The Center for the Humanities

09/09/2025

Join legendary poet, activist, oral historian, and translator Margaret Randall at the for a reading and conversation with poet, translator, and scholar Judah Rubin based on her newest books Letters from the Edge and More Letters from the Edge.

Margaret Randall’s “Letters from the Edge: Outrider Conversations” book series chronicle her correspondences with fellow “outrider” artists, writers, and activists who risk everything to confront censorship, injustice, and the constraints of convention. The reading and conversation will be followed by a Q&A and book signing. Books will be available at the event. Free and open to all. Please register to attend.

Margaret Randall is a poet, writer, translator, photographer, and activist who has lived in New York, Mexico City, Havana, Cuba, Managua, Nicaragua, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, with short stays in North Vietnam and Lima, Peru. Her time in these places often coincided with major sociopolitical upheavals or pivotal historic moments. She edited an important bilingual literary magazine for eight years out of Mexico City El C***o Emplumado / The Plumed Horn and has known some of the great minds of her generation. When she returned to the United States, the US government ordered her deported because of opinions expressed in some of her books, and she was forced to wage a five-year battle for restoration of citizenship. Randall is the recipient of numerous international awards and the author of over 200 books.

Judah Rubin is the editor of A Perfect Vacuum. His translation of Rodrigo Quijano’s writing, An Inherent Tear was published by Wendy’s Subway in 2024. A translation of Dalmacia Ruíz-Rosas Samohod’s Peligro de los Labios Rojos is forthcoming with Ugly Duckling Presse’s Señal series in 2025.

09/08/2025

Join us Wed, Oct 8, at The Graduate Center, CUNY for "Letters from the Edge: Outrider Conversations with Margaret Randall"!

Join legendary poet, activist, oral historian, and translator Margaret Randall for a reading and conversation based on her newest books Letters from the Edge and More Letters from the Edge (New Village Press) which chronicle her correspondences with fellow “outrider” artists, writers, and activists who risk everything to confront censorship, injustice, and the constraints of convention. Randall will be joined in conversation with poet, translator, and scholar Judah Rubin.

Click here to learn more about this and RSVP to attend: https://centerforthehumanities.org/event/letters-from-the-edge-outrider-conversations-with-margaret-randall/

09/02/2025

Join Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative and Litmus Press Fri, Sep 19 at The Graduate Center, CUNY for an evening of reading & conversation to celebrate and launch poet, translator, critic, and scholar Ammiel Alcalay‘s highly-anticipated, monumental new book" CONTROLLED DEMOLITION: a work in four books" (Litmus Press, 2025). Alcalay will be introduced by Saed, followed by a musical introduction by Safira Berrada-Riggs on ‘oud and vocals.

CONTROLLED DEMOLITION: a work in four books combines three of Ammiel Alcalay’s previously published poetic texts—Scrapmetal (2007), the cairo notebooks (1993), and from the warring factions (2002)—with a new work, “Controlled Demolition.” Unlike most writing categorized as “documentary” poetry, here the author and his process are constant reference points, serving as a prism to refract changes over time and circumstance in what becomes a mix of memoir, poetry, auto-critique, prose narrative, history, and investigative journalism by other means.

Books will be available at the reading, which will be followed by a reception. Register to attend here. https://centerforthehumanities.org/event/controlled-demolition-book-launch/

09/02/2025

Join us Wed, Sep 17th, 6:30 pm at The Graduate Center, CUNY for a poetry reading & conversation with Cristina Pérez Díaz and Isabel Sobral Campos celebrating their new poetry books. Puerto Rican writer and translator Cristina Pérez Díaz’s debut poetry collection "From the Founding of the Country" (Winter Editions) and poet and translator Isabel Sobral Campos’s award-winning "The Optogram of the Mind is a Carnation" (Futurepoem) are two extraordinary book-length poems which confront violent colonial histories. The poets will read from their new books, followed by a conversation moderated by Lost & Found Fellow Coco Sofia Fitterman. Books will be available at the event.

Visit our website to Register and learn more about this reading, the poets and their new books. https://centerforthehumanities.org/event/poetry-reading-and-conversation-with-cristina-perez-diaz-and-isabel-sobral-campos/

09/02/2025

Announcing fall 2025 public programs! Timely discussions, in-depth perspectives, creative ideas. Join us in person or online – RESERVE NOW: https://www.gc.cuny.edu/public-programs

The fall 2025 lineup features New York State Senator John Liu, The New York Times Opinion Section columnist John McWhorter, actor-playwright Ana Carbatti, Nobel Prize-winning scientist Venki Ramakrishnan, NYC Council Member Nantasha Williams, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, and many others.

Please spread the word! The Center for the Humanities Advanced Science Research Center at The Graduate Center, CUNY Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality Center for Latin American Caribbean & Latino Studies The City University of New York

08/29/2025

Join us Wed, Sep 17, 6:30 PM at the CUNY Graduate Center for an evening of reading and conversation with Cristina Pérez Díaz and Isabel Sobral Campos celebrating their new poetry books. Puerto Rican writer and translator Cristina Pérez Díaz’s debut poetry collection From the Founding of the Country (Winter Editions) and poet and translator Isabel Sobral Campos’s award-winning The Optogram of the Mind is a Carnation (Futurepoem) are two extraordinary book-length poems which confront violent colonial histories. The poets will read from their new books, followed by a conversation moderated by Lost & Found Fellow Coco Sofia Fitterman. Books will be available at the event. Free and open to all.

About From the Founding of the Country

Haunted by the violent legacies of colonialism on both landscape and bodies, Cristina Pérez Díaz’s first book of poems From the Founding of the Country deliriously dreams with the foundation of a country from the bed of two lovers.

About The Optogram of the Mind is a Carnation

Isabel Sobral Campos‘s The Optogram of the Mind Is a Carnation is a book-length poem-memoir reflecting on Portuguese colonization of African countries and its place within the imperial and colonial forces that have shaped global history for the past 500 years.

Visit our website to register and for more information about this reading, the poets and their new books.

08/21/2025

Are you interested in discussing climate justice (CJ) and environmental justice (EJ) challenges across NYC? Would you like to integrate these issues into your classes and/or projects?

Join the PLC, a semester-long, book club-style conversation series around these topics!

We will meet in person at different members' locations.

More information and registration are in the links in our bio.

07/28/2025

07/23/2025

07/17/2025

Are you a CUNY undergraduate or graduate student interested in organizing to raise awareness and advance social and climate justice? Do you want to work with a frontline, grassroots climate justice organization in NYC? Now is your chance!

NYC Climate Justice Hub is excited to announce two paid opportunities open to all CUNY students across all campuses to work with the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance: the Climate Justice Action Fellowship and the NYC Climate Justice Hub Internship Program.

The deadline to apply is Sunday, August 17, 2025 at 11:59pm.

You can read the description of each position here: https://centerforthehumanities.org/paid-climate-justice-action-fellowships-and-internships/

Please, apply for your preferred position. Selected students will have to attend a mandatory kick-off Academy on October 7th, 8th, and 9th.

*Students will be compensated via a scholarship award sent to their CUNYFirst account. Before applying for any of these opportunities, please check in with the Financial Aid Office at your campus to see if you are eligible to receive these funds.

If you have any questions, email us at [email protected].

05/22/2025

Check out some of the work on Kafka in New York originally shared at this symposium, now up on !

A video by Esther Neff gives maps, diagrams, and visual representations of mental pathways, all set up within the POV of a New York City rat winding its way through and around “Kafka’s Cognition.”

An essay by Jason M. Leggett on “Kafka’s Migrants in New York City’s Rules of Crisis[1]” …and you’ll have to read it to know what the footnote is!

Links in bio and Distributaries highlight!

05/19/2025

Welcoming personal change
Join us Thursday, May 22nd at 12 PM EST for this guided meditation session “Welcoming personal change” facilitated by Anaïs G. Duplan. This session will focus on personal change and insight on change in Buddhist practice. To what extent are we willing to be changed by present circumstances? How do we know when to welcome personal change? What about when to refuse change?

This series is open to the public and encouraged for community organizers who work around climate justice or social justice issues. From facilitating meetings to navigating physical reactions to stress and escalation, this workshop is intended for anyone who wants to approach their work with care, thought, and reflectiveness.

Register in bio or upcoming event highlight!