CHF Chicago Humanities Festival

It is the most quintessentially human thing, at once thoroughly biological and completely cultural. It brings us joy and makes us crazy. And we never tire talking about it.

The 2009 Festival explored the many ethnic and cultural shadings of laughter, the battles around humor and political correctness, gallows humor and medical ethics, laughter as imagined by artists including Molière, Mozart, Beckett, laughter and the brain, and an array of opinions on the subject proffered by comedians, filmmakers, writers, politicians, economists, and scholars.

2009 marks the centennial of one of the most important advancements in urban development, the Burnham Plan.

Modern economic thought no longer is no longer limited to the business world. Today's economists apply their theories to topics as diverse as genetic engineering, the AIDS crisis, and public housing.

The unfolding tragedy of the Haitian Earthquake starkly illustrates the dire and precarious nature of life in the developing world.

The Terra Foundation for American Art has provided a generous multiyear grant for producing lectures on American Art. Now those lectures on available online for all to experience.

A celebration of human expression as the creative force of freedom.

Addressing the role that “place” serves in the creation of our sense of rootedness and belonging – and, ultimately, our sense of identity.

Examining a never-diminishing human wish for peace alongside an ever-present human reality of conflict.

Thinking Big celebrates human ambition, and the glory and sometimes folly occasioned by the pursuit of the grand gesture, the great scheme, the Big Idea, that human predilection for thinking at scale.

The Chicago Humanities Festival has a rich tradition of providing educational materials to foster interest in the humanities and to help teachers to build the Festival into their lives and curricula.