CHF Chicago Humanities Festival

So the cat’s out of the bag! One of the biggest (in every sense) stars of this year’s CHF will be Kareem Abdul-Jabbar!!

Some people may think that we invited him because he is one of the most transcendent athletes of all time. And they would be right. The inventor of the sky hook, six-time NBA champion, six-time MVP, and highest scoring player of all time is one of those near-mythical persons who inspire sheer awe. Fitted with an unworldly body and preternatural skills, it was his grace on the court, though, that ultimately transfixed us. To have this man at a festival on The Body will be an incredible treat!

What most people don’t know, however, is that Abdul-Jabbar fits the CHF much beyond this year’s theme. He is, quite simply, far more than “just” an athlete. Always known as one of the most thoughtful and politically astute players in basketball, he is also a long-time practitioner of yoga. Most importantly, however, he is an accomplished scholar. Yes – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a humanist!

He is the author of a number of widely acclaimed books. The first two, Giant Steps (1983) and Kareem (1990), were autobiographies. But he soon went beyond the standard fare expected from top athletes. In 1996, he published Black Profiles in Courage, an inspirational account of African-American heroes who changed American history. He followed this up in 2000 with A Season at the Reservation, a remarkable chronicle of a year he spent as an assistant coach of the Alchesay Falcons, a high school basketball team on the White Mountain Apache reservation in Whiteriver, Arizona.

Next came 2004’s Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761^st Tank Battalion, World War II’s Forgotten Heroes, in which Abdul-Jabbar related the incredible story of an all-black battalion during the Battle of the Bulge. Most recently, he came out with On the Shoulders of Giants, a beautiful account, both of the Harlem Renaissance and its immediate impact on himself (Abdul-Jabbar was born in 1947 and grew up as Ferdinand Lewis "Lew" Alcindor, Jr. in 1950s New York City).

All these passions will be part of the conversation we will have with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar!

But it will be even better than that!

Abdul-Jabbar will be joined on the CHF stage by Debra Hawhee. You probably haven’t heard of Debbie, as she is known to all her friends and colleagues. But trust me – you will!

Debra Hawhee

Debbie is one of the most interesting young humanists working on the body today. Trained in the discipline of rhetoric, a small traditional field that concerns itself with the art of effective communication, she is a professor of English at the Pennsylvania State University. Her dissertation, an ambitious study of the convergence between rhetoric and athletics in ancient Greece, propelled her to the forefront of her discipline. And during the CHF, Debbie will introduce the arguments of Bodily Arts  in a separate lecture. More recently, she has extended her research to the 20th century, issuing an acclaimed study of American literary theorist and philosopher Kenneth Burke, whom Debbie identifies as our era’s defining theorist of the body. 

With her scholarly interest in sports and the body, Debbie will be a wonderful interlocutor for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

But here is the kicker: Debbie is herself a championship basketball player! Yes, this accomplished professor of English is a two-time NCAA Women’s Basketball Champion! She played for the Tennessee Lady Volunteers under legendary coach Pat Summit from 1988 to 1992, winning the 1989 and 1991 national championships before going on to graduate school and her career in academia.

So this is what will happen at the festival: Basketball great and humanities extraordinaire Kareem Abdul-Jabbar will be interviewed by basketball great and humanities extraordinaire Debbie Hawhee in an encounter that will bring together five NCAA basketball championships on one stage (Abdul-Jabbar won three of his own, from 1967 to 1969 at UCLA under that other legendary coach, John Wooden).

Now, tell me if anyone other than the CHF could pull this off?...

Tags: athletes, sports, rhetoric, The Body