Chicago Humanities Festival

New Lawrence Weschler books about conversations with David Hockney and Robert Irwin

2009-03-29 00:00:00

Here's how Lawrence Weschler sees it: "The world as it is," he writes in his 2004 collection of essays and reportage, "Vermeer in Bosnia," "is overdetermined: the web of all those interrelationships is dense to the point of saturation. . . . If I were...

Puppets and fairy tales are part of 'Stages, Sights and Sounds'

2013-05-02 00:00:00

The Chicago Humanities Festival is one of those things that many locals have on their calendar, but let's be clear about this — it's people in a room, standing on a stage, talking about stuff. What self-respecting kid will sit still for that?...

Chicago Humanities Festival lets in the Animal

2013-04-23 14:10:00

In announcing its fall programming theme, “Animal: What Makes Us Human,” the Chicago Humanities Festival provides one answer to the question that, for want of a question mark, it doesn't quite pose. The desire and ability to stage an...

Stuart Flack leaving Humanities Festival

2012-11-28 13:38:00

The Chicago Humanities Festival announced Wednesday that Stuart Flack, its executive director since 2007, has resigned and will be leaving the organization Dec. 31. “I've been here for five years, I think we've done great work, built a great team,...

As 'Bastard out of Carolina' turns 20, Dorothy Allison reflects on her career

2012-11-24 12:04:00

In her potent memoir and manifesto, “Two or Three Things I Know for Sure,” Dorothy Allison writes, “Oh, I could tell you stories that would darken the sky and stop the blood.” And then she declares, “I am not here to make...

Wiesel speaks to sanctity of learning, power of memory

2012-11-11 15:04:00

Elie Wiesel didn't need Holocaust deniers to lend immediacy to his discussion about the importance of learning and memory, but there they were anyway, three men standing outside the Symphony Center Sunday morning holding an anti-Semitic banner and barking...

Chicago is Yo-Yo Ma's cultural soapbox

2012-10-10 14:48:00

The Chicago Public Schools, the Silk Road Ensemble, the Humanities Festival, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Citizen Musician, "cultural entrepreneurship" — Yo-Yo Ma has a way of filling his plate during his now-...

MCA bringing Stew, Handspring Puppet Theatre, Mike Daisey to Chicago in 2012-13

2012-05-30 13:19:00

Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art has announced its 2012-13 season of live performances. The typically expansive, eclectic and inter-disciplinary season includes the following events: - "Imperial Science: Una Opera Muerta" An operatic collaboration...

A view of Occupy Wall Street, Disney and the desert through eyes of Mike Daisey

2012-11-02 10:13:00

Mike Daisey is a keen cultural observer with a ruthless streak. In "American Utopias," the neo-Spalding Gray's latest monologue, Daisey even takes on the "It's a Small World" ride at Walt Disney World. "It looks like a 1950s game show threw up on itself,"...

Lyric creative team talks 'Bel Canto,' Ars Viva tackles elusive Sibelius symphony

2012-11-05 11:45:00

No opera company faces a more formidable task than commissioning a new opera, assembling the forces needed to bring it to fruition and nursing it through the long and sometimes painful process leading up to the premiere. But such undertakings are vital if...

Cursing is no curse for Ian Frazier

2012-11-07 15:13:00

Ian (expletive) Frazier, whose journalism has been a mainstay of the New Yorker for almost four (expletive) decades, whose subjects have included fly-fishing, Native American reservations, (expletive) Siberia, the security detail for hip-hop performers,...

How to ruin an arts panel

2012-10-12 08:25:00

Today is the first day of the Chicago Humanities Festival and last day of Chicago Ideas Week. Not that it matters anymore when one annual celebration of creativity ends and another begins. Somewhere, every day of the year, morning, brunch and night, there...

Chicago Humanities Festival

2012-10-26 09:46:00

Author Elie Wiesel at his office in New York City. Professor Elie Wiesel is being awarded the Chicago Tribune Literary Award and will speak at the Chicago Humanities Festival on Sunday.

2012-10-17 00:00:00

The Chicago Humanities Festival gives its attendees the opportunity to have their minds sparked by hearing lectures and other sorts of presentations from cultural luminaries. This year's fall program is no exception as it hits venues in Hyde Park, Evanston and downtown.

2012-10-11 08:47:00