Popular culture dominates our lives and deserves serious study. During the 2025-26 academic year, the Center for the Humanities “The Humanities and Popular Culture/Counterculture.” This yearlong series of lectures and events — on topics ranging from marching band music to basketball to Taylor Swift — explored some of these fascinating and important intersections.
Submissions from 2026
The Genius of Taylor Swift: A Crash Course on the Pop Superstar, Stephanie Burt
Double Crossover: Gender, Media, and Politics in Global Basketball, Courtney M. Cox
Media Objects, Chris Hoff and Sam Harnett
Ways of Knowing: A Sonic Celebration of the Humanities, Chris Hoff and Sam Harnett
Why Shakespeare?, Jeffrey R. Wilson
Submissions from 2025
Make Loud! An Evening with the Extraordinary Rendition Band, Extraordinary Rendition Band
From Noble Savage to Tragic Chief: A Brief History of Natives in Pop Culture, Dr. Lee Francis IV
Stories from the Soil: Collage, Culture, and the Black Rural Imagination, Nancey B. Price