2023 Humanities Symposium: Displacement and Belonging
Exploring how people who are forcibly displaced or estranged from home find a sense of belonging
Keynote Address by Julie Otsuka: An American Story: War, Memory, and Erasure
Thursday, March 16, 2023 at 6:30 p.m.
McGuire Hall
Award-winning novelist Julie Otsuka was born and raised in California and is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her first novel, When the Emperor Was Divine (Knopf) is this year's Humanities Symposium text. This novel, set during World War II, follows a Japanese-American family from their home in Berkeley, California to internment camps in the Utah desert. Otsuka draws on historical research as well as her own family's history to create a spare and imagistic novel told in an inventive style. The novel won the 2003 Asian American Literary Award and the 2003 American Library Association Alex Award.
Her second novel, The Buddha in the Attic (Knopf) was a finalist for the National Book Award 2011, won the 2012 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the 2011 Langum Prize in American Historical Fiction. The Buddha in the Attic was an international bestseller and the winner of the prestigious Prix Femina étranger 2012, and the Albatros Literaturpreis 2013. Otsuka's third novel, The Swimmers, was published by Knopf in 2022. Photo credit: Jean-Luc Bertini.
Book signing to follow.
Register to attend the Keynote
Poster Exhibit
Posters created by Professor Noelle Dichiera's Communication students for the 2023 Humanities Symposium will be on display in the Loyola Notre Dame Library during February and March.
Link to information about the exhibit.
Additional Events Leading up to the Keynote
These events are free and open to the public.
Manzanar Through Three Lenses: Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange and Toyo Miyatake
Monday, Feb. 13, at 6:00 p.m.
Fourth Floor Program Room
Loyola Professor of Art Dan Schlapbach will compare the work of these three photographers who photographed the Manzanar Internment Camp and the divergent stories they tell.
The Unknown Citizen: Art Installation by Kei Ito
Opening on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2023 at 6:00 p.m.
Atrium in front of McManus Theater
Kei Ito will create an art installation that speaks to the themes of this year's Humanities Symposium: displacement and belonging. Kei Ito is a visual artist working primarily with camera-less photography and installation art who is currently teaching at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in NYC. Ito received his BFA from Rochester Institute of Technology followed by his MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art. His works are included in major institutional collections such as the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Norton Museum of Art, Chroma at California Institute of Integral Studies, and the Eskenazi Museum of Art.
Join us for brief remarks by the artist in the McManus Theater at 6:30 pm., followed by a reception in the McManus atrium.
Student-Faculty Colloquia
Wednesday, March 15 and Thursday, March 16, 2023
McManus Theater
Loyola faculty are encouraged to invite their classes to the student-faculty colloquia to discuss When the Emperor was Divine. Class registration is required.
Link to Student-Faculty Colloquia Padlet discussion board. Password will be provided in person.
If you have not yet registered for the colloquia and would like to participate, please contact Marian Crotty at mgcrotty@loyola.edu.
For more information about the 2023 Humanities Symposium events, please email Marian Crotty, professor of writing, at mgcrotty@loyola.edu.
This event will be captioned. If you require additional accommodations, please contact Disability Support Services at dss@loyola.edu.