WCPN: Daniel Goldmark, professor of music and director of the Center for Popular Music Studies, and Adrianne Fletcher, assistant professor and assistant dean for diversity and inclusion at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, discussed the theme of the Cleveland Humanities Festival this year, which is to examine society's biggest issues through the lens of discourse.
Events this year will highlight contentious topics like social status, birth control, and disinformation. Other events will call on everyday citizens to consider racial issues, and how we approach talking about race with one anothe
About the Festival
The Cleveland Humanities Festival is a collaborative event celebrating the great cultural institutions of the city of Cleveland and Northeast Ohio dedicated to humanistic inquiry. The Festival engages the public in addressing some of society’s most challenging issues and pressing concerns. Coordinated by the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities of Case Western Reserve University, the Festival partners with our region’s major museums, educational institutions, and arts organizations.
The theme of the 2022 Cleveland Humanities Festival is “Discourse.” Through a series of public events this spring, participants will ask questions about how we communicate with one another, including the dialogue within and between local communities, cultural institutions, corporations, and other key sites of social exchange. How do we hear, interpret, and ultimately act on conversations? To what extent did the global pandemic disrupt broader trends in social and political discourse? How can we improve our ability not simply to hear but also to listen--to words, sounds, and silence? What can we do, individually and collectively, to ensure that our communities continue to make space for a more diverse range of voices and perspectives? The Festival will address these questions in the spring of 2022.