Chances are, no matter what happens on Nov. 3, after the upcoming midterm elections, the day will not pass without agita and sweats. You will need some quiet time, an hour of reflection, a chance to vent, a little contemplation.
Some harp music, perhaps?
Chicago’s Humanities Festival just unveiled its always-anticipated fall event schedule, and four days after midterms, during its thoughtful Hyde Park Day line-up on Nov. 7, the great photojournalist David Hume Kennerly (whose images are synonymous with the Vietnam War, the Jonestown massacre, the Frazier-Ali brawl and the White House) will remind us of another United States; the great harpist Mary Lattimore will lend meditative relief to the gothic maw of Rockefeller Chapel; and the great essayist Hilton Als will likely go on and on (eloquently) about Hilton Als.
“I mean, sometimes you just need to mellow out,” said Brittany Pyle, the new executive director of the Humanities Festival. “And when we were thinking of the (fall) season, we did think of it as a whole, and how after midterm elections there might also be moments of joy and relief and some real desire that weekend to get together with other people.”
But of course, wisely hedging their bets, Hyde Park Day will also feature Peter Sagal’s ongoing U.S. Constitution Sessions (specifically, on how democracies collapse, with University of Chicago’s Aziz Huq and Tom Ginsburg), and the day will end with a panel on the Constitution itself, led by Eric Slauter, the University of Chicago’s one-stop-shop Constitution authority.
If that sounds somewhat intense, while in Hyde Park you could also check in with Daniel Kraus, the recent Evanston-based Pulitzer-winner for fiction (“Angel Down”) who will likely address less urgent concerns — such as how to extract yourself from a whale stomach (the subject of “Whalefall,” the new fall movie adapted from his acclaimed 2023 thriller).
Whew, that’s a lot to process.
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The nice thing is, the enduring singer-songwriter Susanna Hoffs, best known for her work with the Bangles, will likely not be singing about being swallowed by a whale when she opens the Humanities Festival fall season on Sept. 14 at Old Town School of Folk Music.
Creative togetherness itself will shade a handful of events: Ira Glass of the Chicago-born radio show “This American Life” will break down an episode in which he and writer Etgar Keret rode a bus out of Tel Aviv (Oct. 5, Athenaeum Center); on Oct. 15 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago’s Third Coast Percussion will perform and talk about their decade-long collaboration with electronic-minded composer Jlin. It’ll be tough to avoid the subject of working with the late David Lynch during at least two conversations: Kyle MacLachlan on Sept. 30 (Athenaeum), and a chat with “Twin Peaks” cast Nov. 14 (Old Town School of Folk Music). And no doubt Monty Python’s Eric Idle (Oct. 4, at Northwestern University) will talk about his own famous collaborators (it’s billed as a “Talk and Singalong”); just as Morton Grove-native Jeff Garlin (Oct. 4) will be delving into years of comedy with Larry David.
As always, the festival will be mostly broken into single days in three locations: Northwestern Day (Oct. 4), Hyde Park Day (Nov. 7) and Pilsen Day on Sept. 26, featuring back-to-back literary heavyweights at Thalia Hall — Emily St. John Mandel (“Station Eleven”), followed by Marlon James (“A Brief History of Seven Killings”). Indeed, add to that the Pulitzer-winning playwright Ayad Akhtar (“Disgraced,” Oct. 4), and the Pulitzer-winning novelist Barbara Kingsolver (Oct. 17 at Francis Parker School), and John Green (Oct. 4), and you have probably one of the finest author line-ups of the season.
Still, regardless of the subject, the politics of 2026, naturally, will weigh heavily anyway.
Pilsen Day could almost be a one-day course on Latino culture, featuring photojournalist and curator Ramon Hernandez on the promotion of Tex-Mex legends Selena and Freddie Fender; historian Ruben Molina on the evolution of Chicano pop music; a panel on Chicano photography; and another discussion with photographer Merrick Morton on his decades documenting the barrios (and movie stars) of Chicano Los Angeles. On Nov. 7, the seminal trans scholar Susan Stryker will dig through the origins of gender.
As for politics straight up: Chicago’s David Axelrod talks to Sarah Longwell, of the (sorta) centrist website The Bulwark and founder of the Republican Accountability project on Sept. 17; Sagal’s series takes on the Supreme Court (Oct. 4); and Naomi Klein and filmmaker Astra Taylor discuss apocalyptic political thinking (Sept.18).
You may need a long walk after that.
Luckily, there are a number of walking tours on both the public art and bricks of Pilsen (Sept. 26); as well as architectural walks about the inventive doorways of Northwestern (Oct. 4) and Hyde Park (Nov. 7), led by the Chicago doorway impresario Ronnie Frey.
As always, it’s an eclectic mix — “a variety pack of humanities,” Pyle said.
She doesn’t plan to change that. Though she has been interim director of the festival since longtime steward Phillip Bahar left in November to run Michigan State University’s art museum, Pyle had been on staff for 13 years, in many roles. “I know it inside and out and have seen it navigate so many eras,” she said. She’s watched its often aging audience become slightly younger — the average attendee is now fortysomething. She has watched it introduce a spring festival to pair with an already sprawling fall festival; she has seen the festival go from seasonal series into an ongoing year-round operation.
“What I want is to have it feel like a true festival again,” she said.
Meaning, a festival with a true beginning and end. Something closer to what this season looks like. Politics and arts and issues and concerts and neighborhoods, packed into a fleeting, heady moment. Meaning, she said: “I would like people to anticipate us again.”
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The Chicago Humanities Fall Festival runs Sept. 14 to Nov. 14 at various venues; tickets and more information at chicagohumanities.org.
Update: This story has been changed as Jorie Graham and Sheryl Lee are no longer part of the schedule.