Humanities
Categories
Not sure where to start? Choose a topic below.
Historic Native American robes — the subject of an Illinois-led project — to be displayed at Versailles exhibition
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Stunning robes created more than 300 years ago by Inohka, or “Illinois people” — Native American tribes whose homelands include Illinois — will be on public display at a special exhibition at the Palace of Versailles in France that opens this month. The exhibition will include one of the most famous existing […]
Book looks at treasure trove of scientific data from 19th-century HMS Challenger voyage
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The voyage of the HMS Challenger in the 1870s was a sprawling 3-1/2-year expedition to explore the world’s oceans. The scientists aboard the vessel collected 100,000 specimens of sea creatures, discovered 5,000 new species, mapped the ocean floors and took hundreds of measurements of sea temperature and chemistry that formed the basis […]
Illinois professor’s New Yorker story, set in his hometown, examines racial, class struggles
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — David Wright Faladé examines race, class and gender through the eyes of a young college woman spending time in her small Texas hometown in his new short story, “Amarillo Boulevard,” which was published in Oct. 6 issue of The New Yorker. Faladé, an English professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, writes […]
Illinois history professor’s book shows how 1942 was a global war without end
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — World War II became a global war in 1942, after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, drawing the U.S. into the war. All the world’s most powerful nations were at war with one another, and the fighting spanned the globe. But the war was global in other ways too — in the unifying idea […]
New book casts anthropologist’s eye on European Court of Human Rights
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new book by a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign expert examines the world’s premier human rights court as rule of law comes under threat. The book “Justice in the Balance: Democracy, Rule of Law, and the European Court of Human Rights” considers not just why the rule of law and human rights […]
How do the charismatic leadership styles of Trump and Putin affect their interactions?
President Donald Trump met recently with Russian president Vladimir Putin and with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an attempt to negotiate a settlement to the Russia-Ukraine war. The three leaders are all charismatic figures who know how to use their appeal to mobilize public opinion, said Richard Tempest, a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professor of […]
Illinois researchers promote scholarship of Central Asia with new book
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Central Asia has been an important crossroads of cultural exchange throughout history, but studies of the area are lacking and many sources of knowledge have been unavailable to scholars. Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign lead a project that recently published an edited volume of work on the cultural heritage, history […]
Research: Police uses of lethal force dropped dramatically in US from 2021-23
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The number of police-involved lethal force incidents in the U.S. dropped 24% from 2021 to 2023, according to research from the Cline Center for Advanced Social Research at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The Cline Center’s SPOTLITE project has compiled nearly a decade’s worth of data to track and identify police uses […]
Because America never forgot
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — On March 11, 1944, my relative 2nd Lt. Thomas V. Kelly, Jr. and 10 other crew members of a B-24 bomber named “Heaven Can Wait” were declared missing in action after being shot down somewhere over the waters of Hansa Bay, Papua New Guinea. For our family, as for so many families […]
Book explores experimental filmmaking in Latin America and Spain, from Super 8 to cell phones
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Experimental and amateur filmmakers are expanding cinema by using new technologies, such as cell phones and virtual reality, and through increasing globalization of the distribution of their work. Eduardo Ledesma, a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Spanish professor, examined how experimental filmmakers in Latin America and Spain use alternative film formats in his […]
How can digital technology contribute to human flourishing?
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign philosophy professor John Schwenkler is the director of the new Illinois Forum on Human Flourishing in a Digital Age, housed in the philosophy department. The forum — which offers an undergraduate course, graduate fellowships, a speaker series and seminars — aims to examine the challenges and opportunities of living in a […]
What are the historical precedents for consumer activism, economic blackouts?
Champaign, Ill. — The Feb. 28 “economic blackout” — in which consumers were encouraged not to spend any money for 24 hours — may have gone viral on social media, but what effect did it have in real life? Emily E. LB. Twarog is a professor of labor and employment relations and the co-director of […]