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
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). Co-organized by the Department of Gender & Sexuality Studies and the Department of English. 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). Co-organized by the Department of French and Italian and Department of Comparative Literature. 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). Co-organized by the Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures. 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.
Christina Cecelia Davidson, Dominican Crossroads: H. C. C. Astwood and the Moral Politics of Race-Making in the Age of Emancipation (Duke University Press, 2024)
February 10, 2025, 12–1pm | More
The author will be joined in conversation by Leslie Alexander (Rutgers University) and Millery Polyné (New York University), moderated by Oneka LaBennett (USC). Organized in partnership with the Van Hunnick History Department. Registration is required.
Andrew Lakoff, Planning for the Wrong Pandemic: Covid-19 and the Limits of Expert Knowledge (Polity Press, 2024)
February 27, 2025, 11am–12pm | More
The author will be joined in conversation by David Jones (Harvard University) and Manjari Mahajan (The New School), moderated by Laura Ferguson (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
