS” brought demands that communities denounce homo- and trans-phobic discrimination, embrace egalitarian sexual practices, and re-orient social…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Student Union Building (HUB). Online Meeting Link: https://washington.zoom.us/meeting/register/jQSegZVzQFu9Sq-3hhRivg. Campus room: HUB 145. Accessibility Contact: lasuw@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Target Audience: Free and open to the public.
Tuesday, April 28, 2026, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM.
Katz Distinguished Lecture: Stephanie LeMenager
Free and open to the public. Doors open at 6:00 pm. Seats open until filled.Accommodation requests related to a disability or health condition should be made by April 14 to the Simpson Center, 206.543.3920, humanities@uw.edu.
This talk considers the role of fiction as a form of resistant truth telling in an era of lies, bullish*t, propaganda, GenAI fakes and conspiracy theory, and in the shadow of climate crisis. In our media atmosphere filled with falsehoods, fiction becomes a means of capturing messy realities unassimilable to propaganda. Moreover, the flexibility of fictional imagination allows for social responses to radical uncertainties, via new genres of storytelling that call climate-change publics into being. In this talk, we'll consider stories of megafire.
Stephanie LeMenager's work on climate change and the humanities has been featured in The New York Times, ClimateWire, Science Friday, NPR, the CBC, and other public venues. She is Barbara and Carlisle Moore Professor of English and Professor of…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Kane Hall (KNE). Campus room: 220. Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center, 206.543.3920, schadmin@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Tuesday, April 28, 2026, 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM.
CAMP LECTURE | “Against the North as well as the South, Abraham Lincoln as well as Jefferson Davis”: The Civil Wars of Lucy Broaddus, Frederick Douglass, and Franz Sigel | Angela Zimmerman, George Washington University
“If we fight, we must fight against the North as well as the South, Abraham Lincoln as well as Jefferson Davis,” Frederick Douglass declared in May 1861, just a few weeks after the Civil War began. His statement suggests a very different Civil War than the we usually hear about, centered on Abraham Lincoln: a war for the Union giving way to a tentative emancipation within the bounds of the law, the constitution, and private property. Occluded in such conventional narratives are struggles over white supremacy, the extent of Black freedom, capitalism, and patriotic nationalism. We get an entirely different war – not just a different interpretation of that war -- if we center radical perspectives that aimed for freedoms anathema to Union and Confederacy alike. In this talk I will look at the Civil War as it was understood by Lucy Broaddus, a woman born into slavery in Missouri in 1862, Frederick Douglass, and Franz Sigel, a communist German refugee who served as a general in the Union Army. Each presents a…
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: histmain@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Wednesday, May 6, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM.
Stroum Lectures 2026 with Rafael Neis: Did ‘Men’ and ‘Women’ Always Exist? What the Talmud Can Tell Us
Join us for the first lecture of the UW's annual Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies. This year the series features University of Michigan scholar and artist Rafael Neis. Registration link coming soon. Lecture 1: Did ‘Men’ and ‘Women’ Always Exist? What the Talmud Can Tell Us
We often assume that the categories “man” and “woman” are timeless and self-evident. But what if they aren’t? In this talk, Professor Rafael Neis invites us to explore a surprising question: did “men” and “women,” as fixed and stable categories, always exist in the way we imagine them today? Turning to the Talmud, Neis shows how the rabbis wrestled with bodies, identity, and social roles in ways that don’t always fit neatly into modern assumptions. By setting aside what we think we already know about gender, we can discover fresh and unexpected ways of reading these ancient texts—and gain insight into how the rabbis themselves understood human difference. Along the way, Neis opens up intriguing new perspectives on rabbinic thought,…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Kane Hall (KNE). Campus room: Kane 225, Walker-Ames Room. Accessibility Contact: jewishst@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics. Target Audience: Open to public. Registration required.
Tuesday, May 12, 2026, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM.
Stroum Lectures 2026 with Rafael Neis: Monsters, Hybrids, and Holy Images - Rethinking Bodies in Ancient Jewish Art
Join us for the first lecture of UW's annual Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies. This year the series features University of Michigan scholar and artist Rafael Neis. Registration link coming soon. Read about the first lecture here. Lecture 2. Monsters, Hybrids, and Holy Images: Rethinking Bodies in Ancient Jewish Art
Walk through the ancient world and you would have been surrounded by images of all kinds of beings—human figures, animals, hybrids, and creatures that blur the line between the familiar and the fantastic. These images appeared everywhere: in streets and homes, bathhouses and synagogues, public buildings and sacred spaces. In this talk, Professor Rafael Neis explores a handful of striking examples from ancient Jewish art and asks what happens when we look at them with fresh eyes. Instead of sorting these figures into modern boxes about “human,” “animal,” “male,” or “female,” Neis invites us to step back and see how ancient artists and communities imagined bodies more broadly. By letting go of…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Student Union Building (HUB). Campus room: HUB 214. Accessibility Contact: jewishst@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics. Target Audience: Open to public. Registration required.
Thursday, May 14, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM.