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 14-18, 2024.
This year's theme is Debating Democracy, showcasing the capacity of the humanities to illuminate democracy's problems and possibilities across space and time.
Humanities Week is sponsored by the Center for Humanities and the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. All events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.
2024 Schedule
Keynote - One Person, No Vote: Voter Suppression and the History of American Democracy
Watch the Livestream
Carol Anderson
Keynote Speaker
Date: Tuesday, October 15
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location: Owens Hall Banquet Room
Carol Anderson is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies at Emory University and author of White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide, a New York Times Bestseller, Washington Post Notable Book of 2016, and a National Book Critics Circle Award winner. She is also the author of Eyes Off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944-1955; Bourgeois Radicals: The NAACP and the Struggle for Colonial Liberation, 1941-1960, and One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy, which was long-listed for the National Book Award and a finalist for the PEN/Galbraith Award in non-fiction.
This lecture will be livestreamed through the CLAHS YouTube channel.
The Virginia Tech bookstore will have Anderson’s books available for purchase at the lecture. Books are also available for purchase at Blacksburg Books on South Main Street.
Monday, October 14
10:30 a.m.
"The Native Vote: 100 Years After Citizenship."
Jason Chavez
Newman Library Goodall Multipurpose Room.
Organized by the Indigenous Community Center with support from the Center for Humanities.
1:00 - 2:30 p.m.
“Transforming Democracies.”
Join Virginia Tech’s Center for Humanities for a panel discussion exploring the changing meanings of democracy across time periods and world regions.
Against the backdrop of critical elections around the globe, four experts from the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences will examine the wide-ranging history of democracy. The panelists will discuss struggles over this disputed concept in societies across the world, from the Middle East to Latin America. Within the United States and elsewhere, interpretations of how democracy should work—and who should be included—have been regularly fought over. The speakers will highlight contending ideas and practices of democracy, ranging from Frederick Douglass’s demands for Black citizenship in the 1850s to the operation of school boards and other local democratic institutions in our own time. Understanding democracy in wider perspective is essential to understanding its changing role in the world today.
Panelists:
Moderator: Paul Quigley
Co-sponsored by Phi Beta Kappa
Newman Library Goodall Multipurpose Room.
Organized by the Center for Humanities with support from Phi Beta Kappa.
7:30 p.m.
"Voices from the Urban Indigenous Campfire."
This is a ticketed event that requires paid admission.
Tuesday, October 15
10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Center for Humanities Open House.
We invite you to visit the Center’s new location, meet with center director Paul Quigley and Distinguished Humanities Fellow Rishi Jaitly, and provide your input for future programming.
7:00 p.m.
Keynote
“One Person, No Vote: Voter Suppression and the History of American Democracy."
Speaker: Carol Anderson
Reception and Book Signing following event.
This lecture will be livestreamed through the CLAHS YouTube channel.
The VT bookstore will have Anderson’s books available for purchase at the lecture. Books are also available for purchase at Blacksburg Books on South Main Street.
Owens Hall Banquet Room
Organized by the Center for Humanities with co-sponsorship from:
College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences
Elizabeth A. “Betsy” Flanagan Women in Leadership and Philanthropy Endowed Lecture Fund
History Department
Sociology Department
Black Cultural Center
Political Science Department
Kellogg Center for Politics, Philosophy, and Economics
ASPECT
Wednesday, October 16
5:30 - 7:00 p.m.
Banned Books Panel
Panelists: Ed Gitre, Donna Fortune, Courtney Thomas
Moderator: Jenny Boone, Director of Marketing and Communications (CLAHS)
Organized by the Center for Humanities and the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences.
Thursday, October 17
10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Center for Humanities Open House.
We invite you to visit the Center’s new location, meet with center director Paul Quigley, and provide your input for future programming.