UofL Humanities Graduate Studies

We're so proud of our alum!

How can the humanities shape the future of medicine? 🎓🩺

For UofL alumna Kate Lafferty-Danner, earning a PhD in Humanities and an MA in Medical Ethics opened the door to a career educating future physicians. Through interdisciplinary learning, mentorship and hands-on teaching opportunities, she found a path that blended critical thinking, ethics and a passion for making an impact.

Interested in graduate study that lets you connect ideas across disciplines and turn your passions into purpose? Discover where a graduate degree in the humanities can take you. Read more: https://artsandsciences.louisville.edu/news/why-humanities-matter-medicine-uofl-alumna-educating-future-doctors

At the end of this month, PhD student Steve Muir will be a participant (all participants present/facilitate) at the Feminist Decolonial Politics Workshop. This is a yearly workshop that focuses on a different author every year, 2026 being on Hortense Spillers. https://decolonialthoughtworkshop.wordpress.com/

Humanities PhD student Theo Barthes has been accepted to participate as a Fellow in the 2026 Institute for Critical Social Inquiry (ICSI) Summer Seminars at the New School in NY. Theo will be studying with Jack Halberstam in his seminar "Unworlding: Utopia, Dystopia, Atopia" June 7-13. The activities will include five daily seminars, afternoon workshops with presentations of Theo's current research, attendance at four public lectures, and the opening and closing receptions.

Humanities PhD student Hannah Rego's poem "Anti-hypothesis" will appear in the Science issue of Room, Canada's oldest feminist literary magazine, in May 2026. The issue is now available for pre-order: https://roommagazine.com/product/science-49-2/

Join us for the 2026 Naamani Memorial Jewish Culture Event featuring Professor Adam Rovner and his talk “The Jew Who Would Be King: The True Story of a Jewish Zulu Chieftain in the 19th Century.” This event is hosted by the Jewish Studies Program within the Interdisciplinary & Public Humanities Department.

📅 Sunday, April 19
⏰ 2:00–3:30 p.m.
📍 Ekstrom Library, 3rd Floor (Jewish Studies Reading Room)

From obsession-fueled research to a real-life story of identity, power and contradiction, this lecture brings history to life in ways you won’t forget. Open to students of all majors—and trust us, you’ll have questions.

Read more at the link: https://artsandsciences.louisville.edu/news/experience-story-stranger-fiction-2026-naamani-memorial-jewish-culture-event

RSVP: [email protected]



Alt Text:
Portrait of Professor Adam Rovner outdoors against a blurred green background. He is wearing round glasses and a maroon zip-up jacket, looking slightly to the side with a thoughtful expression.

For the past several months, Humanities PhD student Erica Lewis has been collaborating with the artists of Chance 4 Change (C4C), a substance abuse recovery program housed within Louisville Metro Department of Corrections, to create paper artworks for their exhibition titled Human, Too. The featured artworks, produced and curated by C4C's incarcerated artists, will be exhibited at the Portland Museum April 18 - August 29 with an opening reception on Friday, April 24th 5:00PM - 8:00PM.

Today!

The Jewish Studies Program of the University of Louisville Presents the Albert and Anita Goldin Memorial for Yiddish Culture Lecture:
-Hannah Pollin-Galay: Occupied Words: What the Holocaust Did to Yiddish
-Tuesday, March 3, 2026, from 1 pm to 2:15 pm
-Online via Microsoft Teams. Link provided upon RSVP (email Diana.Wilder at louisville dot edu to receive meeting link)

We live in a paradoxical moment for Holocaust memory. On the one hand, we encounter Holocaust analogies in the media nearly every day. And yet, public understanding of Holocaust history is at a low. One way to reengage with the experiences of torment and survival under the N***s is to study language—the words and phrases that victims used to describe their own plight, in real time.

Together, we will explore the stories behind key terms that Yiddish speakers invented during the Holocaust. Bringing us deep inside daily life in ghettos and camps, these words also help us grapple with contemporary ethical questions.

Professor Hannah Pollin-Galay is Associate Professor of Yiddish and Holocaust Studies in the Department of Literature at Tel Aviv University

The Jewish Studies Program of the University of Louisville Presents the Albert and Anita Goldin Memorial for Yiddish Culture Lecture:
-Hannah Pollin-Galay: Occupied Words: What the Holocaust Did to Yiddish
-Tuesday, March 3, 2026, from 1 pm to 2:15 pm
-Online via Microsoft Teams. Link provided upon RSVP (email Diana.Wilder at louisville dot edu to receive meeting link)

We live in a paradoxical moment for Holocaust memory. On the one hand, we encounter Holocaust analogies in the media nearly every day. And yet, public understanding of Holocaust history is at a low. One way to reengage with the experiences of torment and survival under the N***s is to study language—the words and phrases that victims used to describe their own plight, in real time.
Together, we will explore the stories behind key terms that Yiddish speakers invented during the Holocaust. Bringing us deep inside daily life in ghettos and camps, these words also help us grapple with contemporary ethical questions.
Professor Hannah Pollin-Galay is Associate Professor of Yiddish and Holocaust Studies in the Department of Literature at Tel Aviv University.

The Jewish Studies Program of the University of Louisville Presents the Albert and Anita Goldin Memorial for Yiddish Culture Lecture:
-Hannah Pollin-Galay: Occupied Words: What the Holocaust Did to Yiddish
-Tuesday, March 3, 2026, from 1 pm to 2:15 pm
-Online via Microsoft Teams. Link provided upon RSVP (email Diana.Wilder at louisville dot edu to receive meeting link)

We live in a paradoxical moment for Holocaust memory. On the one hand, we encounter Holocaust analogies in the media nearly every day. And yet, public understanding of Holocaust history is at a low. One way to reengage with the experiences of torment and survival under the N***s is to study language—the words and phrases that victims used to describe their own plight, in real time.
Together, we will explore the stories behind key terms that Yiddish speakers invented during the Holocaust. Bringing us deep inside daily life in ghettos and camps, these words also help us grapple with contemporary ethical questions.
Professor Hannah Pollin-Galay is Associate Professor of Yiddish and Holocaust Studies in the Department of Literature at Tel Aviv University

Save the date for The 2026 Naamani Memorial Jewish Culture Event:

Professor Adam Rovner
The Jew Who Would Be King:
The True Story of a Jewish Zulu Chieftain in the 19th Century

Sunday, April 19th, 2:00-3:30 pm
The Susan and William Yarmuth Jewish Studies Reading Room
Ekstrom Library, 3rd Floor, University of Louisville

Please RSVP for this free event to: diana.wilder at louisville dot edu