Chicago Humanities Festival Starts This Week


 Anita Hill, John Waters, Sarah Cooper, Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, Francis Fukuyama, and former US Ambassador to Ukraine appearing in-person at 
Chicago Humanities Festival this spring. 

Chicago Humanities Festival presents a fully in-person line-up for 2022 Spring Festival, which will run through Sunday, May 22, and feature conversations with headliners like attorney and educator Anita Hill, filmmaker John Waters, comedian Sarah Cooper, Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, political philosopher Francis Fukuyama, actress Selma Blair, deaf activist Nyle DiMarco, and former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

Many events this spring will occur on two key “Festival Days”: Saturdays May 7th and May 14th. Each day will feature multiple conversations, unique experiences, and social gathering that will give attendees the opportunity to spend the day with the Festival, taking in a range of events from morning to night.

In addition to the thought-provoking conversations with iconic cultural figures that CHF is known for, spring will also offer festival-goers unique experiences and performances including bus tours of Chicago’s Southwest Side with TikTok historian Shermann “Dilla” Thomas, a rare conversation and performance by singer-songwriter Bonnie “Prince” Billy, a screening of the film Three Minutes: A Lengthening, and a 90’s Trivia Night which will follow a conversation with cultural critic and author of The Nineties Chuck Klosterman.

As Chicagoans return to public spaces after an era of isolation, Festival events will explore the theme of “Public.” The last two years have irrevocably transformed our public life. As we all seek new ways of coming together—as individuals, nations, and the world—the Chicago Humanities Festival invites attendees to commit to a public act of participation by joining us in asking what it means to be a part of a broader public community.

“We’re excited to return this spring with a full Chicago Humanities Festival experience and in-person schedule. As Chicagoans have come to expect, we’ll present a range of thoughtful conversations, exciting social experiences, and powerful performances,” said Phillip Bahar, Executive Director of CHF. “This year, we’ll explore the theme Public, by considering how our notions of public and private space have changed, asking who makes up our nation’s (and the world’s) various publics and how their voices are heard, and questioning our relationship to the use of the public commons. Even though our current realities seem to keep so many apart, we hope to use the arts and humanities to bring us together to collectively reimagine what our public lives can be.”
For tickets and more information, please visit ChicagoHumanities.org.

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