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
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). Program partners: The Writing Program, Department of English, and HEAL program at the Keck School of Medicine. 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). Program partners: Van Hunnick History Department, Department of American Studies and Ethnicity, and USC Black Studies Initiative. 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). Program partners: Department of Anthropology, Department of Sociology, and the Institute on Inequalities in Global Health. Registration is required.
Lisa Bitel, Otherworld: Nine Tales of Wonder and Romance from Medieval Ireland (Oxford University Press, 2024)
March 11, 2025, 12–1pm | More
The author will be joined in conversation by Eric Falci (UC Berkeley) and Siobhán McElduff (University of British Columbia), moderated by Daniela Bleichmar (USC). Program partners: Van Hunnick History Department and School of Religion. Registration is required.
Natalie Lauren Belisle, Caribbean Inhospitality: The Poetics of Strangers at Home (Rutgers University Press, 2025)
March 24, 2025, 12–1pm | More
The author will be joined in conversation by Jossianna Arroyo-Martínez (University of Texas) and Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel (University of Miami), moderated by Nayan Shah (USC). Registration is required.
Lindsay O’Neill, The Two Princes of Mpfumo: An Early Eighteenth-Century Journey into and out of Slavery (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025)
April 8, 2025, 12–1pm | More
The author will be joined in conversation by Catherine Molineaux (Vanderbilt University) and Asheesh Siddique (University of Massachusetts Amherst), moderated by Peter Mancall (USC). Program partners: Van Hunnick History Department and Early Modern Studies Institute. Registration is required.
Admire Mseba, Society, Power, and Land in Northeastern Zimbabwe, ca. 1560–1960 (Ohio University Press, 2024)
April 22, 2025, 11am–12pm | More
The author will be joined in conversation by Mariana Candido (Emory University) and David Hughes (Rutgers University), moderated by Lindsay O’Neill (USC). Program partners: Van Hunnick History Department and Department of Anthropology. Registration is required.
Emily Hodgson Anderson, Shadow Work: Loneliness and the Literary Life (Columbia University Press, 2025)
May 8, 2025, 12pm–1pm | More
The author will be joined in conversation by Julia Lee (Loyola Marymount University) and Anahid Nersessian (UCLA), moderated by Dana Johnson (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
