‘Speed’ takes the lead in fall’s Chicago Humanities Festival

Speed: The rate at which someone or something is able to move or operate; the rapidity of movement.

“Speed” – the umbrella theme of the Fall 2016 Chicago Humanities Festival (CHF), which will run Oct. 29 – Nov. 12.

According to Jonathan Elmer, the festival’s artistic director: “We will examine the headlong speed of daily life as well as the space of meditation and reflection – looking at the politicians who urge us to hurry up, and the artists who force us to slow down. We also will consider all that ties us to timeless cycles, as well as what changes the world in the blink of an eye.”

“The theme of Speed is full of contradictions, and that’s why we like it,” said Elmer. “You can find commuters flipping through thousand-page novels on the L, but they expect that book to be delivered with same-day delivery. Our elaborately plotted television series are all dropped at once—so we can binge watch. At the same time, against the demands of a faster-paced, on-demand life, people are willing to wait in line for slow food and hand-muddled cocktails that take forever to make.”

Although a complete line-up for the festival’s nearly 100 programs and many participants will be released on Sept. 8 (and available at http://www.chicagohumanities.org/speed), some names will be announced throughout the summer, and the celebrity lineup to date has been confirmed. It includes: Gloria Steinem; Trevor Noah, the “Daily Show” host; Yaa Gyasi, author of “Homegoing”; and architect Marshall Brown. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman is set to headline the CHF Benefit Gala.

Steinem’s program (Oct. 13 at Northwestern University Law School’s Thorne Auditorium), will serve as an official festival kick-off event at the very moment that the United States moves toward a presidential election unique in the country’s history. Friedman will deliver the Richard J. Franke Lecture in Economics at the gala (Oct. 17 at the Four Seasons Hotel), with a talk that will focus on keeping pace in a dizzying age of acceleration.

Beyond the headliners, programs will focus on other phenomena of speed—from how we find dates, play games, or experience art, to how we develop policy in an age of immediacy, or “hear” gravitational waves across cosmic time. CHF will continue its commitment to hosting programs in Chicago’s neighborhoods with an evening in historic Bronzeville.

About the already named presenters:

+ Marshall Brown is an architect and urban designer who was chosen to represent the United States at the 2016 Venice Biennale. An associate professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology’s College of Architecture, he has worked on a number of projects in Chicago including the recent redevelopment of Navy Pier.

+ Thomas Friedman is a Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times columnist and the author of a number of major works on globalization and the forces of change, including “The World is Flat,” and “Hot, Flat, and Crowded.” He also is a Pulitzer Prize winning foreign correspondent and the recipient of the 1989 National Book Award in nonfiction for his book, “From Beirut to Jerusalem.”

+ Yaa Gyasi was born in Ghana and raised in Alabama, and is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop. Her newly released debut novel, “Homegoing,” is a multi- generational epic that traces a pair of Ghanaian half-sisters and their descendants through their divergent lives. It explores the damaging effect of the slave trade on a family split between the U.S. and the Gold Coast of Ghana over a span of 200 years.

Provided

+ Trevor Noah is the comedian originally from South Africa who has served as host of “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” since Sept. 2015.

+ Gloria Steinem is the renowned writer and political activist who co-founded Ms. Magazine and is the author of many books including “My Life on the Road” and “Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions.” The recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2013, she now hosts “Woman” on the VICELAND channel.

Tickets to the 2016 Chicago Humanities Festival’s two kick-off events featuring Gloria Steinem and Thomas Friedman go on sale to CHF members on Aug. 16, and to the general public on Aug. 23. Tickets for the rest of the 2016 festival go on sale to members on Sept. 20 and to the general public on Sept. 27. To become a member, visit http://www.supportchf.org.