National Humanities Center Announces Sites for Second "Being Human" Festival (US)

Events to be Held in Communities Across the US April 12–28, 2025

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., March 5, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- What do a mural project honoring childhood immigration, a walking tour of Denver's Vietnamese community, a public event engaging with local history through the lens of a cemetery, and a celebration of Georgia's Indigenous communities all have in common? They are just some of the events in the exciting lineup for the National Humanities Center's second annual Being Human Festival (US).

Building on the success of last year's inaugural effort, this year's festival will include events in sixteen locations across the country. These community-focused events, organized and presented by local artists, scholars, and educators, highlight the incredible breadth of the humanities and demonstrate the innumerable ways that they add depth and meaning to our daily lives, help us understand ourselves and one another, and provide context for the complex world around us.

"We are excited to partner with all of the researchers and organizations involved in this year's festival to present a range of events that explore the ways the humanities help us understand and appreciate the world around us," said J. Porter Durham, interim president and director of the National Humanities Center. "This year's festival, which is organized around the notion of 'landmarks,' is nearly double the size of our inaugural festival in 2024, with 19 events in 12 states. The fascinating variety of events, topics, and forms of these events are a testament to the ways that the humanities add depth and meaning to our lives in the communities where we live."

Inspired by and undertaken in partnership with the United Kingdom's Being Human Festival, which originated in 2014, the US edition of the festival was the latest international expansion of the Being Human effort. Previous Being Human Festival events have taken place in France, Italy, Romania, and Singapore. In 2017, a sister festival was established in Melbourne, Australia.

Events in this year's Being Human Festival (US) were selected from a wide variety of proposals submitted to the National Humanities Center. Organizers of those events will receive grants from the Center.

2025 Being Human Festival (US) Organizers and Events

ARKANSAS
April 19 (Cane Hill and Dutch Mills, AR)
"History Passport: Reconnecting German Settlers and their Arkansas Neighbors"
Presented by Historic Cane Hill and University of Arkansas at Fayetteville

CALIFORNIA
April 26 (Los Angeles, CA)
"What is a Landmark? Food, Storytelling, Music and Cartonera Construction with the Cartonera Santanera Collective"
Presented by Fowler Museum of UCLA

COLORADO
April 17 and 26 (Denver, CO)
"Denver's Little Saigon: A Landmark History"
Presented by Regis University's Center for the Study of War Experience, The Far East Center, and Historic Denver

FLORIDA
April 18–19 (Miami, FL)
"I Am Little Haiti: A Global Borderless Caribbean Homecoming"
Presented by Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab-Florida International University (WPHL-FIU), Iris PhotoCollective, IPC ArtSpace, and iWitness: IPC Institute for Visual Journalism

April 26 (St. Petersburg, FL)
"Echoes of the Land: Hurricanes, History, and Storytelling"
Presented by Florida Humanities, Sacred Lands Preservation and Education, and Heritage Village

April 26 or 27 (St. Petersburg, FL)
"Poetry on the Deuces"
Presented by Cultural Books Literacy Foundation

GEORGIA
April 24 (Macon, GA)
"Ocmulgee Rising: A Celebration of Muscogee Creativity with Joy Harjo"
Presented by Georgia Humanities, Middle Georgia State University, Ocmulgee Mounds Association, and Georgia Council for the Arts

KANSAS
April 23 (Lawrence, KS)
"Obscured Landmarks: Re-activating Buried Histories, Stewarding Sites for Learning in Lawrence, Kansas"
Presented by University of Kansas Hall Center for the Humanities, The Commons, Spencer Museum of Art, and Lawrence Public Library

MICHIGAN
April 12 (Detroit, MI)
"River People: A Being Human Festival Encounter Space on the Detroit River"
Presented by Detroit River Story Lab at the University of Michigan, Detroit and Wayne County Port Authority

Date TBD (Detroit, MI)
"Stories of Detroit's Crown Jewel: Different Facets of Being Human at Belle Isle Park"
Presented by Wayne State University Humanities Center, Belle Isle Conservancy, and Wayne State University Department of Urban Studies and Planning

MINNESOTA
Date TBD (Minneapolis, MN)
"The Agency for Tiny Tourism"
Presented by In the Heart of the Beast Mask and Puppet Theater

MISSOURI
Date TBD (St. Charles, MO)
"Landmarks of the Mind: Mapping Neurodiversity through Creative Expression"
Presented by Lindenwood University

NEW JERSEY
Dates TBD (Princeton, NJ)
"Centennial Landmarks of Literature and Cinema in Princeton" (4 events)
Presented by Humanities Council for Princeton at Princeton University, Princeton French Film Festival, GradFUTURES at Princeton University, Princeton Public Library, Program for Community-Engaged Scholarship (ProCES) at Princeton University, Trenton Arts at Princeton (TAP) at Princeton University

NEW YORK
April 21–28 (New York, NY)
"The US Childhood Arrivals Mural Project"
Presented by Department of Black and Latino Studies at Baruch College and Baruch College Immigrant Student Success

April 19 (Utica, NY)
"Forest Hill Cemetery: A Landmark of Memory and Design"
Presented by Forest Hill Cemetery Preservation Foundation

NORTH CAROLINA
Date TBD (Chapel Hill, NC)
"Humanities Out of Doors"
Presented by Carolina Public Humanities and The Carolina Biodiversity Collaborative

CONTACT:
Don Solomon
[email protected]
919-406-0991

SOURCE National Humanities Center