Join the VCU Humanities Research Center for our third Humanities Week (Sept. 8-11, 2026). This year’s Humanities Week programming engages our annual theme of Repair. This theme explores repair in all its complexity: the repair of historical damage (slavery, displacement, loss of Indigenous land, environmental harm), the healing of communities (through reparations, restorative justice, and cultural memory), and the evolving relationship between universities and the cities they inhabit — including questions of accountability, trust, and shared purpose. Through rigorous scholarship, community partnerships, global conversation, and interdisciplinary collaboration, we ask: How do we reckon with harm? What comes after monuments are removed? How do we heal from historical trauma? And what responsibilities do universities carry in repair work — toward the communities, histories, and futures they help shape?
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Tue, Sept. 8 – Opening lecture by Maria Sachiko Cecire (Mellon Foundation), followed by a reception at Scott House. We’d love it if you could attend the reception, 6-8 p.m.
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Wed, Sept. 9 – Screening of Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World, with a Q&A led by director Sasha Waters Freyer.
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Thu, Sept. 10 – Keynote by Blair LM Kelley (National Humanities Center), “Black Freedom: Public Celebration and Commemoration as Practices of Remembrance and Repair.”
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Wed & Fri – Partner tours with the Shockoe Institute and the Valentine museum.
