Our first major colloquium event, this half-day symposium on May 16, 2014 featured 
a series of conversations between scholars and other Chicago-area public humanities professionals and visionaries, and attracted an audience of over 65 people with diverse professional and institutional affiliations.
All symposium events took place in the Wildcat Room of Norris University Center on the Northwestern Evanston campus.
The morning began with coffee and opening remarks from NU Pub Hum Co-Chair Liz McCabe and Wendy Wall, Professor of English and Director of the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities at Northwestern.
Session 1 – Keynote Conversation: The Scholar in Public
NU Pub Hum member Gina DiSalvo talked with Matti Bunzl, then of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the Chicago Humanities Festival, about the relationship between his work at CHF and as a scholar. (Matti now heads the Wien Museum in Vienna.)
Session 2 – Academic Positions, Public Work
The opening conversation with Matti set the stage for 
a lively discussion with panelists Susannah Gottlieb (Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies, Chair of the Comparative Literary Studies Program, and Director of the Poetry & Poetics Colloquium & Workshop at NU), Harvey Young (NU Professor of Theatre, Performance Studies, African American Studies, & Radio/Television/Film; Chair of Theatre; and Director of the Interdisciplinary PhD in Theatre & Drama), and Bart Schultz (Senior Lecturer in Humanities [Philosophy], Special Programs Coordinator for the Graham School for Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies, and Director of the Humanities Division’s Civic Knowledge Project at The University of Chicago). NU Pub Hum member Ian Blechschmidt led the conversation.
Session 3 – New Directions in Public Humanities in Illinois and Beyond
For the final session of the day, NU Pub Hum Co-Chair Ruth Martin facilitated a conversation between Angel Ysaguirre, the Executive Director of Illinois Humanities (then the Illinois Humanities Council) and Michael Rohd, a faculty member in Theatre at Northwestern, Founding Artistic Director of Sojourn Theatre, and Director of the Center for Performance and Civic Practice.
The event was presented by NU Pub Hum in partnership with Civically Engaged Grads (an NU graduate student organization) with support from the Center for Civic Engagement, the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities, The Graduate School, and Chicago Field Studies at Northwestern.
Event steering committee: Ian Blechschmidt, Gina DiSalvo, Kara Johnson, Andrew Keener, Ruth Martin, and Liz McCabe.
All photo credits: Robin Hoecker (PhD in Media, Technology, and Society candidate).
Event poster by Ian Blechschmidt.
