Current Projects
Learn more about the projects that were selected this year and the exciting line-up of speakers, films, symposia, courses, conferences, panels and exhibitions.
SHARP 2025: Communities and Values of the Book
Kate Mariner & Anna Siebach-Larsen
July 7-11, 2025
The Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing will hold its annual conference at the University of Rochester and Rochester Institute of Technology from July 7 – 11. Scholars, creators, and practitioners from around the world will present their work and discuss the current state of bibliographic research and community. The theme of the 2025 conference is “Communities and Values of the Book”; the goal is to interrogate and build our communities in the Rochester area and across the world, exploring the intersections of value and communities and the ways in which these two forces shape each other across time and texts. The conference will include a day of optional visits to Rochester-area arts organizations and historical sites.
Trans Futurity Exhibition
Rachel Haidu
August 1, 2025 to September 12, 2025; opening August 1, 3-5 PM
Trans Futurity brings together regional artists exploring trans potentialities through visual art and media. Curated in collaboration with the Susan B. Anthony Institute and coincident with the 2025 Science Fiction Research Association Conference, the exhibition takes the conference’s inciting claim, “Trans people are (in) the future,” as its point of departure. The exhibition presents artworks from five artists who all address the stakes of trans futurity, from queer/trans ecologies to performativity, and across the mediums of video art, sculpture, painting, mushrooms, bioreactors, hormones, and more.
The Secret Chord Project: Exploring the religious in popular music through the works of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen
Mehmet Karabela
October 2-November 20, 2025
The Secret Chord Project explores the influence of religious concepts and imagery in popular music, with a particular focus on Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, two of the most influential singer-songwriters of our time. This project brings together leading scholars specializing in Dylan and Cohen, individuals who had personal connections to them, musicians, songwriters, as well as the Director of the internationally recognized Institute for Bob Dylan Studies at the University of Tulsa. Both public lectures by these scholars and historical figures from 1960’s Greenwich Village in New York City, Mount Baldy Zen Center in Los Angeles, and Cohen’s life in Montreal will provide unique perspectives and immersive experiences for students and faculty. These events offer rare opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate students across campus communities—as well as Rochester’s broader community—to engage with them and their scholarship. By organizing a tribute concert for Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen and hosting a public exhibition inspired by their music, this project provides students with immersive learning experiences while channeling their creative energy into academic rigor.
Global Black Aesthetics and Culture
Jordache Ellapen & Matthew Omelsky
October 9-11, 2025
In his book, Frottage: Frictions of Intimacy Across the Black Diaspora, Keguro Macharia provocatively declares that “Blackness is still to be thought.” The Fall 2025 Black Studies symposium at the University of Rochester takes up this charge as a call to think and unthink, imagine and reimagine, Blackness globally. What would it mean to situate this statement—Blackness is still to be thought—as an experiment in form and genre? As an exploratory method that centers Black aesthetics, culture, and the practice of the everyday, drawing renewed attention to the global trajectories of Black life? This symposium will consist of a keynote lecture delivered by Dr. Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, Associate Professor of Theory in the Literature Program at Duke University, as well as themed panels, film screenings, and engagement with artists. The symposium will pose important questions concerning place and race and will locate Rochester as a Black city with deep international connections.
The Songbook Project
Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon
October 16-20, 2025
In the fall of 2025, the residency of the Zohn Collective at Eastman will include the following academic events:
Thursday, October 16, 3:30 PM, ESM 404, as part of the weekly Composition Symposium, a panel discussion about the project and the general topic of text setting in music that will include the four composers, soprano Leah Brzyski, Professor Tim Weiss, who is the conductor of Zohn Collective, and other University of Rochester faculty. This discussion will be scheduled at a session of the Composition Symposium. This is a weekly gathering of the entire composition department students and faculty, which in this case will be advertised widely, and made open to the larger Eastman and University of Rochester community, and the public. The event will be video recorded and uploaded to Eastman online channels.
Friday, October 17 (or Saturday, October 18), Time and location TBD Composition masterclass led by Ania Vu and John Liberatore to selected composition department students.
Monday, October 20, 10:30 AM, Hatch Recital Hall, A presentation by members of the Zohn Collective at the First-Years' Colloquium at Eastman. This is a weekly gathering of the entire First-year class, in Hatch Hall. The purpose of this colloquium is to invite guest presenters who have developed enriching careers in music to speak about their artistic and professional journeys, giving the students the opportunity to learn first-hand about the multiple paths of a career in music. The members of the Zohn Collective, many of whom are Eastman graduates, will speak about the mission and artistic vision of the group, how it functions, and how the work in the ensemble aligns with their other musical endeavors.
Monday, October 20, brief pre-concert talk, presented by the composers and participating U of R and Eastman faculty to the concert audience (see concert time and location below)
Monday, October 20, 7:30 PM, Hatch Recital Hall, Concert by soprano Leah Brzyski and Zohn Collective of works by Ania Vu, John Liberatore, Daniel Pesca, and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon
*Date and time TBD: the composers and members of the Zohn Collective will hold office hours in the Institute for Music Leadership, offering one-on-one consultations to Eastman students about professional development in the world of contemporary chamber music.
Russia Under Putin—and Beyond, a Lecture by Vladimir Kara-Murza
John Givens
October 21, 2025
This year marks the 25th anniversary since Vladimir Putin came to power in Russia, transforming it from an imperfect democracy into a ruthless dictatorship that silences independent media, imprisons and murders political opponents, and now wages the largest military conflict on European soil since World War II. Vladimir Kara-Murza, one of the leaders of Russia’s democratic opposition and a former political prisoner freed in the historic 2024 East–West prisoner exchange, will speak about what Russia is today, what it could be in the future — and, most importantly, how to get there. Kara-Murza will be part of Dmitry Bykov's Russia Now class at 11 am on the day of his talk, giving students the chance to interact with him directly. He will also appear on WXXI Connections with Evan Dawson at 1 pm that day as a way of reaching the broader Rochester-area community.
Visual Studies Workshop - Discussion on Archival Holdings
Rachel Haidu
October 23, 2025
Two curators from Visual Studies Workshop who have intimate knowledge of their collection holdings, Tara Nelson and Hernease Davis, will present their collection archives for students who hope to learn more about visual studies archival research. This event is a two-hour workshop with Nelson and Davis, who will bring accessioned items from their collections to present to students, with a focus on areas of the collection that have yet to be researched.
Speaker Series: New Histories of Fascism, Nazi Germany, and the Holocaust"
Jon Catlin
October 29 & November 19, 2025
This hybrid Zoom/in-person speaker series will invite leading scholars who have recently published new work on Fascism, Nazi Germany, and the Holocaust to present their research to the campus community. The presentations will cover new aspects of historical research, including new theoretical, conceptual, and aesthetic approaches to fascism and the Holocaust; long-neglected aspects of the Holocaust such as the murder of the disabled; and timely reflections on lessons from the fall of democracy in Nazi Germany and debates about understanding fascism both historically and in our own time.
Philosophy of Journalism Workshop
Zeynep Soysal
November 21, 2025
The Philosophy of Journalism Workshop will explore foundational questions about the nature, ethics, and epistemic value of journalism. The event will bring philosophers and practitioners—including local journalists and alumni—into dialogue through a mix of invited and contributed talks as well as panel discussions. Topics will include the distinction between news and opinion, the role of journalism in holding power to account, and the implications of practices such as balanced reporting, narrative framing, and data-driven journalism. This is a rare opportunity for students, scholars, and members of the public to engage with a growing but still underdeveloped area of research.
Abstraction and Language
Meghaa Ballakrishnen
Spring 2026
“Abstraction and Language” brings Seher Shah, a South Asian American artist; Devin Fore, a historian of media; and Irene V. Small, an art historian, to the University of Rochester for talks and workshops through Spring 2026. Developing distinct historical architectures—postcolonial South Asia, the Soviet state, the Brazilian avant-garde—each invited speaker explores, in their own work, abstraction with language (poetry, journalism, literature, artistic statements). Together, they ask to consider the significance of interpretation, conversation, and comparative work in thinking about abstract art. Our program is conceived to be of interest across the departments of Art and Art History, English, and Modern Languages and Cultures, and especially the programs in Latin American Studies, Russian Studies, and Visual and Cultural Studies.
Reading Across the Disciplines Group
Kate Phillips
February 6-April 17, 2026
The Writing, Speaking, and Argument Program invites students, faculty, and staff to join a casual reading group this semester covering Karen Manarin’s Critical Reading in Higher Education: Academic Goals and Social Engagement and Reading across the Disciplines. Using these books as a foundation to understand academic reading, we will also discuss potential impacts of generative AI on reading practices. Thanks to generous sponsorship from the Humanities Center, Dr. Manarin will join us for our final conversation on April 17.
Schedule:
Fridays, 1:15–2:15 PM
February 6 & 20 | March 6 & 20 | April 3 & 17
Please use this Google form to sign up and email Kathryn.phillips@rochester.edu with any questions!
Ephrat Asherie Dance: “Shadow Cities”
Missy Pfohl Smith
February 6, 2026
Ephrat Asherie brings her new collaborative show "Shadow Cities" to the University of Rochester, a work created with Grammy award-winning jazz musician and composer Arturo O’Farrill. Bringing together Ephrat Asherie Dance’s exhilarating choreography that remixes and reconnects various street and club dance styles with live music and an original composition featuring O’Farrill’s trademark Latin jazz sound, "Shadow Cities" explores how we are split between cities, memories, and generations; and how we are an amalgam of cultures, fully embodied and fragmented all at once. This performance will take place on Friday, February 6. 2026 in the Sloan Performing Arts Center at 7:30pm, with a post-show meet-the-artists discussion to follow. Ephrat will also teach workshops on campus and will serve as one of the judges for the inspireJAM on February 7, 2026.
Curating Material Indigenous Culture: A Conversation With Dr. Jolene Rickard and Michael Galban
Rachel Haidu
March 11, 2026
Curator Dr. Jolene Rickard (Cornell) and Michael Galban, Director of the Seneca Art & Culture Center at Ganondagan, will deliver a lecture on curatorial strategies for Indigenous material culture in Western New York. Rickard has curated Deskaheh in Geneva, 1923-2023: Defending Haudenosaunee Sovereignty among many other projects, and works with regional institutions, such as the Niagara Falls State Park and the Royal Ontario Museum. This lecture is an opportunity to hear from Indigenous scholars working at the crossroads of academic and curatorial work.
Abstraction and Language
Meghaa Ballakrishnen
March 23-April 30, 2026
“Abstraction and Language” brings Seher Shah, a South Asian American artist; Devin Fore, a historian of media; and Irene V. Small, an art historian, to the University of Rochester for talks and workshops through Spring 2026. Developing distinct historical architectures—postcolonial South Asia, the Soviet state, the Brazilian avant-garde—each invited speaker explores, in their own work, abstraction with language (poetry, journalism, literature, artistic statements). Together, they ask to consider the significance of interpretation, conversation, and comparative work in thinking about abstract art. Our program is conceived to be of interest across the departments of Art and Art History, English, and Modern Languages and Cultures, and especially the programs in Latin American Studies, Russian Studies, and Visual and Cultural Studies.
Seher Shah 3/23/26, 6:30-8pm @ Visual Studies Workshop
Seher Shah's (b. 1975, Karachi; lives and works in Barcelona) artistic practice spans drawing, printmaking, and sculpture to explore the intimate, yet vastly historical, terrains of mark making. Her work is in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, Centre Pompidou, Tate Modern, Art Jameel, The Ishara Art Foundation, Hamburger Kunsthalle, and the Kiran Nader Museum of Art, amongst others. At Rochester, Seher will be discussing a 2024 portfolio, The Dacca Gauzes, which responds in twelve photogravure prints to the colonial erasure of Bengal muslin in a poem of the same name by Agha Shahid Ali (b. 1949, New Delhi; d. 2001, Amherst, MA).
Devin Fore 4/2/26, 5-7pm Humanities Center, Conference Room D
Devin Fore is Professor of German at Princeton University, where he also teaches in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and the Program in Media and Modernity. His publications include Realism After Modernism: The Rehumanization of Art and Literature (October/MIT Press, 2012) and Soviet Factography: Reality without Realism (University of Chicago Press, 2024). He is currently completing a shorter study History, A Procession of Peasants, which examines the pastoral impulse in the film, architecture, and urban planning of the 1920s through the lens of Engels’ Dialectic of Nature (pub. 1925).
Irene Small 4/30/26, 5-7pm Humanities Center, Conference Room D
Irene V. Small is Professor of Contemporary Art & Criticism in the Department of Art & Archaeology, Princeton University, where she is associated with the Department of Spanish & Portuguese and a member of the Executive Committees of the Programs in Latin American Studies and Media and Modernity. She is the author of Hélio Oiticica: Folding the Frame (University of Chicago Press, 2016) and The Organic Line: Toward a Topology of Modernism (Zone Books, 2024).
“We Were Here”: Unveiling Black Presence in Renaissance Art
Angeline Nies-Berger & Lucia Casiraghi
March 24, 2026
The Modern Languages and Culture’s French and Italian programs are proud to invite artist and film director Fred Kuwornu for a screening and a discussion surrounding his latest ground-breaking documentary, We Were Here, the Untold History of Black Africans in Renaissance Europe (2024). Kuwornu is a Folger Shakespeare fellow in Washington DC and the 2025 Dan David Prize winner, which is the world’s most prestigious History award.
Born and raised in Italy, Kuwornu is based in New York. His unique background is reflected in his triple citizenship, holding Italian, Ghanaian, and U.S. passports. Previous documentary works include 18 Ius Soli (2012), which explores the complex issue of citizenship for children born to immigrant parents in Italy; and Blaxploitalian: 100 Years of Blackness in Italian Cinema (2016), which examines the representation and experiences of Black actors in Italian cinema from 1915 to the present day.
After tremendous success at the 60th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, We Were Here is now under consideration for nomination for the next Academy Awards.
Gotta Read ‘Em All!: Decoding Braille in the Pokémon Series
Lin Meng Walsh
March 26, 2026
To obtain a trio of legendary monsters in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire (2002), players can embark on an elaborate side quest where they must decode two-dimensional representations of Braille. Removed from its original context as a tactile language, this visual “Pokémon Braille” is at once an inclusive and exclusionary gesture. In this guest lecture, Frank Mondelli (University of Delaware) explores the ludonarrative appropriation of Braille and other communication systems in Japanese games and beyond, asking how games can impact accessibility and disabled expression in broader society – and vice versa.
The Passion of St. John
Michael Anderson
March 31, 2026
Join Eastman School of Music students and faculty on Tuesday, March 31, 5:00 pm, at the Interfaith Chapel for a live recitation of the Passion of St. John from a 16th-century manuscript passional from River Campus Libraries’ medieval manuscript collection. Singing directly from the source, performers will bring the commemoration of Holy Week in early modern France into 21st-century Rochester. Students will decipher the ancient notation and text from the manuscript in real time, connecting past and present in a transformative experience for performers and audience alike. The performance is directed by Michael Alan Anderson, Professor of the Musicology at the Eastman School of Music.
Critical Health Studies Symposium: Joining the Health Humanities and Social Sciences Across the University of Rochester
Tali Ziv
April 3, 2026
This health humanities and social science symposium brings together topics in the critical study of health and medicine across the University of Rochester. Bringing together natural science students curious about health beyond the clinic or the lab, to humanities and social science students interested in power, inequality, and the body, this symposium brings faculty together accross the School of Medicine and Dentistry, the School of Arts and Sciences, and the Eastman School of Music. This day-long celebration highlights the rich array of talent among Rochester faculty and students in this interdisciplinary area, offering a rare window into the breadth of scholarly and pedagogical approaches to critical health studies here at U Rochester.
The 25th Annual Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies
Tom Devaney
April 9-11, 2026
The Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies is a three-day graduate student-led conference established by a group of scholars from Harvard University and University of Toronto in 2002. The foremost purpose of Vagantes is to provide up-and-coming medievalists with the opportunity to present their research in a national, scholarly venue that is not limited to one institution. The Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies attracts between 40-60 graduate students each year from disciplines including but not limited to Anthropology, Art and Architectural History, Classics, History, Languages and Literatures, Medical Humanities, Manuscript Studies, Musicology, Philosophy, and Religious Studies. The conference will include an opening and closing keynote lecture, several skills-building workshops, paper presentations and excursions for conference attendees. The conference proceedings are free and open to the University of Rochester community.
Body Politics, Power, Protest in interactive/XR Storytelling
Meaghan Moody
April 15, 2026
The lecture will focus on the genesis of Maya: The Birth of a Superhero and beyond. Basu will trace her background and evolving artistic journey. The artist will discuss what it means to be a creator and explore expanded, intersectional, interactive storytelling with a focus on ‘acts’ of change and resistance-based practices. The lecture will end with a Q&A session.
Climate Havens: Humanistic Perspectives on Resilience, Migration, and Resources Symposium
Tanya Bakhmetyeva
April 16-17, 2026
This symposium examines the growing idea of “climate havens”, including regions like the Great Lakes, as areas more resilient to environmental change, and explores the ethical, historical, cultural, and ecological questions that arise as climate risks intensify. Through interdisciplinary perspectives, participants will consider what defines a haven, who has access to it, and how natural resources and ecosystems shape climate-resilient communities. Topics will include historical and contemporary migration, Indigenous stewardship, environmental justice, gendered experiences, narratives of home and displacement, and the social and political dimensions of water and land management, offering a nuanced look at how communities navigate belonging, sustainability, and resilience in a warming world.