The Center for the Humanities

09/18/2026

Join us at Hunter College during Climate Week NYC to celebrate the CUNY Climate Assembly Project on Waste at Hunter College (CCAP), the first university-convened climate assembly in the United States!

Come learn about CCAP and its impact directly from Student Assembly Delegates, Hunter College and CUNY Graduate Center Leadership, and experts in diverse sectors reimagining democracy, sustainability, and the humanities as key tools for social flourishing in the age of climate change. Students will reflect on the democratic process, share assembly’s recommendations for sustainable waste strategies at Hunter, and chart the path ahead.

After the event, please join us for a reception in the Leubsdorf Gallery (West Building) to mingle and view the current exhibition Climates of Inequality: Stories of Environmental Injustice.


SPEAKERS

Nancy Cantor, President of Hunter College

Joshua C. Brumberg, President of the CUNY Graduate Center

Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Director of the Urban Democracy Lab, NYU

Kelli Stephens, Sustainability and Energy Specialist at Hunter College, CCAP Administration Lead

Kendra Sullivan, Director of the Center for the Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center

Annie Stoeth, CCAP Climate Democracy Fellow

Aisha Yildirim, Post Assembly Fellow

​​Maria Sophia “Pia” Valencia, Post Assembly Fellow

Constance Zogzas, Post Assembly Fellow

Erica Kong, Post Assembly Fellow

Reina Gattuso, Small Group Facilitator

Nathaniel Levin, Sustainability Council Member, Hunter College



FREE AND OPEN TO ALL. RSVP to attend.

09/17/2026

Please join us for "INNOVATIONS FOR DISTRIBUTED ENERGY AND BUILDING DECARBONIZATION: ENERGYNET IN SWEDEN AND POSSIBILITIES IN NEW YORK" on Wednesday, September 23 at 4:15PM in the Skylight Room. Details and RSVP in the Events link in our bio The Graduate Center, CUNY

09/09/2026

Join us Wed, Sep 16, celebrating new works and books in translation from undersung Surrealist women writers Joyce Mansour and Valentine Penrose. Join translators and CUNY Graduate Center students C. Francis Fisher and Mia X. Perez who will read from their their new poetry and prose translations of Satisfied Sarcophagi: Collected Short Stories by Joyce Mansour (City Lights Books) and Of Thorn and Wing by Valentine Penrose (World Poetry Books). After the readings, translator and Surrealist scholar, Mark Polizzotti, will moderate a conversation about these texts and gender’s role in the Surrealist movement.

This event is free and open to all. Books will be available from Queens Book Bazaar at the event.

07/14/2026

This spring, the Center for the Humanities at The Graduate Center, CUNY teamed up with Hunter College to lead the CUNY Climate Assembly Project on Waste at Hunter College—the first climate assembly at a public university in the US!

At the intersection of democracy, sustainability, and the humanities, CCAP brought students from the CUNY Graduate Center and Hunter College together to redefine decision-making as a catalyst for thoughtful leadership and lasting change.

New York Focus published an article “At Hunter College, Students Tackle Garbage — And a New Way of Shaping Policy” documenting CCAP as the first university-convened climate assembly in the US, and its implications for the broader movement for democracy renewal in NYC and beyond.

This spring, the Center for the Humanities teamed up with Hunter College to lead the CUNY Climate Assembly Project on Waste at Hunter College—the first climate assembly at a public university in the US! At the intersection of democracy, sustainability, and the humanities, CCAP brought students fro...

07/14/2026

Students at CUNY's Hunter College aim to cut campus waste through a citizens assembly, a democratic model that's gaining traction in New York.

05/11/2026

This series seeks to reinstate Lois Elaine Griffith essential role as a founder, and honor Griffith’s stewardship of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe’s archive.
Hear from Griffith and Lost & Found editor and archival collaborator Joseph Anthony Cáceres, Ph.D., as they share their journey.

Register in bio and upcoming events highlight!

Since its inception in 1973, this Puerto Rican cultural center has been a site where artists from the Nuyorican and Black arts movements have come to share their work, voices, histories, talents, and language on its stage. Join Griffith, Cáceres and friends for an evening of readings, presentations and conversation. The event will be introduced by Ammiel Alcalay and followed by a book signing.

04/20/2026

Among the questions this conference asks is, how is desire formed by the systems, memories, and material conditions through which value is produced, circulated, and lived? How does desire shape our understanding of value itself?

Join us for the English Student Association (ESA) conference, What We Desire: Critical Perspectives on Beauty, Pleasure and Value on Friday, May 1, 2026 at the CUNY Graduate Center, featuring a keynote lecture “May Day Underground: On Festivity and Revolt” from Professor Jospeh Albernaz (Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University).

Register in bio or upcoming events highlight

04/17/2026

In this interactive event, we hope to indulge in Gauri’s talk on the process of writing Mother Wound and Lina’s workshop on taking your manuscript from draft to published. Bring your imaginations and curiosities!

Register in bio or upcoming events highlight!

03/26/2026

Join us for an afternoon of talks and performances in conjunction with the exhibition Sovereign Acts III at The James Gallery. Register in bio or upcoming events highlight.

Wed, Apr 15, 2026
4:00 PM–8:00 PM
Proshansky Auditorium,


The exhibition explores the relationship between nineteenth century performing “Indians” and contemporary performance art. Indigenous artists have taken up this nineteenth-century history to create self-representations in photography, performance, video, and installation that challenge ideas of normative and static identity. The artists turn to a range of aesthetic strategies, including re-enactment, remixing, memorialization, mimicry, parody, masquerade, and portraiture, underscoring the interdisciplinary nature of Indigenous art.

Speakers and performers include: Demian DinéYahzi’, Alan Michelson, Kent Monkman, Wanda Nanibush, Joseph Pierce, Jolene Rickard, and others.

03/17/2026

What a beautiful night, full of games and food and laughter! For more photos, and more about this gorgeous, free education tool, see our website at link in bio and past events highlight.

We recently gathered for “La lotería Niuyorkina: An exploration of the city’s Linguistic Landscape,” an event launching an educational board game La lotería Niuyorkina (bingo-like), created by a LAILaC student, Diana Higuera, alongside the illustrations of a Queens College junior student, Mateo Oldenburg.

This pedagogical game/toolkit is available and accessible to all as an Open Educational Resource and was originally funded by the CUNY Adjunct Incubator Award in 2025, and developed for Spanish and Latinx studies adjunct instructors who juggle teaching multiple classes in the CUNY system. The game is made up of 24 cards depicting characters, places, and objects representing the Latinx communities in New York City.