Center Thematic Programming

Events

Upcoming Events
Spring 2025 Events
Fall 2024 Events
Center Thematic Programming
Community and Campus Humanities Events
In Process

2024/25 Center Thematic Programming

Join the Taft Research Center for our 2024/25 thematic programming series Worldbuilding and Radical Worldmaking. We will host distinguished visiting scholars, artists, activists, and makers, alongside our own faculty and students, to develop techniques to anchor, imagine, and speculate about new worlds while transforming our own. What are the horizons of radical worldmaking? How can we use methods, practices, and ways of knowing from the humanities and social sciences to extend them?

Fall 2024 Programming

Weather & Critical Walks | Play Sessions & Creative Conversations | Zines & Dream Machines

Expand all Collapse all

24/25 Center Theme Programming

January 2025

People's Banner Workshop with Migiwa Orimo
Monday, January 13, 12:30-2pm
Taft Research Center

Building Counter-Institutions through Material Culture with Josh MacPhee
Lecture and poster pop-up
Thursday, January 16, 4-6pm
Taft Research Center

A Crash Course in Political Poster History and Making with Josh MacPhee
Friday, January 17, 10am-12pm
DAAP Printmaking Lab

Undersowing the Institution with Rowan Lear
Wednesday, January 22, 12pm
Virtual via Zoom

In-Relation with Seeds with Zayaan Khan
Monday, January 27, 12:30-2:30pm
Lecture and seed swap
Taft Research Center & Virtual

February 2025

Critical Walk in Conversation with Ruha Benjamin's Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want
Saturday, February 1, 12:30-1:30pm
Meet at Sitwells Act II, 324 Ludlow Avenue, Cincinnati
Co-sponsored by School of Environment and Sustainability

Black FUTURE Month
Un-Common Read-In with Cassandra Jones
Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want
Monday, February 3, 12:30pm
Taft Research Center

Freedom Summer | Fascist Winter: Black Power, 1960–1970
an interactive seminar with Felicia Denaud
Wednesday, February 5, 12–2:30pm
Taft Research Center

Black FUTURE Month
Un-Common Read-In with Cassandra Jones
Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want
Monday, February 10, 12:30pm
Taft Research Center

Black FUTURE Month Diaspora Studies Series
Cassandra Jones on Black Speculative Feminisms: Memory & Liberated Futures in Black Women's Fiction
Thursday, February 13, 1:30-3:30pm
Taft Research Center

The Joseph and Frances Jones Poetker Thinking About Music Lecture Series
An Acoustemology of the Poetics of Protest in Urban Afro-Cuban Music
Pablo Herrera-Veitia, University of Toronto
Friday, February 14, 1:30-3:30pm
Taft Research Center
Co-sponsored by College-Conservatory of Music

Black FUTURE Month
Un-Common Read-In with Cassandra Jones
Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want
Monday, February 17, 12:30pm
Taft Research Center

Feminist Forum x Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want
Friday, February 21, 3:30–5pm
Co-sponsored by Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Black FUTURE Month
Un-Common Read-In with Cassandra Jones
Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want
Monday, February 24, 12:30pm
Location TBD

March 2025

The Stories We Tell Ourselves: Making Space(s) for Truth-Telling at UC with Anne Delano Steinert
Wednesday, March 3, 11:30am
Taft Research Center

Monsterhearts x Imagination: A Manifesto with Cassandra Jones
Wednesday, March 5, 4–6pm
Taft Research Center

Incubating Imagination: Possibilities and Practices Toward Liberatory Learning with Ruha Benjamin
Friday, March 7, 6pm
TUC MainStreet Cinema

Monsterhearts x Imagination: A Manifesto with Cassandra Jones
Wednesday, March 12, 4–6pm
Taft Research Center

Rat-ical Worldmaking Workshop with Darcie DeAngelo
Thursday, March 14, 12:30–2pm
Taft Research Center

Notations on Ritual Opening
Friday, March 15, 5–8pm
The Carnegie

Notations on Ritual Curator & Artist Walkthrough
Saturday, March 16, noon
The Carnegie

Taxonomía with Javier Cordono Otera
Wednesday, March 26, 3:30–5pm
Taft Research Center

Worldbuilding & Radical Worldmaking Symposium
Thursday, March 27, 10am–4pm
Taft Research Center

Role-Playing and the Humanities, day 1
Monday, March 31

April 2025

Role-Playing and the Humanities
Tuesday, April 1

Exhibitions as Worldbuilding with Sso-Rha Kang
Thursday, April 3, 12:30–2pm

Atmospheres Taft Research Seminar Public Programming
Saturday, April 5, noon
The Carnegie

Race & Data Taft Research Seminar Roundtable with A Picture's Worth
Wednesday, April 9, 6pm
Taft Research Center

September 2024

Speaking Truth to Power: A Conversation with Lupe Gonzalo
Monday, September 23, 11am–noon
739 Steger

October 2024

Weather Reading Group x Édouard Glissant’s Poetics of Relation
Friday, October 18, 3:30pm
Taft Research Center

projects & process
Monday, October 21, 2–4pm
Taft Research Center

Fathoming: h2o Critical Soundwalk
Saturday, October 26, 2–4pm
Roebling Bridge–Ohio River–Freedom Center
Register here: https://bit.ly/3Ymy0ec

Worlding Vampires
A Conversation between Julia B. Ellingboe and Katherine Castiello Jones
October 29, 4–5:30pm
Taft Research Center

November 2024

dream machine 1: seismicity
Monday, November 4, 2–4pm
Taft Research Center

The Parables RPG Play Session with Jay Africa
November 14, 4–6pm & November 15, 4–6pm
Taft Research Center & Africana Studies Student Lounge, French Hall 3616

dream machine 2: electromagnetism with Celeste Oram
Monday, November 18, 1-3pm
Taft Research Center & Zoom

Weather Reading Group Discussion x Hi’ilei Julia Kawehipuaakahaopulani Hobart’s Cooling the Tropics: Ice, Indigeneity, and Hawaiian Refreshment
Friday, November 22, 3:30pm
Taft Research Center