Digital Experimental Media – 91̽��News

ArtSci Roundup: April 2026

Lauren Zondag — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 21:47:23 +0000

Come curious. Leave inspired.

The 91̽��offers an exciting lineup of in-person and online events. From thought-provoking art and music to conversations on culture, history, and science, the 91̽��community invites you to explore, learn, and connect across disciplines throughout the University.

And as April comes to a close, see what’s happening in May.��

ArtSci On Your Own Time or From Your Own Home

Video | (Simpson Center for the Humanities)
From “Mourning across Centuries and Languages: A Poem’s Six-Hundred-Year Journey” with Jahan Ramazani to “What Is Racial Capitalism and Why Does It Matter?” with Robin D. G. Kelley, the Katz Distinguished Lectures Playlist offers a rich, ever-growing archive to explore from wherever you are, inviting you to engage with a wide range of thought-provoking topics. Free.

Book Club | Chronicles from��the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole Soyinka��( 91̽��Alumni)
Readers’ Choice! A mix of mystery and political satire, this novel takes aim at corruption in modern Nigeria. Two old friends decide to investigate a local cartel that traffics in human body parts. But in a country where religious charlatans and dishonest officials abound, can they trust anyone in their search? Free.

EXHIBITIONS CLOSING:

Through April 4 | ��(School of Art + Art History + Design)Death is a fundamental first step toward rebirth—but this transition can feel daunting without a compassionate guide. In The Book of Zero, our 2026 Jacob Lawrence Legacy Resident indira allegra presents a multimedia, meditative experience shaped by their research into doula work, death care, and the cyclical nature of bodies and environments. Free.

Through April 26 | ��(Henry Art Gallery)
How might art respond when the conditions supporting artistic expression—its very ground—are under threat? Directly or more obliquely, at scales ranging from intimate to monumental, works by artists including Chakaia Booker, Denzil Hurley, Jennie C. Jones, and Stephanie Syjuco engage with the conditions that shape creative freedom. Free.

Through April 26 | (Henry Art Gallery)
we leak, we exceed activates the unique volume and multiple vantage points of the Henry’s double-height gallery, drawing together threads from physics, Black critical thought, and information theory to create an immersive environment that interrogates the spatial and social implications of compression. A common process used in data storage, spatial organization, and information systems, compression abbreviates and collapses complex ideas into more simplified forms. Kameelah Janan Rasheed questions the way compression comes at the cost of nuance and creates unrecoverable losses. She draws parallels between the compression of information and the containment of people, both physically and through the structuring and defining of identities. Through a network of video, sound, and architectural mark-making, Rasheed proposes alternatively what she calls “an embrace of Black excess and expansion” as a liberatory practice. Free.

Through May 3 | (Henry Art Gallery)
Deana Lawson’s photographs result from collaborations with strangers whom the artist encounters by chance or deliberately seeks out. The pictures often depict richly textured domestic scenes in which the details of decor, lighting, and pose are constructed. In this way, Lawson draws on the legacies of historical portraiture, documentary photography, and the family album, but transcends these traditions, constructing images that merge lived experience with imagined narratives. Free.

Week of March 30

March 31 | ��(College of Education)
EduTalks brings together educators, researchers and community leaders to share bold ideas shaping the future of education. In just five minutes — and with a single powerful image — each presenter explores innovative approaches to today’s most pressing challenges. In the College of Education, we’re “solving for x,” taking inspiration from high school algebra to step into the complicated, often uncertain challenges in education with imagination and heart. In math, x represents the unknown. In education, it symbolizes the complex questions we face as we strive for a more just, equitable and joyful future for all learners. Solving for these challenges takes imagination, persistence and, above all, community. Free.

April 1 | (Communication)
Dr. Kathleen Hall Jamieson argues that scientists and science communicators would be well served by use of a “mental models” approach to simultaneously increase consequential knowledge and reduce public susceptibility to misconceptions about controversial climate and health findings. By engaging audiences with visual, verbal, or animated models, this approach creates understandings of science on which the audience can draw to recognize and reject consequential misconceptions. Free.

April 1�� | (School of Music)
A free lunchtime performance featuring 91̽��School of Music students in the North Allen Library lobby. Presented in partnership with 91̽��Libraries. Free.

April 2 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Libraries in French colonial Vietnam functioned as symbols of Western modernity and infrastructures of colonial knowledge. Yet Vietnamese readers pursued alternative uses of the library that exceeded imperial intentions. Bibliotactics examines the Hanoi and Saigon state libraries in colonial and postcolonial Vietnam, uncovering the emergence of a colonial public who reimagined the political meaning and social space of the library through public critique and day-to-day practice. Free.

April 2 | ��(Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
Part of Burke’s Free First Thursday series, the museum opens its collections spaces from 4:30 to 7:30 PM. Visitors can explore behind‑the-scenes labs and storage, and speak with researchers, staff, and volunteers about their work.��Free.

April 2 | (Henry Art Gallery)
To celebrate the opening weekend of Eric-Paul Riege: ojo|-|ólǫ́, visit the artist offsite at the Burke Artist Studio, located in the Northwest Native Art Gallery at the Burke Museum, just a few blocks from the Henry. As part of Free First Thursday at the Burke, visitors will have the chance to watch the artist at work and speak with Riege about his process. Free.

April 3 | ( 91̽��Planetarium Arts x Colectivo Arte GUENDA)
An evening of guided gallery tours, lightning talks, and moderated panel discussions, featuring artists and scientists from Oaxaca, Seattle, Portland, UW, and UNAM. Guided tours are offered in English and Spanish. Lightning talks and panel will be conducted in English. Free.

April 3 | (Henry Art Gallery)
Be among the first to experience Eric-Paul Riege: ojo|-|ólǫ́, the artist’s largest solo exhibition to date. Featuring sculpture, textiles, collage, and video, the exhibition draws on Diné cultural memory and examines the (re)production of Indigeneity. A no-host bar and music by KEXP DJ Kevin Sur round out the night. Free.

April 4 | (Henry Art Gallery)
An immersive performance by Eric-Paul Riege. Working in close concert with exhibition objects, Riege utilizes performance as a means of care and relationality among materials and objects. At once haptic and visceral, Riege will perform his self-described “weaving dances” as an extension of his world building across and within exhibitions. After the performance, Riege will be joined by co-curators, Thea Quiray Tagle and Nina Bozicnik, for an in-depth conversation about the connections among his research, practice, and performance. Free.

April 2 – 4 | ��(Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Feathers will fly in this exuberant take on Swan Lake by the Australian contemporary circus group Circa. The world’s most romantic ballet is re-imagined as a circus spectacular, full of Circa’s signature physicality and shot through with cheeky humor and a thoroughly contemporary energy. Be swept away by this tale of swans and hapless princes sparkling with quirky touches like the sequined flipper-wearing duck army and a burlesque black swan. There are sumptuous aerials, jaw-dropping acrobatics and of course…feathers! Touching, funny and utterly entertaining, Duck Pond is a tale of identity and finding your true self.��

Week of April 6

Online – April 6 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Presented by Sean Jacobs, Professor and Director of the Graduate Program in International Affairs at The New School, and Martha Saavedra, former Associate Director of the Center for African Studies at UC Berkeley. The World (Cup) Comes To Seattle 2026 Lecture Series is an online series of talks and discussions hosted by the Global Sport Lab, featuring local and global experts to discuss the geopolitical, local, and sporting implications of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Seattle. Each week, Global Sport Lab will bring local and global experts to discuss the geopolitical, local, and sporting implications of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Seattle. Lectures will focus on teams coming to Seattle, as well as topics such as workers’ rights, World Cup histories, immigration and travel bans, the Pride Match controversy, and more. Free.

April 7 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Grammy-nominated documentary The Music of Strangers, which follows members of the Ensemble as they gather in locations across the world, exploring the ways art can both preserve traditions and shape cultural evolution. There will be a post-screening discussion with visionary Peter Sellars and Grammy Award-winning, multi-instrumentalist John-Carlos Perea, Chair of Ethnomusicology at UW. Free.

April 7 | ��(Asian Languages & Literature)
Japanese-language literature has been both read and written in Brazil for more than a century, creating an ever-expanding corpus of works. The talk will introduce these literary activities, focusing on the first decades of their production. In addition to presenting the authors, newspapers, bookstores, and readers in Brazil, the talk will also raise some questions about what makes up “Japanese literature” — and all other identity-based groupings of literary texts. Free.

Online option – April 7 | Unlocking Secrets: Interrogating the Epigenome to Reveal Pregnancy Risks in Moms with High Blood Pressure with Bertha Hidalgo (Public Lectures)
Dr. Bertha Hidalgo as she explores how epigenetics is reshaping our understanding of hypertensive pregnancy disorders. This lecture highlights population-based insights, early biomarkers of risk, and transformative strategies for prevention—advancing maternal health equity and innovation in public health. Free.

April 8 | (English)
Featuring Ange Mlinko, poet, critic, editor, & professor. Book signing and reception to follow. Free.

April 8 | (Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies)
Grrrilda Beausoleil is turning 50. All she wants is a reunion with her 1990s riot grrrl band—the one she abandoned just as they were about to make it big. With a scrappy film crew documenting the journey, she navigates old wounds, new-age platitudes, and a San Francisco transformed by tech and displacement. The band must decide whether they can trust Grrrilda again—and whether their DIY roots of wheat paste, stickers, and zines can still build community in a digital age.

Dubbed “SPINAL TAP with BIPOC and queers” by the Chicago Reader, the film is a hilarious improvised mockumentary that treats comedy as activism. At its heart, the production centers LGBTQ community building across generations—reconciling past and present, passing the mic, and finding solidarity through creativity. Free.

April 8 | (School of Music)
Seattle’s contemporary music orchestra performs György Ligeti’s piano concerto, featuring faculty pianist and SMO member Cristina Valdés, alongside new works for sinfonietta by faculty composers William Dougherty, Joël-François Durand, and Huck Hodge. SMO is joined onstage by select graduate-student members of the 91̽��Modern Music Ensemble in this large-ensemble format.

April 10 | ��(Digital Arts & Experimental Media)
Anomalous Textualities re-imagines the Studio Theater as a traversable showroom. Inhabited by seven distinct works, the margins of language and meaning are re-mediated, embodied, and deconstructed through human-machine (mis)translations. In this performance-installation, spatial, temporal, and linguistic boundaries are blurred, giving way to slippages across models, bodies, and forms. Within this anomalous showroom, language models drive mechanical systems, glitching oracles, and choreographic prompts. Two further works explore non-verbal communication, seeking a physical vocabulary for a world shared with a “technological other.”

In this complex system, there is no fixed sequence. Light and sound are the conductors. As illumination fades in and out across the grid, models are sporadically activated. The audience is invited to navigate the showroom and explore multiple perspectives, moving through the partitions to witness interactions up close, or observing the entire system from the margins as it breathes and stutters as a single organism. Free.

April 10 | Sand Point Open Studios (School of Art + Art History + Design)
Visit the private studios of the Painting + Drawing MFA students and Division of Art faculty at the School’s Sand Point facilities. We will also be celebrating the opening of Rebecca Shippee’s show in the Sand Point Gallery. Students, alumni and the general public are invited for an evening of conversation, interaction, and art. Free.

April 10 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
What does democracy look like from below? This talk will look at how ordinary lives are reshaped by surveillance, majoritarianism, and corporate-political nexus in South Asia. Exploring media influence, gendered surveillance, majoritarian and casteist politics, the struggles of urban poor workers and the slow erosion of democratic rights in contemporary South Asia through Neha Dixit’s The Many Lives of Syeda X, this talk explores how journalism can recover erased histories, expose routine violence, and hold power to account. Free.

Week of April 13

Online – April 13 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Presented by Mary V. Harvey, Chief Executive at the Center for Sport and Human Rights; Maya Mendoza-Exstrom, Board Member of the SeattleFWC26 Local Organizing Committee, Chief Business Officer of Seattle Reign Football Club, and Chief Operating Officer of Seattle Sounders Football Club; Leo Flor, Chief Legacy Officer of the SeattleFWC26 Local Organizing Committee; and Anita Ramasastry, Henry M. Jackson Professor of Law and Director of the Sustainable International Development Graduate Program at the 91̽�� School of Law. Free.

April 13 | (School of Music)
Faculty soprano Carrie Shaw’s new Seattle-based group Wind Up Vocal Project performs musical puzzles of the past and present, including Ming Tsao’s “DAS WASSERGEWORDENE KANONBUCH.”

April 13 | (School of Music)
The School of Music keyboard program presents a solo piano recital by Spencer Myer, associate professor of music at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, performing works by Haydn, Ravel, Liszt, and Carl Vine. Free.

April 14 | ��(School of Art + Art History + Design)
Our question to consider: We are all in this together, so, how do we actually do this work together? This year-long program series hopes to honor our commitment to social justice and to gather our community to think about the work of liberation through shared texts, art, film, music, conversation, and workshops. Unlike your traditional book club, all the reading and study happen together, so no need to prepare. Join us monthly as we approach the topic of liberation from a number of perspectives. Free.

April 14 | (Simpson Center for the Humanities)
Tiffany Tsao will discuss the challenges of translating Indonesian literature in the context of a publishing industry that has tended to value Indonesian works more for their “Indonesianness” than their literary value. Catering to a readership interested specifically in the history, culture, and living conditions of Indonesia has some near-term benefits, but does this approach do Indonesian writing a disservice over the long term? She will discuss, more specifically, how this state of affairs has shaped the decisions she has made as a translator – from the works she has chosen to translate, to her approach to the translation process itself. Free.

April 16 | (School of Music)
Faculty percussionist Bonnie Whiting celebrates the release of Through the Eye(s), her new CD out now on Neuma Records. Documenting a cycle of pieces for solo speaking and singing percussionist developed in collaboration with nine incarcerated people at the Indiana Women’s Prison, Through the Eye(s) is a collaboration with composer Eliza Brown, who facilitated the project. The program includes a short performance followed by a question-and-answer session. Free.

April 16 | (Henry Art Gallery)
Join The Black Embodiments Studio for The (Printed) Matter of Black Arts Writing: Archives for the Future, a panel discussion on the practice of collecting, preserving, and circulating Black arts writing ephemera. Featuring archivists and publishers of printed matter like flyers, zines, pamphlets, notebooks, and books, the program explores the significance of gathering around materials that are fragile and prone to disappearance—and reflects on what contemporary practices of preserving and circulating Black arts writing ephemera can tell us about the futures of the art world in general. This is the second of two programs for Public Scholarship + Practice: Black Futures + Archives, a new series highlighting 91̽��-led research and practice at the intersections of visual art and culture. Free.

April 16 – 18 | (Drama)
The IGNITE New Works Festival is a three-day event celebrating 91̽��student “ART” of all forms, including performance art, theatre, film, installation, multimedia, and sculpture. The festival’s goal is to ignite expression, community, accessibility, and belonging among 91̽��students by showcasing art that is FRESH, RISKY, and ODD. Performances will be held in the Glenn Hughes Penthouse (GH Penthouse) or Hutchinson Hall (HUT). Free.

April 17 | (School of Music)
Ana Alonso Minutti, associate professor of musicology and ethnomusicology at the University of New Mexico, presents “Noising the Desert: Land and Memory in Raven Chacon’s Work.” Composer and installation artist Raven Chacon (Fort Defiance, 1977) has developed a body of work shaped by the sonic landscapes of the New Mexican desert. This presentation traces how his engagement with noise amplifies place and activates personal and cultural memory, positioning noising as a borderlands practice that unsettles colonial histories. Free.

April 17 | (School of Music)
Seattle orchestra Harmonia (William White, conductor) performs concerto excerpts with 91̽��piano students. Kane Chang, Jiaxuan Wu, Eli Antony, and Yuchen Qi.

April 17 | (Political Science)
Presentation by Tongtian Xiao, Ph.D. Student, 91̽�� as a part of the Severyns Ravenholt Seminar in Comparative Politics. Free.

Online option – April 17 | (Classics)
Linda Gosner (Texas Tech) examines mining and its effects on the communities and ecologies of southeast Iberia following the conquest of this region during the Second Punic War. This region also had botanical and marine resources, long exploited by local communities, who reacted to Roman mining in divergent ways. Weavers of local grasses shifted their production strategies, supplying equipment for Roman mining. By contrast, harvesters of a large mollusk species, who once collaborated closely with miners, broke ties with the industry. Ultimately, the talk shows the important role local decision-making played in organizing production and in the empire’s experience in Roman Iberia. Free.

April 18 | ��(Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Hailed as the “global ambassador of Spanish guitar” by Billboard Magazine, Pablo Sáinz-Villegas is widely acclaimed as the successor to Andrés Segovia. His playing dazzles with vibrant colors and deep emotion, captivating audiences with its expressiveness. Sáinz-Villegas’ guitar evokes intimacy and passion, weaving haunting melodies that transport listeners to a place of reverie and reflection. An exceptional performer, he stands as a living testament to music’s profound power to touch the depths of the human soul.

Week of April 20

Online – April 20 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Presented by César Wazen, Director of the International Affairs Office at Qatar University. The World (Cup) Comes To Seattle 2026 Lecture Series is an online series of talks and discussions hosted by the Global Sport Lab, featuring local and global experts to discuss the geopolitical, local, and sporting implications of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Seattle. Each week, Global Sport Lab will bring local and global experts to discuss the geopolitical, local, and sporting implications of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Seattle. Lectures will focus on teams coming to Seattle, as well as topics such as workers’ rights, World Cup histories, immigration and travel bans, the Pride Match controversy, and more. Free.

April 21 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Focusing on Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s public displays of crying, this talk examines what these moments signify, and why his supporters interpret them as authentic, drawing on insights from focus group discussions. It situates these performances within Erdoğan’s increased reliance on populist discourse and style, arguing that these emotional and performative dynamics have been central to mobilizing support and maintaining the cohesion of his constituency. In doing so, the talk shows how such strategies have contributed to the consolidation of an authoritarian regime sustained by popular backing, particularly in moments when legitimacy is under strain. Free.

April 22 | ��(Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Yo-Yo Ma’s performance is currently sold out. Tickets may become available as some tickets get returned closer to the performance. A waitlist will open at the Meany Box Office starting at 6:30 p.m. on April 22. This special performance from Yo-Yo Ma pairs repertoire from the center of his musical firmament with reflections on how it has shaped his thinking about art, human nature and our search for meaning.

April 22 | (Communication)
Drawing on his research in media, technology, and public life, USC Associate Professor Mike Ananny examines how this framing shapes public understanding, limits accountability, and influences how societies respond to emerging technologies. The talk invites audiences to think more critically about what generative AI is, how it operates, and why treating it as a public problem is essential for addressing its broader social and political impacts. Free.

April 23 | (Henry Art Gallery)
Deana Lawson draws on the legacies of historical portraiture, documentary photography, and the family album, but transcends these traditions, constructing images that merge lived experience with imagined narratives. The aesthetics of intergenerational connectivity guide Lawson’s choice of subject matter, with each of her works taking its place in an overarching project that coheres into what she terms “an ever-expanding mythological extended family.” Lawson’s works also demonstrate a special attention to the element of light, as both part of the mechanical process by which photographs are realized, and as a manifestation of the divinity that suffuses her sitters. A focused presentation of Lawson’s work on the Henry’s mezzanine features photographs that highlight her ongoing exploration of female subjectivity through the photographic image. Free.

April 24 | (German)
German Studies Chair, Ellwood Wiggins, and Professor Andre Schütze present and discuss the enduring legacy of Faust.��Discover what to look out for in Murnau’s revolutionary cinematic masterpiece and learn about the Faust story as a parable of modernity–and of German history–in its adaptations across the ages. What is the price of your soul? Following the discussion, please stick around as the community—students, alumni, faculty, and staff—gather over refreshments to celebrate German Studies’ own 21st Century learning. Free.

April 24 | (Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
The dinosaurs ruled the Earth for more than 150 million years — evolving into spectacular giants like Brontosaurus and T. rex, which captivate our imaginations. In this talk, University of Edinburgh professor and paleontologist Steve Brusatte will discuss the complete story of where dinosaurs came from, how they rose to dominance, how most of them went extinct when a giant asteroid hit, and how some of them live on as today’s birds. In doing so, he will recount stories of digging up dinosaurs and working with colleagues around the world. At a time when Homo sapiens has existed for less than 300,000 years and we are already talking about planetary extinction, dinosaurs are a timely reminder of what humans can learn from the magnificent creatures that ruled Earth before us. Free.

April 24-25 | Improvised Music Project Festival (IMPFEST): / (School of Music)
The School of Music and the student-run Improvised Music Project (IMP) present IMPFest, featuring 91̽��Jazz Studies students and faculty performing with guest artists of international renown. Headliners for this year’s festival are Grammy-nominated drummer, producer, and emcee Kassa Overall and Icelandic composer and bass guitarist Skùli Sverisson.

April 24-25 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Seamlessly blending illusion, acrobatics, magic and whimsy, MOMIX sends audiences flying down the rabbit hole in Moses Pendleton’s ALICE, inspired by Lewis Carroll’s classic Alice in Wonderland. Join this dazzling company on a mind-bending adventure, as Alice encounters time-honored characters including the undulating Caterpillar, a lobster quadrille, frenzied White Rabbits, a mad Queen of Hearts and a variety of other surprises.

April 26 |��( 91̽��Alumni)
Join the UWAA and BECU for a day of service to help fight food insecurity. Free.

April 26 | (Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
Dig into paleontology at the Burke’s annual festival of fossils!
Celebrate all things fossilized with hands-on activities for all ages! View hundreds of specimens from the Burke’s collection and hear about groundbreaking research from Burke and 91̽��scientists.

Fossil fun for everyone!
Watch paleontologists uncover a duck-billed dinosaur in the Fossil Prep Lab.
Learn about the fossils of Sucia Island, including the one and only dinosaur bone found in Washington state!
Chat with Burke paleontologists and students about fossils from the Burke’s extensive vertebrate, invertebrate, and paleobotany collections.
Check out the amazing T. rex skull unearthed by Burke scientists.
And more!

Week of April 27

Online – April 27 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Presented by Niki Akhavan, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Media and Communication Studies at The Catholic University of America. The World (Cup) Comes To Seattle 2026 Lecture Series is an online series of talks and discussions hosted by the Global Sport Lab, featuring local and global experts to discuss the geopolitical, local, and sporting implications of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Seattle. Each week, Global Sport Lab will bring local and global experts to discuss the geopolitical, local, and sporting implications of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Seattle. Lectures will focus on teams coming to Seattle, as well as topics such as workers’ rights, World Cup histories, immigration and travel bans, the Pride Match controversy, and more. Free.

April 28 | ��(School of Music)
Students of Dr. Stephen Price present a 91̽��Organ studio spring recital. Dr. Price teaches Organ performance, Church music, and Keyboard Harmony courses. In addition, he leads ongoing initiatives to develop and revitalize the 91̽��program, continuing the legacy of his predecessor, Dr. Carole Terry. Free.

April 28 | (School of Art + Art History + Design)
Celebrate the graduating seniors across the art programs: 3D4M, Photo/Media, Painting + Drawing, and Interdisciplinary Visual Art (IVA) during the 2026 BA in Art Graduation Exhibitions at the Jacob Lawrance Gallery. Ways of Becoming is split into three shows between April 28 – June 5, 2026. Free.

April 28 | (Simpson Center for the Humanities)
Stephanie LeMenager, Professor of English and Environmental Studies, considers the role of fiction as a form of resistant truth-telling in an era of lies, bullish*t, propaganda, GenAI fakes, and conspiracy theory, and in the shadow of the climate crisis. In our media atmosphere filled with falsehoods, fiction becomes a means of capturing messy realities unassimilable to propaganda. Moreover, the flexibility of fictional imagination allows for social responses to radical uncertainties, via new genres of storytelling that call climate-change publics into being. In this talk, we’ll consider stories of megafire. Free.

April 29 | (Philosophy)
The idea of space as the stage on which physical events play out dates at least as far back as the 5th century BC. The twentieth century saw a shift from theorising about space and time separately to thinking about spacetime, but the metaphor of spacetime as a stage or arena has continued. Twenty-first century physics looks likely to render this untenable – theories of quantum gravity do not appear to postulate spacetime as a fundamental container for physical contents. This talk examines an alternative way of thinking about spacetime based on the role that it plays in our physical theories – spacetime philosophy should focus on what spacetime does, rather than what it is. Free.

April 29 | (Psychology)
Presented by Maureen Craig, Associate Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience, Duke University. Free.

April 30 | (School of Music)
The Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band (Erin Bodnar, director) presents “Scenes and Portraits,” featuring music by Gustav Holst, Martin Ellerby, and others.

April 30 |(Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
What does it mean to live well as wildfire and smoke season becomes more a part of life in the Pacific Northwest and many other places around the world? As much as we focus on preparedness and reducing materials that fuel wildfires, we must also reckon with the human dimensions of fire, which shape how we interact with it. “Fire Humanities” is a book project and an emerging field of study that draws on the humanities and arts to center stories, representations, collaborations, and values that promote adaptation, resilience, and justice as we adapt to a world with more fire.

This program will feature a panel discussion with five contributors to the book, who will share their approaches to this emerging field of research. After the panel, you’ll be invited to share your stories of fire and smoke with each other, speak with the panelists, and participate in hands-on activities connected to the Fire Humanities project. Free.

April 30 | ��(Jackson School of International Studies)
Panel discussion featuring Wang Feng, University of California, Irvine, and Yong Cai, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, along with 91̽��faculty James Lin and Sara Curran. Free.

May 1 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Writing history entails good editing—and accepting when material can’t make the final cut. Lengthy research projects require a command of sources but also analytical flexibility. Such flexibility can ensure rigor, sometimes at the expense of findings that, alas, must be shelved for some other future use. “The B-Sides of Unmaking Botany” will examine a set of sources that did not make it into the recently published monograph Unmaking Botany: Science and Vernacular in the Colonial Philippines (Duke University Press, 2025). The objectives of the talk are thus twofold: to provide a behind-the-scenes take on the production of a scholarly monograph and to offer a conceptual argument gleaned from the sources that nonetheless resonates with some of Unmaking Botany’s principal interventions. Free.

May 1-2 | (American Indian Studies)
Indigenous scholars, artists, community leaders, and practitioners come together to reflect on food sovereignty, wellness, cultural resurgence, and collective healing through land-based knowledge and practice. Keynote by Vina Brown (Haíɫzaqv and Nuu-chah-nulth), a scholar, artist, and wellness advocate, whose work centers on Indigenous law, cultural healing, and community well-being. Raised in her Haíɫzaqv homelands, Vina’s work is deeply grounded in cultural resurgence, ceremony, and Tribal Canoe Journeys. She is the founder of Copper Canoe Woman and co-founder of Rooted Resiliency, an Indigenous women-led nonprofit dedicated to community wellness, cultural healing, and reclamation. Across her work, Vina advocates for land, culture, and collective well-being, with particular attention to healing intergenerational and historical trauma through community, movement, and Indigenous knowledge systems. Free.

See all that’s to come in the May ArtSci Roundup.

ArtSci Roundup goes monthly!

The ArtSci Roundup is your guide to connecting with the UW—whether in person, on campus, or on your couch.

Previously shared on a quarterly basis, those who sign up for the Roundup email will receive them monthly, delivering timely updates and engaging content wherever you are. Check the roundup regularly, as events are added throughout the month. Make sure to check out the ArtSci On Your Own Time section for everything from podcasts to videos to exhibitions that can be enjoyed when it works for you!

In addition, if you like the ArtSci Roundup, sign up to receive a monthly notice when it’s been published.

Do you have an event that you would like to see featured in the ArtSci Roundup? Connect with Lauren Zondag (zondagld@uw.edu).uw.edu).

ArtSci Roundup: February

Lauren Zondag — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 21:30:20 +0000

Come curious. Leave inspired.

While February might be just 28 days, the 91̽��offers an exciting lineup of more than 40 in-person and online events. From thought-provoking art and music to conversations on culture, history, and science, the 91̽��community invites you to explore, learn, and connect across disciplines throughout the University. In addition, take a look ahead at what’s happening in March.

In addition,��.

ArtSci On Your Own Time

Recorded Lectures: ��(History)
Incarceration is a hotly debated topic in the United States, a country that has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world. Looking at the practice from a historical perspective, what can incarceration teach us about who we were and who we are now? What might histories of incarceration, and the histories of those who have been incarcerated, tell us about power dynamics, belonging, exclusion, struggle, and hope across societies in the past and present? The 2026 History Lecture Series explores the practice of incarceration, tracing its change over time from antiquity to our modern world. Following the lectures, the recordings will be available online.

Podcast: (School of Drama)
A lively and opinionated cultural history of the Broadway Musical that tells the extraordinary story of how Immigrants, Jews, Queers, African-Americans and other outcasts invented the Broadway Musical, and how they changed America in the process.In Season One, host David Armstrong traces the evolution of American Musical Theater from its birth at the dawn of the 20th Century, through its mid-century “Golden Age”, and right up to its current 21st Century renaissance; and also explore how musicals have reflected and shaped our world — especially in regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, and equality. Free.

Exhibition: (Henry Art Gallery)
Primarily featuring works from the Henry collection created in the twenty-first century, Figure/Ground reflects a period in which hard-won civil rights and claims to self-determination have been eroded across the US, disproportionately affecting Black, Brown, LGBTQ+, and other marginalized communities. Free.

Book Club: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones ( 91̽��Alumni)
Stephen Graham Jones is the NYT bestselling author of more than forty novels, collections, novellas and comic books. He is a professor of English at the University of Colorado Boulder, and an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Tribe of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana. Free.

Recorded Lectures:
Featuring selected lectures from 1996 to today, 91̽��Graduate School’s Office of Public Lectures YouTube features an incredible lineup of artists, scientists, researchers, and more!

Week of February 2

January 29–February 8 | (School of Drama)
In this new translation of Chekhov’s ”serious comedy of human contradictions”, a group of artists and dreamers meet in the countryside and wrestle with the costs of ambition, unspoken longings, and the harsh realities of artistic pursuits. Set against a backdrop of love, passionate aspirations, and the search for meaning,��The Seagull��captures the fierce hopes and quiet heartbreaks of an artistic career.�� Directed by MFA Student Sebastián Bravo Montenegro.

Online – February 2 | ��(Jackson School of International Studies)
Presented by Radhika Govindrajan, Director, South Asia Center and Associate Professor, Anthropology, 91̽��; Sunila Kale
Professor, South Asia and International Studies 91̽��; and Milan Vaishnav, Senior Fellow and Director, South Asia Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Trump in the World 2.0 is an online series of talks and discussions featuring guest speakers and faculty exploring global perspectives on a second Trump administration. Free.

February 3 | (Asian Languages & Literature)
This is a unique opportunity to learn from 91̽��Professor Zev Handel and get a peek into a linguistic history that has shaped the world. Like the book, this talk will be accessible to everyone—regardless of whether you have any knowledge of Chinese characters or East Asian languages. Free.

February 3 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
A Welcome & Research Presentation with 2025-26 91̽��Fulbright Canada Special Foundation Fellow, Clinton Westman. Free.

February 4 |
(History)
This lecture explores the evidence for ancient incarceration in vignettes: reading letters that prisoners wrote on papyrus, investigating spaces where they were held, and analyzing depictions of captives in monuments, law courts, and homes. Roman evidence does not model a just society, but it does offer a mirror where we can see modern practices of incarceration in a new light, asking which aspects of contemporary prisons are unique to modernity, and which reflect longer histories. The 2026 History Lecture Series presents “Power & Punishment – Histories of Incarceration,” exploring the practice of incarceration, tracing its change over time from antiquity to our modern world. Following the lectures, the recordings will be available online. Free.

February 4 | (School of Art + Art History + Design)
Death is a fundamental first step toward rebirth—but this transition can feel daunting without a compassionate guide. In The Book of Zero, our 2026 Jacob Lawrence Legacy Resident indira allegra presents a multimedia, meditative experience shaped by their research into doula work, death care, and the cyclical nature of bodies and environments. Free.

February 4 | (School of Music)
A free lunchtime performance featuring 91̽��School of Music students in the North Allen Library lobby. Presented in partnership with 91̽��Libraries. Free.

Online option – February 5 | 2026 University Faculty Lecture – A breath of fresh air: The science and policy saving lives from America’s deadliest cancer
Lung cancer kills nearly 125,000 Americans each year — more than breast, colon, and prostate cancers combined. 91̽��Department of Surgery Professor and Chair Dr. Douglas Wood is out to change that and will discuss the many ways he and his colleagues are raising lung cancer awareness, increasing access to early detection, and ultimately, working to change lung cancer victims to lung cancer survivors. Free.

February 5 | ��(Asian Languages & Literature)
During the dark centuries between the fall of the Han dynasty in 220 CE and the golden age of reunified China under the Tang and Song dynasties (618–1279), the shi poetic form embraced new themes and structure. Using biography, social history, and literary analysis, Ping Wang demonstrates how the shi form came to dominate classical Chinese poetry, making possible the works of the great poets of later dynasties and influencing literary development in Korea and Japan. Free.

February 6 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Since the early 2000s, literary scholarship has read Hebrew and Arabic literatures together to find moments of transgression or trespass, challenging logics of partition. In Static Forms: Writing the Present in the Modern Middle East, Shir Alon develops an alternative model for reading Arabic and Hebrew literatures, as two literary systems sharing a remarkably similar narrative of modernization and developing parallel literary forms to address it. In this talk, Alon will discuss the potential of a paradigm grounded in formal and affective analysis for new understandings of transnational modernism, Middle Eastern literatures, and comparative literary studies at large. She will also explore the limits of this approach, when parallel readings of Hebrew and Arabic literatures obfuscate rather than clarify the conditions of the present. Free.

February 6 | ��(Music and American Indian Studies)
91̽��Ethnomusicology, Department of American Indian Studies, and the 91̽��Symphony collaborate with Lushootseed Research’s Healing Heart Project in presenting this special community event. Following a free screening of the documentary film The Healing Heart of Lushootseed, the 91̽��Symphony (David Alexander Rahbee, director) and soprano Adia S. Bowen (tsi sʔuyuʔaɫ) perform Bruce Ruddell’s 50-minute symphony Healing Heart of the First People of This Land. This powerful work was commissioned by Upper Skagit elder Vi Hilbert (taqʷšəblu) shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a vehicle for, in Hilbert’s words, “bringing healing to a sick world.” Premiered by The Seattle Symphony in 2006, the piece draws inspiration from two sacred Coast Salish songs Hilbert had entrusted to the composer and features a number of percussion instruments native to this region. The performance features soloist and Indigenous soprano Adia S. Bowen (tsi sʔuyuʔaɫ), a 91̽��alumna who graduated in June 2025 with degrees in Voice Performance and American Indian Studies. Free.

February 6 | (Psychology)
Whether you’re married, dating, or flying solo, Dr. Nicole McNichols has some sex advice for you. And you may want to pay attention because McNichols is not only the professor of 91̽��’s most sought-after class in its history, she’s one of social media’s most popular educators on the topic of sex. Pulling from her book, You Could Be Having Better Sex, McNichols shares the latest data that shows good sex is one of the most powerful and effective sources of joy.

Week of February 9

Online – February 9 | ��(Jackson School of International Studies)
Presented by Reşat Kasaba, Professor, International Studies, 91̽�� and Gönül Tol, Director, Turkish Program, Middle East Institute. Trump in the World 2.0 is an online series of talks and discussions featuring guest speakers and faculty exploring global perspectives on a second Trump administration. Free.

February 10 | ��(Simpson Center for the Humanities)
The production and promotion of so-called “AI” technology involves dehumanization on many fronts: the computational metaphor valorizes one kind of cognitive activity as “intelligence,” devaluing many other aspects of human experience while taking an isolating, individualistic view of agency, ignoring the importance of communities and webs of relationships. Meanwhile, the purpose of humans is framed as being labelers of data or interchangeable machine components. Data collected about people is understood as “ground truth” even while it lies about those people, especially marginalized people. In this talk, Bender will explore these processes of dehumanization and the vital role that the humanities have in resisting these trends by painting a deeper and richer picture of what it is to be human. Free.

February 10 | (QuantumX)
Dr. Krysta Svore is Vice President of Applied Research for Quantum Computing at NVIDIA, joining the company after 19 years at Microsoft, where she served as Technical Fellow and VP of Advanced Quantum Development and pioneered reliable quantum computing through the co‑design of hardware, software, and error correction. She began her career developing machine learning methods for web search before founding Microsoft’s quantum computing software, algorithms, and architecture program. Free.

February 11 | ��(Chemistry, Architecture, Mechanical Engineering, and Bioengineering)
Explore how cutting-edge research is driving material innovation in the built environment. Faculty whose work spans chemistry, engineering, and architecture examine how living systems can be integrated into material design to address pressing challenges related to sustainability, resilience, and the future of construction. Free.

February 11 | (History)
This lecture explores the wide variety of carceral practices in medieval Europe and examines how the recovery of Roman law and the concept of the state in the twelfth century began to transform those practices. Following the lectures, the recordings will be available online. Free.

February 11 | (Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies)
Navigating Academia as a Transnational Scholar from the Global South: Treasuring All the Knowledges brings together the voices of 16 women and non-binary scholars who began their postgraduate journeys as non-elite international students and (un)documented migrants in countries positioned as economically more powerful than their places of origin. Inspired by the book’s creative and relational approach to knowledge, this event will also open a collective space for poetry and storytelling. Participants are invited to write and share short poetic or narrative reflections that speak to their own experiences of abundance, survival, care, and knowledge-making within academic spaces. Free.

February 12 | (Sociology)
The future will be old; Europe, the Americas and Asia will soon have the oldest populations ever known to humanity. Can we cope? It will require major changes in the way we think about youth, women, immigration, and globalization to avoid disaster. Free.

February 12 | ��(Jackson School of International Studies)
In Ghost Nation: the Story of Taiwan and its Struggle for Survival, Chris Horton compares Beijing’s claim that Taiwan has been Chinese territory “since time immemorial” with Taiwan’s actual history. Several different groups have controlled some or all of Taiwan over the last 400 years — the Dutch, Spanish, Tungning, Manchu, Japanese, Chinese, and now, Taiwanese. By looking at those who have ruled Taiwan, Horton also tells the story of the Taiwanese people, highlighting their intergenerational quest for self-determination — and the existential threat posed by an expansionist Chinese Communist Party. Free.

February 12 | (Simpson Center for the Humanities)
Athletes with ancestral ties to the Pacific Islands are dominant fixtures in some of the world’s most visible sports and over several generations have produced a modern sports diaspora. Tracing Samoan transnational and diasporic movement along divergent colonial pathways, this talk examines the relationship between embodied experiences of racialization and the emergence of Pacific sports excellence in three settler colonial countries (United States, Aotearoa New Zealand, and Australia). It then considers what recent efforts to mobilize Indigenous practice inside and outside sport tell us about the uses and importance of culture in contemporary sport. Free.

February 12 | ��(School of Music)
Faculty pianist Robin McCabe joins forces with guest artist Maria Larionoff in an evening of high octane duos for violin and piano. On the launch pad: Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne, Beethoven’s Sonata in G major, Opus 96, and Faure’s impassioned Sonata in A Major.

Online – February 13 | 2026 Provost’s Town Hall
Join 91̽��Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Tricia Serio as she discusses the state of the University from an academic perspective and the singular role that public research universities — and the 91̽��in particular — play in our society. Featured speakers include Jodi Sandfort, dean of the Evans School, and Sarah Cusworth Walker, research professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Ted Poor, associate professor in the School of Music, will introduce the provost.

February 13 | (Open Scholarship Commons)
Douglass Day is an annual transcribe-a-thon program that marks the birth of Frederick Douglass. Each year, sites across the country gather thousands of people to help create new & freely available resources for learning about Black history. A transcribe-a-thon is an event in which a group of people work together to transcribe a collection of digitized historical materials. The primary goal of a transcribe-a-thon is to make the materials more easily accessible, but these events also serve to promote awareness of parts of Black history – and especially Black women’s history – that remain too-little-known. Free.

February 14 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Celebrate Valentine’s Day with 8x Grammy nominee and NAACP Image Award winner The Baylor Project — featuring vocalist Jean Baylor and drummer Marcus Baylor. Steeped in the heart of jazz, with dynamic performances that are soulful to the core, their musical roots are deeply planted in gospel, blues and R&B. Their eclectic sound and infectious chemistry provide the perfect backdrop for a memorable evening filled with vibrant, spiritual, feel-good music.

Week of February 16

February 17 | (School of Art + Art History + Design)
Our question to consider: what does the work of indira allegra offer us when thinking about the project of liberation? This program is part of the year-long Liberation Book Club series exploring liberation through shared texts, art, film, music, and workshops. Free.

February 18 | (History)
In 1942, the U.S. government incarcerated more than 120,000 Japanese Americans in concentration camps based on the racist argument that they were likely “disloyal” to the United States. In the ensuing years of World War II, though, the U.S. government simultaneously sought to demonstrate the “loyalty” of Japanese Americans to American democracy. By placing U.S. wartime policies and Japanese American responses in different historical contexts, this lecture will interrogate the meanings of loyalty, democracy, and national security—during World War II and in our own time. Following the lectures, the recordings will be available online. Free.

February 18 | (Digital Arts & Experimental Media)
DXARTS presents an evening of 3D music, featuring recent work and world premieres by current staff and graduate students. Free.

February 18 & 19 | & (School of Music)
91̽��Jazz Studies students perform in small combos over two consecutive nights of original tunes, homage to the greats of jazz, and experiments in composing and arranging. Directed by Cuong Vu, Ted Poor, John-Carlos Perea, and Steve Rodby.��Free.

February 19 | ��(Henry Art Gallery)
Poet, musician, and scholar Rasheena Fountain presents Speculative Land Blues, a blues guitar, poetry, and DJ set. Developed in collaboration with Adeerya Johnson, Associate Curator at the Museum of Pop Culture, the Henry presents Speculative Landscapes. Free.

February 19 | (Burke Museum)
Read the book ahead of time, or join to learn more about the selection. The February book is Spirit Whales and Sloth Tales: Fossils of Washington State by Elizabeth A. Nesbitt and David B. Williams. Free.

February 19 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
John Johnson is a recently retired Senior Foreign Service Officer whose career included leadership roles in Brussels, Afghanistan, and with the U.S. Mission to NATO. Since joining the State Department in 2002, he has served in Europe, Asia, and Washington, D.C., earning multiple awards for his service. A Seattle native and 91̽��graduate, John speaks several languages and lives with his family in the Pacific Northwest. Free.

February 20 | ��(Political Science)
The Center for Environmental Politics hosts Amanda Stronza, professor in Texas A&M University Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology, and co-founder of the Applied Biodiversity Science Program. Free.

February 21 | ��(Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
yMusic — named for Generation Y — is a genre-leading American chamber ensemble renowned for its innovative and collaborative spirit. yMusic has a unique mission: to work on both sides of the classical/popular music divide, without sacrificing rigor, virtuosity, charisma or style.

Week of February 23

Online – February 23 | ��(Jackson School of International Studies)
Presented by Ambassador Michelle Gavin who is currently Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies, Council on Foreign Relations. Trump in the World 2.0 is an online series of talks and discussions featuring guest speakers and faculty exploring global perspectives on a second Trump administration. Free.

February 23 | ��(Asian Languages & Literature)
91̽��Asian L&L and the Seattle International Film Festival co-host an award winning filmmaker Ash Mayfair at the SIFF Cinema Uptown for the screening of Skin of Youth (2025). A Q&A moderated by Assistant Professor Ungsan Kim will follow the screening.

February 23 | ��(School of Music)
91̽��music students perform music from the Baroque era under the direction of Tekla Cunningham. Free.

February 24 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Join us for a feature documentary that traces the remarkable history and legacy of one of the most important works of art to come out of the age of AIDS –choreographer Bill T. Jones’s tour de force ballet “D-Man in the Waters.” There will be a post-screening discussion with Bill T. Jones and Berette S Macaulay. Free.

February 24 | ��(Jackson School of International Studies)
Can political elites shape public opinion by influencing the tone of news coverage, even when they cannot dictate what gets covered? This study addresses that question using text analysis of more than five million Japanese news articles from 2004–2024, showing that rising negativity in legacy media closely corresponds with declines in cabinet approval. A newly compiled dataset of prime ministers’ daily schedules further reveals that periods of intensified elite engagement with journalists coincide with less negative coverage. Together, these findings suggest that incumbents may still temper media tone through proactive outreach, though this influence appears to weaken in the age of fragmented, digital media. Free.

February 25 | (History)
Prison is more than a place of punishment. It is also an archive. Yet the official story found in sentencing reports and conduct reviews is only part of the story. Incarcerated people generate a parallel counter-archive of resistance and transformation. The Washington Prison History Project is a multimedia digital effort to document this counter-archive at a local level. Across a series of publications, programs, and protests, incarcerated people have shown prison to be a central feature in the development of Washington State and the country. An examination of this archive tells a different history of our state—and its possible futures. Following the lectures, the recordings will be available online. Free.

February 25 | (American Indian Studies)
Featuring Oscar Hokea(Cherokee Nation and Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma). Storytelling offers a spiritual connection, a sharing of sacred breath. Literature, similarly, preserves human experience and ideals. Both forms are durable and transmit power that teaches us how to live. Both storytelling and reading aloud can impact audiences through the power of presence, allowing for the experience of the transfer of sacred breath as audiences are immersed in the experience of being inside stories and works of literature.��Free.

Online option – February 25 | The Office of Public Lectures presents: America’s Character and the Rule of Law with George Conway III��(Public Lectures)
This talk will explore the idea that the endurance of the rule of law in the United States relies not solely on the provisions of the Constitution—its structural framework, the institutions it established, or the rights it enshrines—but fundamentally on the character of its citizens. Qualities such as public-spiritedness, tolerance, moderation, empathy, mutual respect, a sense of fair play, and, ultimately, intelligence, honor, and decency form the foundation of constitutional democracy. Free.

February 26 | (School of Art + Art History + Design)
In this talk, Rachael Z. DeLue will share insights from her current research and teaching on the relationship between art and science in nineteenth-century Europe and North America, focusing on a suite of extraordinary chromolithographs created in the 1880s by the astronomer and illustrator Étienne-Leopold Trouvelot. Based on his work at the Harvard Observatory and the United States Naval Observatory, the chromolithographs represent the cross-pollination of art and science in an attempt to generate knowledge about astronomical phenomena that eluded perception and resisted visualization. Prof. DeLue will consider Trouvelot’s prints in relation to other such attempts on the part of fine artists and scientific illustrators to picture the celestial sphere at a time when technology was limited and space travel was still the stuff of science fiction. Free.

February 26 | ��(Stroum Center for Jewish Studies)
In this talk, Paris Papamichos Chronakis discuss his new book, The Business of Transition – Jewish and Greek Merchants of Salonica from Ottoman to Greek Rule, and shows how the Jewish and Greek merchants of Salonica (present-day Thessaloniki) skillfully managed the tumultuous shift from Ottoman to Greek rule amidst rising ethnic tensions and heightened class conflict. Bringing their once powerful voices back into the historical narrative, he traces their entangled trajectories as businessmen, community members, and civic leaders to illustrate how the self-reinvention of a Jewish-led bourgeoisie made a city Greek. Salonica’s merchants were present in their own—and their city’s—remaking. Free.

February 26 | ��(Simpson Center for the Humanities)
Taiwan is a unique site of innovation in disability rights. Despite being barred from becoming a States Party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) according to the diplomatic exclusion faced by Taiwan, it has become a model for the localization of the CRPD through its use “domestic review mechanisms.” Furthermore, Taiwan demonstrates the ways in which fundamental divides within human rights discourse, such as Western individualism and East Asian familialism, can be bridged using strategic adaptation that reimagine disability rights as a post-colonial hybrid. Free.

Photo by Michael B Maine

February 26 – March 1 | (Dance)
Presenting seven original student-choreographed works. This platform gives students the opportunity to express their creative voices through choreography and costume design, as well as collaborating with lighting designers and mentors.

February 26 – 28 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Thirty years after its historic premiere, the groundbreaking dance theater work by Bill T. Jones returns to the stage. Still/Here shatters boundaries between the personal and the political, exemplifying a form of dance theater that is uniquely American. At the heart of the piece are “survival workshops” Jones conducted with people living with life-threatening illnesses.

ArtSci Roundup goes monthly!

The ArtSci Roundup is your guide to connecting with the UW—whether in person, on campus, or on your couch.

In addition, if you like the ArtSci Roundup, sign up to receive a monthly notice when it’s been published.

Do you have an event that you would like to see featured in the ArtSci Roundup? Connect with Lauren Zondag (zondagld@uw.edu).uw.edu).

ArtSci Roundup: November

Lauren Zondag — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 00:21:33 +0000

Come curious. Leave inspired.

We invite you to connect with us this November through a rich and varied schedule of more than 30 events, exhibitions, podcasts, and more. From chamber opera premieres and public lectures to Indigenous storytelling and poetry celebrations, there’s something to spark every curiosity. Expect boundary-pushing performances, thought-provoking dialogues on memory and identity, and cross-disciplinary collaborations—November is a celebration of bold ideas and creative energy.

As you plan for the end of the year, take a look at what’s coming up in the December ArtSci Roundup.

In addition, .

ArtSci On Your Own Time

Closing November 8 | (Art + Art History + Design)
This Fall MFA exhibition at the Jacob Lawrence Gallery showcases emerging artists’ work. Free.

Closing January 11 | (Henry Art Gallery)
A thematic exploration of the work of thirty-four Asian American and Asian diasporic artists, Spirit House asks the question, what does it mean to speak to ghosts, inhabit haunted spaces, be reincarnated, or enter different dimensions?

Book Club:��“The Four Winds” by Kristin Hannah��( 91̽��Alumni)
Readers’ Choice! Author (and 91̽��alum – BA, Communication, ’83 ) Kristin Hannah highlights the struggles of the working poor during the Great Depression in this novel. Elsa is an awkward wallflower who is raising her two children on the family farm. As the Dust Bowl hits, she must choose between weathering the climate catastrophe in Texas or moving her family west to follow rumors of jobs in California.��Free.

Books, podcasts, etc: (91̽�� Magazine)
This spring, 18,883 degrees were conferred upon graduates of all three 91̽��campuses. We estimate there are just under 600,000 living alumni of the UW. And the 91̽��supports or sustains 100,520 jobs, making it the fifth-largest employer in the state. No wonder we’re always hearing about new books, music, podcasts, and film projects from the 91̽��community. Read on for a few recent accomplishments from Huskies in the media.

Week of November 3

November 1 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
A West Coast premiere of a chamber opera by composer Matthew Aucoin and director Peter Sellars, based on poems by Jorie Graham. The performance explores embodiment and identity in an age of transformation.

Ed Yong

Online Option – November 4 | Becoming a Birder (Graduate School Public Lectures)
This talk considers birding not only as a scientific and recreational practice but as a way of seeing and being—attuned to classification, memory, imagination, and care. Free.

November 4 | (Simpson Center for the Humanities)
A public lecture on the use—and misuse—of historical analogy in politics, focusing on Holocaust memory and the complexities of comparison in historical discourse. Free.

November 5 |(DXARTS)
Hum Under the Riverstone explores different forms of connection and dialogue that can unfold among various kinds of intelligences: human, natural, and machinic. The title of this project draws inspiration from Édouard Glissant and his concept of archipelagic thinking. Free.

November 5 | (Music)
A free lunchtime performance featuring 91̽��School of Music students in the North Allen Library lobby. Presented in partnership with 91̽��Libraries. Free.

Online Option – November 5 | (Jackson School)
What does it mean to commemorate a genocide? This is the overarching question governing this academic panel as its presenters ruminate over the mass killings that transpired in Indonesia between 1965 and 1966 which saw an estimated deaths of at least 500,000 alleged communists and their sympathizers, among others. Free.

November 6 – 16 | (Drama)
A new devised performance piece created under the direction of Adrienne Mackey with 91̽��students, set in a dystopian workplace where employees inhabit modular rooms and confront disconnection, routine, and possibility.

November 6 | (Political Science)
Bart Wilson is the Kennedy Endowed Chair in Economics & Law and the director of the Smith Institute for Political Economy & Philosophy at Chapman University, and author of Humanomics (with Vernon Smith), The Property Species, and Meaningful Economics. Free.

November 6 | (American Indian Studies)
A series to prepare for the Film Screening & 91̽��Symphony Performance: Healing Heart of the First People of This Land on February 6, 2026 ().��Free.

November 6 | (Henry Art Gallery)
Part artist talk, part lecture-performance, this presentation by artist Chloë Bass will use the lens of public art today to explore feelings as a type of knowledge. RSVP encouraged. Free.

November 6 | (Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
Part of Burke’s Free First Thursday series, the museum opens its collections spaces from 4:30 to 7:30 PM. Visitors can explore behind‑the-scenes labs and storage, and speak with researchers, staff, and volunteers about their work. Free.

November 6 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Renowned pianist Jon Kimura Parker returns to Meany with a dynamic solo program featuring Mozart, Beethoven’s Appassionata, Ravel’s Jeux d’Eau, and an Americana‑inflected selection including works by Chick Corea, John Adams, and Oscar Peterson.

November 7 | (American Ethnic Studies)
Celebrate the 55th anniversary of the Department of American Ethnic Studies (AES) and honor the 449 Japanese American 91̽��students of 1941-42 whose education was interrupted and who were unjustly incarcerated during WWII. Pictures and memories will be shared from the families of The Long Journey Home honorees, followed by remarks from AES Chair Alexes Harris and faculty member Vince Schleitwiler. Free.

November 7 | (Political Science)
Megan Mullin, Faculty Director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, discusses how scientific expertise shapes public decisions in the aftermath of disaster, drawing on lessons from the 2025 Los Angeles fires. Hosted by the Center for Environmental Politics. Free.

November 7 | (Anthropology)
Anthropologist Tracie Canada draws from long-term ethnographic research to explore how Black college football players navigate and resist the structural harms of college athletics. Canada is the Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University and director of the HEARTS Lab. Free.

November 8 | (Henry Art Gallery)
As part of the Spirit House exhibition, this reading explores grief, memory, and the porous boundary between life and death through storytelling across cultures. Free.

November 8 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
This special tribute celebrates Amadou’s musical legacy with Mariam’s iconic vocals, longtime band members, and new music from their forthcoming album L’Amour à la Folie. A legendary duo blending Malian blues with Afropop, disco, and rock influences.

Week of November 10

November 12 | ��(Drama)
In conjunction with the School’s upcoming production of OMMIA Break Room, this panel discussion centers on collaborative creation across multiple fields of study with notable faculty speakers from across the Seattle campus.

November 12 | ��(Honors)
As it becomes increasingly woven into our daily lives, public trust in science— or the lack thereof — matters more than ever. Join a dynamic conversation among 91̽��Interdisciplinary Honors faculty whose scholarship and teaching engage natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities, as they explore what happens when scientific research and scholarship are misunderstood, mistrusted or misused. Free.

November 12 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
A panel discussion on the new edited volume Spaces of Creative Resistance: Social Change Projects in 21st-Century East Asia, exploring how scholars, artists, and activists respond to inequality, environmental degradation, and social disconnection across Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Featuring Andrea Arai, Jeff Hou, and James Lin. Free.

November 13 | (American Indian Studies)
Composer Bruce Ruddell, Musicians Adia tsi sʔuyuʔaɫ Bowen (Upper Skagit) and
Ben Workman Smith (Tolowa), Conductors Ryan Dudenbostel and David Rahbee, with John-Carlos Perea (Mescalero Apache/German/Irish/Chicano) as discussant. A series to prepare for the Film Screening & 91̽��Symphony Performance: Healing Heart of the First People of This Land on February 6, 2026 ().��Free.

November 13 | (Simpson Center for the Humanities)
Philosopher Marshall Abrams challenges standard population-level views of evolution by emphasizing the unique role of individual organisms and their environments. Drawing from his book Evolution and the Machinery of Chance, Abrams explores how evolution unfolds within dynamic “population-environment systems.” Free.

November 13 – 14 | and (Music)
91̽��Jazz Studies students perform in small combos over two consecutive nights of original tunes, homage to the greats of jazz, and experiments in composing and arranging. Free.

November 14 | ��(Political Science)
PhD Student Ryan Reynolds presents, “Structurally Induced Anxiety and Anti‑War Voting: Military Social Networks and Presidential Elections.” Free.

November 14 | (Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures)
A multilingual poetry gathering celebrating the ghazal, a poetic form rooted in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu, and more. Participants will recite ghazals in their original languages with English translations, reflecting on sound, translation, and the form’s enduring vitality. Free.

November 16 | (Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
Explore ancient technologies, identify animal bones, sort shells, and enjoy a flintknapping (stone tool‑making) demonstration. Burke archaeologists and community partners present hands‑on activities and share stories about artifacts and historical practices. Free with museum admission; free for Burke members.

Online Option – November 16 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
The Stroum Center for Jewish Studies brings together scholars and community members to discuss the meaning and impact of Spanish and Portuguese citizenship offers to descendants of Sephardic Jews. Featuring Rina Benmayor, Dalia Kandiyoti, and Professor Devin E. Naar. In-person registration required. Free.

Week of November 17

November 18 | ��(Chemistry)
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry recognizes the architects of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar M. Yaghi. Professors Dianne Xiao and Doug Reed from the Department of Chemistry will introduce MOFs and discuss their importance.
November 18 | (Art + Art History + Design)
Join a Narcan training workshop followed by a pizza party and conversation focused on community care, harm reduction, and accessibility. Part of the year-long Liberation Book Club series exploring liberation through shared texts, art, film, music, and workshops. Free.

November 18 | (Music)
91̽��voice students of Thomas Harper and Carrie Shaw perform art songs and arias from the vocal repertoire. ��Free.

November 18 | (Jackson School)
Forty years after the US pulled out of South Vietnam, a Vietnamese martial arts master returns to the waters that claimed his wife and children during their escape in hopes of finding their grave. The screening will be followed by a virtual discussion with members of the GETSEA consortium. Free.

November 20 | (Henry Art Gallery)
Co-presented with the 91̽��School of Art + Art History + Design, this conversation will address the role of historical research in DeVille’s object-based and performance practice, as well as her alchemical way of transforming found materials into psychically charged paintings, sculptures, and installations. Free.

November 20 | ��(American Indian Studies)
A series to prepare for the Film Screening & 91̽��Symphony Performance: Healing Heart of the First People of This Land on February 6, 2026 ().��Free.

Online – November 20 | (Geography)
Alums share how their geography degrees have shaped careers in climate risk, procurement, and user experience design. Featuring Sadie Frank (CEO, N4EA), Nina Mesihovic (Enterprise Contracts Specialist, WA State), and Anirudh Ramanathan (Senior UX Researcher). Moderated by Professor Sarah Elwood. Free.

November 20 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Historian Edward Wright-Ríos explores the enduring and evolving practice of pilgrimage among Mexican Catholics, challenging common misconceptions and revealing why this tradition remains vital in modern life. Free.

November 20 | (Music)
The Campus Band (conducted by Solomon Encina) and Concert Band (conducted by Yuman Wu) present their Fall Quarter concert at Meany Hall—Katharyn Alvord Gerlich Theater. The program features works by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Steven Bryant, Clifton Williams, Richard Saucedo, Frank Ticheli, and others.

November 21 | (American Indian Studies)
As the days grow shorter, we gather in for a gathering with friends, family, and community to appreciate some long-form storytelling. Free.

November 21 | (Music)
The UW’s graduate-student-led choral ensembles—the University Singers, 91̽��Glee, and Treble Choir—present an eclectic end-of-quarter concert.

November 21 | (Simpson Center for the Humanities)
This symposium brings together global wetland scholars to propose four analytical interventions in wetland studies, namely: rethinking the undisciplined wetland; post-colonial/settler politics of the wetland; shifting spatial geographies and temporalities of the wetland; and finally (counter) mapping the wetland. Free.

November 23 | (Music)

91̽��music students perform music from the Baroque era under the direction of Tekla Cunningham. Free.

November 24 | (Music)
The 91̽��Studio Jazz Ensemble and Modern Band present a shared program featuring a mix of repertory selections, original compositions, and inspired arrangements. This performance offers a dynamic evening of jazz that highlights the talents of UW’s student musicians.

ArtSci Roundup goes monthly!

The ArtSci Roundup is your guide to connecting with the UW—whether in person, on campus, or on your couch.

In addition, if you like the ArtSci Roundup, sign up to receive a monthly notice when it’s been published.

Do you have an event that you would like to see featured in the ArtSci Roundup? Connect with Lauren Zondag (zondagld@uw.edu).

Video: ‘Art game’ looks at the pandemic through an artist’s eye

Kiyomi Taguchi — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 21:16:37 +0000

Artists have always looked for ways to represent the human experience. As COVID-19’s impact ripples through science, politics and society, reflections of the pandemic show up in art, and even in video games.

is a multidisciplinary interactive artist and Ph.D. candidate in the 91̽�� department. She’s creating a digital art game called “,” a vehicle for her thoughts and experiences since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis.

Choi has created a virtual environment that players move through as a coronavirus cell, guided by the arrows on their keyboard. They see glimpses of the real-world pandemic with its quarantines, protests, economic crises and loneliness.��

Players proceed through different scenes that Choi has built —��a quiet room lit by a computer screen, fiery, violent streets, huddled crowds lorded over by giant politicians. She says the imagery is culled from experiencing life through the media on our screens, something a lot of us are doing as we spend time at home.

“As this pandemic goes on, it seems we are just watching a surreal parallel universe,” Choi said. “This is why I decided to make a video game. I needed to describe the surrealistic struggle of this particular moment and engage with the people going through it with me.”��

Still image from “Pandemic” by Chanhee Choi

Originally from South Korea, Choi says a strong motivator for the project was a racist experience she had at the beginning of the pandemic:

“In March, as I walked alone in the city, I was humiliated by the comments of a non-Asian stranger. He said, ‘You f—ing Chinese, you brought the coronavirus.’ I was very shocked.��I started questioning whether it would have happened if I were any other race besides Asian.”

She began tracking and recording xenophobic attacks or expressions of bigotry that seemed related to the coronavirus. Soon, “Pandemic” took take shape, her first foray into 3D game design.

Choi describes “Pandemic” as an “art game,” a relatively new video game genre that’s about experiencing an envisioned environment rather than racking up points in a traditional goal-driven game. She points to “” (2007) by Jason Rohrer as an early example where the experiencing a character’s entire lifetime; commentators have described it as emotionally powerful. In another example, Mike Yi Ren’s game��“”��walks you through awkward racial stereotyping at a house party.��

Choi says games can reveal perspectives to players from outside their everyday lives.

“I’d like to give people the experience of being a minority in America,” she said.

“Pandemic” is expected to be finished later this year, with sound by audio collaborator Wei Yang.��Choi plans to make it available for download off her so that anyone can explore it on their own computer.

You can watch a recent piece by Choi called ‘Darkness’

For more information contact:
Chanhee Choi��cchoi8@uw.edu
Video producer Kiyomi Taguchi: ktaguchi@uw.edu/206-685-2716

Arts Roundup: Drama, dance — and ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’

ArtsUW — Wed, 19 Nov 2014 20:56:29 +0000

Have you ever considered the implications of privacy around art and cultural institutions? Then don’t miss the three-day symposium “Surveillance and Privacy: Art, Law and Social Practice” hosted by the Henry Art Gallery and the Center for Digital Art and Experimental Media (DXARTS).�� Or, if you’re looking for a performance to attend, 91̽��World Series hosts David Roussève, School of Music presents Jazz Innovations, and the Undergraduate Theater Society debuts “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” All this and more coming up in the next seven days.

David Roussève/ Reality��performs Nov. 20 in Meany Theater.

“Sweet Charity”
Nov. 14 – 23 | Meany Studio Theater
Don’t miss the last weekend to see this inaugural production from the UW’s Musical Theater program. This musical takes a tender, poignant and funny look at the love adventures — or rather misadventures — of the gullible and guileless Charity Hope Valentine. The ideal vehicle to demonstrate the collaborative spirit on which the Musical Theater program is founded, this production��will allow the strength of each member of the cast and creative team to shine.

Visiting scholar lecture: Fabio Barry
Nov. 20 | Art Building
Barry, assistant professor of art history at Stanford University, will give a presentation, “A Womb with a View: Santa Maria dei Miracoli, Venice and the Architectural Imaginary of the Virgin Mary.” .

Jazz Innovations Part I & II
Nov. 19-20 | Brechemin Auditorium
Student jazz ensembles pay homage to the icons of jazz and break new ground with original progressive jazz compositions. .

David Roussève/ Reality
Nov. 20 | Meany Theater
David Roussève, a Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellow and Bessie-Award winning choreographer, juxtaposes the intimate romanticism of Nat King Cole standards with the rough-edged, hip-hop-inflected original music of d. Sabela Grimes to redefine the coming-of-age story for the electronic age.�� Lush, jazz-inflected dancing is leavened by angular representations of an African-American, gay, urban teen’s anxious dreams and challenges — visible only through his emotion-laden tweets and text messages, which are projected onto multiple surfaces. .

Symposium: Surveillance and Privacy: Art, Law and Social Practice
Nov. 20-22 | Henry Art Gallery
Henry Art Gallery, in collaboration with DXARTS, hosts��this multi-day symposium focusing on the response of artists and cultural institutions to issues related to privacy and surveillance. Examining historical attitudes, contemporary perspectives, and prognostications about the future of privacy, the symposium will explore how changes in technology, law and social practices intermingle and impact public perceptions and cultural behavior.

Nov. 20: Lecture by��
Nov. 21: Lecture by ��
Nov. 22:

“The Picture of Dorian Gray,” Nov. 20-23, Dec. 3-7 in the Cabaret Theater. Photo: Andrew Tat

“The Picture of Dorian Gray”
Nov. 20-23, Dec. 3-7 | Cabaret Theater, Hutchinson Hall
In turn-of-the-century London, artist Basil Hallward paints a portrait of Dorian Gray, an impossibly attractive young man. When Dorian unknowingly trades his soul for permanent youth and beauty, he sinks into a life of darkness and debauchery, corrupting all who fall for his charms. Neil Bartlett takes Oscar Wilde’s classic story to the stage in a haunting new adaptation that explores the thin line between perception and reality. Presented by the Undergraduate Theater Society. .

Feast
Nov. 21-23 | Sand Point Gallery
Students in this quarter’s Interdisciplinary Visual Arts capstone class, led by School of Art + Art History+ Design Lecturer Timea Tihanyi, present their work in this exhibition.

Here & Now: Native Artists Inspired Opening Weekend
Nov. 23 | Burke Museum
Hear from artists featured in the exhibit “Here & Now: Native Artists Inspired” during a panel discussion, and join them for in-gallery conversations about their work. See the documentary “Tracing Roots,” which offers a heartfelt glimpse into the world of Haida elder and weaver Delores Churchill, and visit with her daughter and renowned weaver Evelyn Vanderhoop. Get an up-close view of tools and techniques as Burke Curator Sven Haakanson demonstrates the process of cleaning and preparing a Kodiak bear intestine for use in clothing and boat-making.��.

ArtBreak with Corrie Befort
Nov. 22 | Henry Art Gallery
ArtBreaks are facilitated gallery experiences led by a variety of artists, scholars and community members. Join Corrie Befort, collaborator and creator for Salt Horse as she explores the relationship between dance and contemporary art as seen in the exhibition “Ann Hamilton: the common S E N S E.” .

Object Narratives: Gut Skin Processing
Nov. 23 | Burke Museum
This multi-part series introduces visitors to the historical and cultural contexts of objects included in the Henry Art Gallery exhibition “Ann Hamilton: the common S E N S E.” Hear from different presenters at each session and explore the expanded narratives around the objects that have informed Hamilton’s exhibition from the collections of the Henry, Burke Museum and the 91̽��Libraries Special Collections. .

Factory Showroom “Idleness”
Nov. 24-Dec. 30 | Jacob Lawrence Gallery
The second Showroom program as part of Factory — a series of displays, labor demonstrations, motivational speeches, quality controls and new product launches — organized to explore the question, “Is a school a factory?” The dialectical counterpoint to “Industry” — the first exhibition in the series which celebrated traditional, industrious studio practices and notions of labor from Rodin to El Anatsui — “Idleness” presents artists who embrace boredom, laziness, idleness, daydreaming, anti-labor and indifference as vital and generative activities for art production. .

Voice Division Recital
Nov. 24 | Brechemin Auditorium
91̽��voice students present their fall quarter divisional recital. .