LaToya Ruby Frazier believes life is not to be “belittled or squandered”— both one’s own life and the lives of others. The first work of Frazier’s I encountered was “The Notion of Family,” I felt this commitment then (the same is true for her body of work at large), as I did again with intense […]
Read More– Associate Director, Tanner Humanities Center The works of Percival Everett, Distinguished Professor at the University of Southern California, feature satirical and ironic accounts of race in American life, experiments in literary form, and philosophically rich reconsiderations of historical periods and events. His 2024 novel, James, retells the story of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry […]
Read MoreThe first story I ever read by Carmen Maria Machado was not “The Husband Stitch” or “Especially Heinous.” It was not her excellent and essential memoir “In the Dream House,” a book I’ve read and re-read and been in love with and also a little bit angry at for how good it is. It was […]
Read More– Associate Director, Tanner Humanities Center Now in its second year at the University of Utah, Great Books in the Humanities introduces first-year students to foundational literary and philosophical works from across world civilizations, alongside recent scholarship that deepens our understanding of enduring questions. At an evening reception at the Fort Douglas Commander’s House on […]
Read More– Associate Director, Tanner Humanities Center The first Tanner Conversation of 2024-2025 was held on September 25 with Alice Dailey, Professor of English and Director of Faculty Affairs at Villanova University. The subject of conversation was her book, Mother of Stories: An Elegy, published this year by Fordham University Press. In a blend of memoir […]
Read MoreAssociate Director, Tanner Humanities Center What makes a leader authoritarian, and how do they rule? This central question animates the work of Ruth Ben-Ghiat, professor of history and Italian studies at New York University. Her recent book, Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present (W.W. Norton, 2020), identifies the defining features of authoritarianism for the last […]
Read More– Associate Director, Tanner Humanities Center A symposium on September 13–14 at Snowbird Utah brought together scholars from the University of Utah and other institutions to present groundbreaking and field-defining work in games humanities. Presentations at the symposium explored a range of interdisciplinary topics, including the representation of the ancient world in games like Assassin’s Creed(Alexis […]
Read MoreBruce Bastian was a longtime supporter of the Tanner Humanities Center and his partnership was instrumental in furthering the center’s mission to provide public outreach and educational enrichment to the University campus and the broader community. The B.W. Bastian Foundation enabled the Tanner Humanities Center to host prominent LGBTQ+ authors and scholars, expanding opportunities for […]
Read MoreIf you were me in March 2020, you were looking for the biggest book left on your shelves to help you cope with the news and the newness of online teaching and the dishes and the too-small square footage of your apartment, every day silent, every day filled with noise. And if you were me […]
Read MoreThe world will be what we make it. David Wallace-Wells is not a writer known for his optimism; his book, after all, is called, “The Uninhabitable Earth.” He is known for a bluntness sometimes read as alarmist, a direct engagement with the definite and potential harms climate change will impose that often feels pessimistic, almost […]
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