Humanities News | University of Illinois

You dont need to be a bibliophile to know that a book is quite possibly the perfect holiday gift for a child. As any lover of literature knows, books are just as immersive and entertaining as video games, they dont require batteries and wont crash while theyre being used.

Although comics have been published in newspapers since the 1890s, they still get no respect from some teachers and librarians, despite their current popularity among adults. But according to a University of Illinois expert in childrens literature, critics should stop tugging on Supermans cape and start giving him and his superhero friends their due.

Its harvest time in Illinois. But at the University of Illinois, members of the English faculty have been hard at work in their own field cultivating words and growing the departments reputation all year long.

A new initiative at the University of Illinois will bring together scholars from many disciplines to explore the Holocaust and other genocides as well as racism, memory and trauma. Shimon Attie, a Brooklyn artist famous for his work on Holocaust-related themes, and James E. Young, a leading scholar of Holocaust memorials, will stay at the U. of I. campus as the Krouse Family Visiting Scholars to help kick off the new Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide and Memory Studies.

Irit Rogoff, a professor of visual cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London, will discuss how the arts are influencing globalization and are producing unexpected cultural phenomena and new knowledge during a lecture Thursday (Oct. 8) at Levis Faculty Center at the University of Illinois.