In a new series of episodes, The Virtual Jewel Box will feature conversations about great books. Scott Black and Jessica Straley discuss Mrs. Dalloway as a novel of thresholds: between past and present, sound and silence, intimacy and distance. Reading closely from the opening line through Big Ben’s leaden circles, they show how Woolf’s stream […]
Read MoreTo a packed auditorium at the Salt Lake City Public Library on January 21, 2026, Father Gregory Boyle shared what he has learned from building Homeboy Industries—and, more broadly, how to practice a kinship that can withstand shame, trauma, and the reflex to throw people away. Boyle, a Jesuit priest, is the founder of Homeboy […]
Read MoreIn this episode, Scott Black talks with literary scholar Joseph Metz about his book The Feeling of the Form: Empathy and Aesthetics from Büchner to Rilke (Cornell University Press), a cultural and intellectual history of empathy that traces the concept back to nineteenth-century German art theory. Drawing on close readings of Georg Büchner, Adalbert Stifter, […]
Read MoreIn this episode, Omi Salas-SantaCruz talks with Leandra Hernández about Queer, Women of Color, and Critical Approaches to Feminist Mentorship and Pedagogy (University of Illinois Press), co-edited by Hernández, Stevie M. Munz, and Jessica Pauly. Along the way, they discuss the power of feminist mentorship, the ecological webs of care that sustain scholars and students, and […]
Read MoreIn this episode, Scott Black talks with poet and critic Craig Dworkin about his new book, The Sound of Thinking: A Listener’s Companion to Conceptual Music (University of Chicago Press), on music made from rules, systems, and procedures rather than personal expression. They explore pieces like György Ligeti’s 100 metronomes, Steve Reich’s swinging-microphone Pendulum Music, […]
Read MoreDaniel Mendelsohn discusses his new translation of Homer’s Odyssey (University of Chicago Press) with Jordan Johansen, Assistant Professor of Classics in the Department of World Languages and Literatures at the University of Utah. They discuss the musicality of translating Homer’s poetry for the human voice, the discovery of sarcastic swineherd personalities, and the 15-hour marathon […]
Read MoreIn her 2025 David P. Gardner Graduate Lecture in the Humanities and Fine Arts on October 23, Jesmyn Ward shared with the audience at the Salt Lake City Public Library a new piece to appear in an upcoming collected edition of her writing. A personal memoir essay, Ward’s lecture recounted her writing of her recent […]
Read MoreAt a Tanner Humanities Center and Marriott Library event on October 20, journalist Alex Beam introduced his new biography, Wallace Stegner: Dean of Western Writers (Signature Books). Drawing on the Stegner archive housed in the Marriott Library’s Special Collections, Beam traced the novelist’s complicated life and enduring impact on American letters and environmental thought. The […]
Read MoreThe Tanner Humanities Center’s second annual Evening with Great Books event was held at the Alta Club in downtown Salt Lake City on October 16. More than sixty community members and Center supporters enjoyed dinner and brief lectures from College of Humanities faculty, including some from the course, Great Books in the Humanities: Jordan Johansen […]
Read MoreAward-winning author Jesmyn Ward speaks with Kase Johnstun of Utah Humanities about the craft of writing, resilience, and historical memory, in anticipation of her 2025 David P. Gardner Graduate Lecture in the Humanities and Fine Arts. Ward’s lecture is hosted by the Tanner Humanities Center and the Salt Lake City Public Library, and is part of […]
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