Virginia Tech Humanities Week
What is Humanities Week?
Virginia Tech Humanities Week highlights the essential work happening in the humanities at Virginia Tech and around the world. Members of the public and the Virginia Tech community are invited to attend panel discussions, lectures, and other activities throughout the week of October 27-31, 2025.
This year's theme is The Power of Place, featuring Award-winning author and journalist Beth Macy as the keynote presenter. Macy is known for her powerful storytelling on issues of society, including the opioid crisis in her bestselling book Dopesick, which was adapted into an Emmy-winning series. The Humanities Week keynote will be held at Virginia Tech’s Center for the Arts on Tuesday, October 28, 7:00 p.m.
Humanities Week is sponsored by the Center for Humanities and the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences.
Throughout Humanities Week, we'll be reflecting on “The Power of Place.” Place forms a fundamental part of human identity and belonging, serving as both physical anchor and psychological foundation. It shapes how we see ourselves, interpret our experiences, and make meaning of our lives. Humans also use places for their own purposes, wielding power and creating hierarchies as they embed specific values in landscapes and buildings. Because place is central to human existence and expression, it is central to the humanities.
2025 Schedule
Keynote Address
Journalist and Best-Selling Author, Beth Macy, will deliver the keynote address. on October 28, 7 p.m. at the Center for the Arts.
Monday, October 27
“Honoring the Understories: Seeing Beyond the Coalfields Imaginary in Central Appalachia”
Shannon Bell
12:15 - 1:15 p.m.
Virginia Tech Sociology Professor Shannon Bell will deliver a presentation as part of the Center for Humanities’ regular seminar series.
124 Newman Library, Athenaeum classroom, 560 Drillfield Drive
“Finding the Black Working Class: Black Folk and the Power of Place”
Blair Kelley
2:00 - 3:00 p.m.
followed by reception
Blair Kelley, recently appointed director and president of the National Humanities Center, will present a talk based on her latest prize-winning book, Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class.
Newman 207A classroom
Tuesday, October 28
“Seeing and Reading”
11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
The Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech is thrilled to host a special guided tour of our Fall 2025 exhibition, “Dana Frankfort & Josephine Halvorson: Seeing and Reading” for Humanities Week 2025. Our featured artists, Frankfort and Halvorson, implement distinct visual approaches to the element of text in their work while exploring themes of memory, place, and emotions.
Center for the Arts
"Paper Girl: Home and Family in a Fractured America" - Keynote
Beth Macy
7:00 - 8:50 p.m.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
In this talk, based on Beth Macy's 2025 memoir Paper Girl, she presents a gift of courage, empathy, and insight to audiences. Learn how Beth Macy turned to face the darkness in her family and community, people she loves wholeheartedly, even the ones she sometimes struggles to like. And how, in facing the truth—in person, with respect— she found sparks of human dignity that she has used to light a signal fire of warning but also of hope.
Center for the Arts
Wednesday, October 29
Hokie for a Day - Humanities Takeover
10:45 -11:45 a.m.
Hokie for a Day offers fifth grade students the opportunity to participate in hands-on experiences with VT faculty and students. This special Humanities Week takeover will expose students to global food studies, ancient mythology, hip hop, and more.
Not open to the public.
Center for the Arts
Trauma, Hope, and Politics: A Conversation about Rural Education
Beth Macy
Catharine Biddle
Amy Price Azano
12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Join the Virginia Tech Center for Rural Education’s Front Porch Series and learn from two special guests, Beth Macy and Cat Biddle, as we discuss rural schooling, trauma, the role of politics and news, our rural pasts, and dreams for our rural futures.
Zoom
Community Conversation
Ritmos y Raíces (Rhythms & Roots)
(presented by the Center for the Arts)
12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Join us for a unique conversation with Grammy-winning band La Santa Cecilia. This event is free and refreshments are provided.
El Centro, Squires Student Center
Reception
6:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Join us in the Lyric lobby before the screening for a casual reception with conversation and free light snacks, courtesy of the Center for Humanities. The Lyric will have alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages available for purchase. Come mingle and unwind before the film begins!
Lyric lobby
Film Screening and Discussion
Tucker and Dale vs Evil,
with commentary from Prof. Emily Satterwhite
7:00 - 9:30 p.m.
Just in time for Halloween, come watch Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010), a beloved parody of the hillbilly horror genre. College students' unfounded fears about working-class white Appalachians are the source of their own undoing at a cabin in the woods. Dr. Emily Satterwhite will lead a post-film conversation exploring how the film's hilarious send-up of stereotypes and defense of rural places may inadvertently reinforce homophobic and anti-Black sentiments.
Lyric
Thursday, October 30
Exploring the Power of Place along 550 miles of US Bicycle Route 76 in Virginia
Grace Kostrzebski and Tom Ewing
12:30 p.m.
The Bike 76 VA project explores 500+ years of history along 500+ miles of US Bicycle Route 76 in Virginia, from Yorktown to Breaks, through podcast episodes, weekly essays, and published articles. Exploring the Power of Place along 550 miles of US Bicycle Route 76 in Virginia examines lives connected by the shared location along Route 76 such as Mary Johnston, an advocate for the voting rights of women and African Americans; Raymond Byrd, a veteran of World War I lynched in downtown Wytheville; Edgar Long and the five thousand others who attended Booker T. Washington’s speech in Cambria; J. H. Warren, a miner killed in an accident in the Arminius mine near Mineral; Isabella Gibbons, an enslaved person recently memorialized by the University of Virginia; and Lee Boggs and “Go Lightning,” two musicians from coal morning communities in southwestern Virginia. These stories illustrate how humanities scholars use source materials and digital platforms to engage audiences and provide new perspectives on familiar places.
La Santa Cecilia
(presented by the Center for the Arts - ticketed event)
7:30 - 9:00 p.m.
Named after the patron saint of music, La Santa Cecilia is the voice of a new bicultural generation — rooted in Latin American heritage, yet fully immersed in the evolving soundscape of modern music.
Purchase tickets ($10 tickets available for VT students)
Center for the Arts
Friday, October 31
ICAT Playdate
Eiman Elgewely
9:00 - 9:30 a.m.
Roots of Eternity is a multisensory immersive exhibition that reimagines the 4,000-year-old garden model from the Tomb of Meketre—one of the most iconic archaeological finds from Ancient Egypt.
C&I Building
Porch Pickin’
12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Do you enjoy playing, learning, listening to, or singing Appalachian music? Come join us on the porch of Solitude as we play, sing, and toe tap our way through some favorite tunes.
Solitude