2025-2026
Wolf Humanities Center on Truth

Undergraduate Research Seminars

  • September 5, 2025
    Humanities Conference Room, Williams 623

    Introductions; "Truth" Topic Director Julia Verkholantsev and Wolf Humanities Center Director Ayako Kano

  • September 9, 2025
    Class of 1978 Orrery Pavilion; Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts; 6th floor, Van Pelt Library

    Wolf Welcome Reception

  • September 12, 2025
    Humanities Conference Room, Williams 623

    Forum: Postgrad
    2:00-3:00pm
    Sarah Guerin (Graduate Chair and Associate Professor of Art History) 
    Keisha-Khan Perry (Graduate Chair and Presidential Penn Compact Associate Professor of Africana Studies)
    3:00-4:00pm
    Macy Berryman (Rising 3L at Penn Law)
    Sophia Rabate (Student talent scout and recent Penn grad)
    Michaile Rainey (Director of Nationally Competitive Fellowships, PennCURF)

  • September 17, 2025
    Widener Lecture Hall, Penn Museum

    The Persistence of Wretched Subjects (The Edges of Truth keynote)

  • September 18, 2025
    Class of 1978 Orrery Pavilion; Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts; 6th floor, Van Pelt Library

    The Edges of Truth: Secrecy, Artifice, and the Limits of Knowledge

  • September 19, 2025

    Van Pelt Library/Special Collections visit

  • September 26, 2025
    Humanities Conference Room, Williams 623

    Writers Bloc (optional)

  • October 3, 2025
    Humanities Conference Room, Williams 623

    Excursion to Eastern State Penitentiary

  • October 17, 2025
    Humanities Conference Room, Williams 623

    People of the Book discussion; creative research

  • October 22, 2025
    Widener Lecture Hall, Penn Museum

    Truth and the Novel, author Geraldine Brooks, Dr. S.T. Lee Distinguished Lecture in the Humanities

  • October 23, 2025
    Humanities Conference Room, Williams 623

    Geraldine Brooks meeting with UHF Fellows

  • October 31, 2025
    Humanities Conference Room, Williams 623

    Modeling Research Methods

  • November 7, 2025
    Humanities Conference Room, Williams 623

    Modeling Research Methods

  • November 14, 2025
    Humanities Conference Room, Williams 623

    Workshopping
    Eric Ryu, James Wilson: The Influence of the Scottish Enlightenment on Early American Legal Education
    Respondent: Emma Hart, Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Chair of American History

    Saanvi Agarwal, Inventing Truth After Empire: Form, Fragmentation, and Identity in the Works of Anita and Kiran Desai

  • November 19, 2025
    ARCH Auditorium, 3601 Locust Walk

    Ukraine and Russia: Writing History in the Time of War

  • November 21, 2025
    Humanities Conference Room, Williams 623

    Workshopping
    Max Brody, Crazed, Psychotic, and…Desperate?: Prototypes of “The Sick Woman Theory” in 20th Century Theory and Literature
    Respondent: Angelica Clayton, Senior Fellow, History & Sociology of Science

    Sergio Emilio Carballido Murcio, Accessing Truth Through Mind: A Comparative Study of Ratnakīrti’s Epistemology and Nāgārjuna’s Mādhyamaka
    Respondent: Deven Patel, Associate Professor, South Asia Studies; Director of Undergraduate Studies, Comparative Literature  

  • December 5, 2025

    Excursion to Barnes Foundation

  • January 16, 2026
    Humanities Conference Room, Williams 623

    Conference Planning

  • January 23, 2026
    Humanities Conference Room, Williams 623

    Workshopping
    Noa Rubinstein, Truth on Trial: Understanding Post-Conflict Truth & Reconciliation Commissions
    Respondent: Benjamin Nathans, Alan Charles Kors Endowed Term Professor of History

    Ryan Wolff, U.S. Intervention in the Exceptional 70s: Shifting U.S.-Latin American Relations during the Late Cold War
    Respondent: Ericka Beckman, Associate Professor of Romance Languages

  • January 30, 2026
    Humanities Conference Room, Williams 623

    Workshopping
    Thalia Graeff, Rediscovering Histories and Reframing Ideas in Contemporary Artist Books by Women
    Respondent: Christine Woody, Assistant Professor of English and Director of the Textual Scholarship Program, Widener University

    Ella Sohn, Branching Voices: Recomposing the Legal Person in Richard Powers' Gain and The Overstory
    Respondent: Rahul Mukherjee, Wolf Associate Professor of Television and New Media Studies; Associate Professor of English

  • February 11, 2026
    Location TBD

    The Truth about Sign Language Acquisition

  • February 13, 2026

    Excursion to National Constitution Center

  • February 20, 2026
    Humanities Conference Room, Williams 623

    Workshopping
    Cristina Diaz, The Etymological Method in Alphonsine Chronicle
    Respondent: Chris Halsted, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities

    Izzy Welsh, Kaleidoscopic Memory – Orientation through Disorientation in Nabokov’s Speak, Memory and Patti Smith’s M Train 
    Respondent: Jim English, John Welsh Centennial Professor of English

  • February 27, 2026
    Class of 1978 Orrery Pavilion; Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts; 6th floor, Van Pelt Library

    Truth Symposium

  • February 27, 2026
    Humanities Conference Room, Williams 623

    Workshopping
    Kara Butler, Play Fighting: The Role of Childhood in Wartime Propaganda
    Respondent: Spencer Small, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities

    Arwen Zhang, Tracking the Truth: The Reality Behind Medieval Travel Narratives
    Respondent: Ellie Webb, Ph.D. Candidate, History; Wolf Humanities Center Doctoral Fellow

  • March 20, 2026
    Humanities Conference Room, Williams 623

    Conference Lightning Talks

  • March 27, 2026
    Class of 1978 Orrery Pavilion; Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts; 6th floor, Van Pelt Library

    Undergraduate Humanities Forum Research Conference

  • April 24, 2026

    Excursion to New York