University of Maryland College of Arts and Humanities

09/26/2026

Get your free tickets to hear Angélique Kidjo in conversation with Dean Stephanie Shonekan on Monday, Oct. 5 at The Clarice!

Hear why Dean invited her to UMD for the latest event in our ARHU Dean’s Lecture Series!

Tix available at: go.umd.edu/kidjo or get the link in bio!

Fun facts about Angélique Kidjo:

1) She is the first African musician and first Black African to receive a star on the Hollywood walk of fame (in August 2026!)

2) She is a Unicef and Oxfam goodwill ambassador, and is the co-founder of the Batonga Foundation, which helps vulnerable young girls and women in Benin.

3) She speaks and sings fluently in five languages (Fon, French, Yoruba, Goun/Gen, and English) and has created her own personal language!

4) She has collaborated with artists including: Bono, Alicia Keys, John Legend, Peter Gabriel, Josh Gobran, Carlos Santana, Joss Stone, Branford Marsalis, Dianne Reeves, Yo Yo Ma, Burna Boy and Ezra Koenig.

Join us to celebrate music, culture and hope and be inspired by the incomparable Angélique Kidjo! You don't want to miss it!

09/22/2026

Join the Joseph and Alma Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies for the Gildenhorn Family Lecture Series: “Israel in the American Imagination,” featuring Bianna Golodryga, CNN senior global affairs analyst and fill-in anchor.

📅 Monday, September 28
🕖 7:00–8:30 p.m.

Visit go.umd.edu/2026GildenhornFamilyLecture

09/10/2026

09/08/2026

2026 ARHU Dean's Lecture Series with Angélique Kidjo
Monday, October 5, 2026 6:30-7:30 p.m.
Dekelboum Concert Hall, The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center

Five-time Grammy Award winner and humanitarian Angélique Kidjo sits down with College of Arts and Humanities Dean Stephanie Shonekan for a poignant conversation about music, cultural fluency and global advocacy. Named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world and “Africa’s premier diva,” Kidjo hails from Benin and blends musical traditions from West Africa and around the globe while incorporating multiple languages, including her own personal musical language.

During this special evening, Dean Shonekan and Kidjo will explore the artist’s music and how the singer has used her fame as a platform for humanitarian work as an ambassador for both Oxfam and UNICEF and a founder of the Batonga Foundation, which is dedicated to advancing girls’ education across Africa.

This event will feature performances by UMD students.

Free, tickets required. Link in Comments.

08/31/2026

Happy first day of classes to all Terps from College of Arts and Humanities Dean Stephanie Shoneken!

Inspired by the Track Star show, hosted by Jack Coyne, we talked with Dean Shonekan about some songs and their meaning to her to kick off the new semester.

You can check out more conversations and reflections on music with Dean Shonekan via her podcast Cover Story and her new substack, called Album Therapy (links in comments).

Get your free tickets to hear her conversation with the legendary Grammy Award winning singer and humanitarian Angélique Kidjo on October 5 at go.umd.edu/kidjo (also link in comments).

What’s on your first day playlist?

08/26/2026

Stephanie Uku Shonekan reflects on Dolly Parton’s iconic song “Jolene” in the latest edition of her Substack, “Album Therapy.”

There is probably no musician who best captures the beauty of simplicity as Dolly Parton does (did!). I was planning to write about a Dolly album for this series but just heard about her passing so I’m going to recommend we all listen to some Dolly Parton music. And there is no better album to remind us of her brilliant simplicity—or simple brilliance— than the 1974 album “Jolene.”

We all go through blasts of exuberance and valleys of despondency in life. Sometimes these come one after the other, in quick succession; and sometimes these moments collide, binding us with layers of emotions that get tangled and complicated. Dolly’s persona, her sweet clear voice, her distinct style of telling a compelling story in song, can help us cut through the complex layers and bring us back to appreciate the basics of life.

This album includes a pair of songs that would go on to become her two greatest hits, “I will Always Love You” and “Jolene,” covered by superstars Whitney Houston and Beyoncé. Listening to these two songs in their original form on this album, minus the powerful soul/R&B treatment (which I love!), highlights the brilliance of Dolly Parton as a songwriter and as a singer. These songs, like all the others on this album, are great stories about how romantic love tosses us around, but how we survive through it all.

Link in Comments

07/29/2026

The Eugenia Brin Expansive Theatre Endowed Program Support Fund ($2.5 million) and Current-Use Program Support Fund ($580,000) will support efforts in the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies (TDPS) to push the boundaries of where theater productions can actually take place, which is likely to lead to unforeseen breakthroughs in creativity.

“It’s going to allow us to explore site-specific performance—perhaps something that takes place in a warehouse or a garden,” said Jill Bradbury, professor and director of TDPS. “We will see new ways of engaging with audiences, like perhaps multisensory engagement that experiments with taste and smell, or non-normative theater breaking the fourth wall.”

The funding will bring visiting artists to campus, upgrade production technology and support the Production Lab inside the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, which the College of Arts and Humanities will rename in Eugenia Brin's honor. It connects to the Arts for All program already active in TDPS.

“This very generous funding from the Brin family acknowledges the importance and quality of the performing arts at the University of Maryland,” said Stephanie Shonekan, dean of the College of Arts and Humanities. “It is an exciting opportunity that supports our commitment to boundless creativity and telling stories that prioritize an investment in human connection.”

Read the article on Maryland Today - link in comments.

07/06/2026

Dean Stephanie Shonekan is pleased to announce new leadership appointments across the College of Arts and Humanities.

Joining as new department chairs:
🔹 Lee Konstantinou, University of Maryland Department of English
🔹 Charles E. Morris III, UMD Department of Communication
And joining the college's administrative team:
🔹 Ryan Knapp, facilities administrator

Additionally, we celebrate the following appointments and reappointments:

🔹 Eric Adler, reappointed chair, Department of Classics
🔹 Neda Atanasoski, reappointed chair, Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
🔹 Neel Ahuja, interim chair, Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
🔹 Quint Gregory, director, Museum Scholarship and Material Culture certificate program
🔹 Maxine Grossman, reappointed director, Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Program and Center for Jewish Studies
🔹 Craig Kier, reappointed executive director, Arts for All initiative
🔹 Carla Della Gatta, director, Honors Humanities
🔹 Antwon Key, director, Design Cultures & Creativity

Dean Shonekan also extends her deepest thanks to Amanda Bailey, who served as chair of the Department of English for 10 years, and Shawn Parry-Giles, who served as chair of the Department of Communication for 10 and a half years.

Welcome, and congratulations to all!

🔗 Full announcement at link in comments.

07/01/2026

America’s history is built from stories like Lakeland’s.

A new exhibition at the College Park Aviation Museum, “Reclaiming Our Space: The Story of Lakeland,” uses interactive digital streetscapes to bring visitors into the history of a thriving Black community near Lake Artemesia that was largely displaced during urban renewal in the 20th century.

“This is going to allow Lakelanders ... to see something they haven’t seen for many years, and show their children and grandchildren,” says Quint Gregory, director of the Michelle Smith Collaboratory for Visual Culture. Graduate students in Gregory’s class on collaborative curation worked with Lakeland residents and community partners on the project.

The exhibition was supported in part by the Maryland 250 Commission, recognizing Marylanders’ contributions to U.S. history during its milestone anniversary.

https://today.umd.edu/digital-revival-of-a-displaced-community

Department of American Studies at University of Maryland

New Exhibit Tells Story of Nearby Lakeland With Help From UMD Students and Faculty

06/30/2026

What did Thomas Jefferson mean when he wrote that “all men are created equal”?

In a recent USA Today interview, Burke Professor of American History Holly Brewer discusses her research on the Declaration of Independence and argues that Jefferson and the committee that drafted the document intended those words to include Black people—even as many of them participated in the system of slavery.

During this 250th anniversary week, Brewer’s work invites a closer look at the ideals, contradictions and ongoing debates surrounding the nation’s founding.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/usa250/2026/05/20/usa-250-thomas-jefferson-all-men-are-created-equal/90106240007/

UMD Department of History

Why Americans are still arguing about Jefferson's grand proclamation, 250 years after he made it.