The Levan Institute for the Humanities serves as a hub for the humanities and humanistic social sciences at the University of Southern California, connecting faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and students across disciplines, departments, programs, and institutes.
Book Chats
Conversations celebrating new books by USC scholars in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. Each event features the author and guests in conversation about a recently completed publication.
How To…
Practical workshops where humanists discuss how to do the things we do. Each workshop consists of brief comments from three experienced presenters and a longer Q&A session.
Working Groups
Interdisciplinary working groups that foster intellectual exchange and advance research on topics in the humanities (broadly construed) not already addressed by an existing department or program.
Co-Sponsorships
The Levan Institute provides modest grants and promotion for public events in the humanities at USC.
Global Collaborations
The Levan Institute aims to foster and facilitate collaborations with scholars and institutions around the globe.
New Books
Congratulations to USC scholars on their recent publications!
Upcoming Events
Jill Hicks-Keeton, Good Book: How White Evangelicals Save the Bible to Save Themselves (Fortress Press, 2023)
September 14, 2024, 10am–11am | More
The author will be joined in conversation by Jennifer Quigley (Emory University) and Daniel Vaca (Brown University), moderated by Richard Flory (USC). Registration is required.
Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, The Age of Revolutions: And the Generations Who Made It (Basic Books, 2024)
September 30, 2024, 11am–12pm | More
The author will be joined in conversation by David Armitage (Harvard University) and Marlene Daut (Yale University), moderated by Bob Shrum (USC). Co-organized by the Early Modern Studies Institute, the Department of French and Italian, and the Van Hunnick History Department. Registration is required.
Maggie Nelson, Like Love: Essays and Conversations (Graywolf Press, 2024)
October 14, 2024, 1–2pm | More
The author will be joined in conversation by David Kishik (Emerson College) and Michel Chaouli (Indiana University), moderated by Jane Hu (USC). Registration is required.
Antónia Szabari, Agents without Empire: Mobility and Race-Making in Sixteenth-Century France (Fordham University Press, 2024)
October 24, 2024, 11am–12pm | More
The author will be joined in conversation by Jennifer Nelson (University of Delaware) and Ayesha Ramachandran (Yale University), moderated by Edwin Hill (USC). Registration is required.
Roberto Ignacio Diaz, Latin America and the Transports of Opera: Fragments of a Transatlantic Discourse (Vanderbilt University Press, 2024)
November 7, 2024, 1pm–2pm | More
The author will be joined in conversation by Efraín Kristal (University of California, Los Angeles) and Michelle Clayton (Brown University), moderated by Natania Meeker (USC). Registration is Required.
Ellen Wayland-Smith, The Science of Last Things: Essays on Deep Time and the Boundaries of the Self (Milkweed Press, 2024)
January 31, 2025, 12pm–1pm | More
The author will be joined in conversation by Eula Biss (author of On Immunity) and Lochlann Jain (Stanford University), moderated by Maggie Nelson (USC). Registration is required.
Header image: Reverse of Postcard of Tram Running Between Venice, Ocean Park and Santa Monica, California, March 31, 193- (date obscured), USC Libraries Special Collections
Contact Us
Office
3501 Trousdale Parkway
THH 348
Los Angeles, CA 90089
Staff
Director: Daniela Bleichmar
Associate Director: Zach Mann
Assistant Director: Isabella Carr
