HUMANITIES FOR HUMANS | A Busboys and Poets Books Presentation
Date and Time
Mar 27, 2025 6:00 pm
Location
14th & V
2021 14th St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20009
Mar 27, 2025 6:00 pm
14th & V
Join us to learn why we need humanities more than ever and how we can break down barriers between campuses and the general public
Can the academic humanities serve the general public to address some of today’s most critical challenges? This book answers yes! Society needs the humanities more than ever. By asking some of the smartest academics in North America to think aloud on topics like racism, migration, inequality, sustainability, building connections and working towards repair of our communities, Humanities for Humans tackles tough issues that affect our global population.
These scholars elucidate concepts for conversations that have been and continue to be needed. They offer historical context and concrete examples from North and South America, from Europe, from indigenous cultures, from artists and ordinary folk. The scholars, artists, journalists, and creatives whose expertise and experience lie at the heart of these issues, come together to inspire readers to think broadly about what, at our core, gives people humanity.
Editor Irene Kacandes is joining us on the Busboys stage alongside author and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Michael G. Hanchard, to share more about why the humanities are so important today, and how we can work together to bridge the gap between academics and the general public. Copies of the book will be available for purchase during and after the event, and Kacandes will be signing following the program.
This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 6:00 pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Copies of HUMANITIES FOR HUMANS will be available for purchase before and after the event. Please note that this event is in person and will not be livestreamed.
We ask that guests RSVP in order to receive direct updates about the event from Busboys and Poets Books
Irene Kacandes was educated at Harvard University, Aristotle University (Thessaloniki) and the Freie Universität (Berlin). Kacandes recently retired from Dartmouth College where she held a named chair and taught in the fields of German Studies, Comparative Literature, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Jewish Studies. She is author/editor of ten books, including Daddy's War (Nebraska 2009), Let’s Talk About Death (Prometheus, 2015), Eastern Europe Unmapped (Berghahn, 2017), and On Being: Adjacent to Historical Violence (De Gruyter 2022). Kacandes has held a number of top positions in international professional organizations, including the presidency of the German Studies Association and of the International Society for the Study of Narrative. She also runs a book series on “Interdisciplinary German Cultural Studies” at De Gruyter Brill.
Michael G. Hanchard is the Gustave C. Kuemmerle Professor in the Africana Studies Department at the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs the Marginalized Populations project. His publications include Orpheus and Power: The Movimento Negro of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1945-1988 (Princeton, 1994), Racial Politics in Contemporary Brazil, editor, (Duke, 1999), Party/Politics: Horizons in Black Political Thought (Oxford, 2006) and most recently The Spectre of Race: How Discrimination Haunts Western Democracy (Princeton, 2018). He is currently at work on a book entitled Fascism and Racism: A Love Story, a meditation on the continuities and discontinuities between fascism and other forms of racial rule. Prof. Hanchard was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021.
