CHF Chicago Humanities Festival

Authors reflect on the role of laughter in their work and life.

How do painters, photographers, and sculptors make us laugh and why?

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

It’s rumored the Roman philosopher Seneca once said, “Stand back a little further and laugh.” A society that cannot laugh cannot function.

Actors, musicians, dancers—anyone in the performing arts has an intimate relationship with laughter. We unveil the real comedy and drama both onstage and behind the curtain.

Where better to explore laughter than Chicago, incubator and home to some of the world’s great comedians and comic traditions.

How do our unique cultural and ethnic traditions influence what we think is funny?

While laughter is ubiquitous throughout human history, each age found different ways to laugh, different things to laugh at, and ultimately created its own sense of humor.

Whether it’s a sudden chortle or a fit of irrepressible giggles, laughter is a unique doorway into the human brain and how it works.

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.