The inaugural lecture for the Fall 2026 Modern Critical Theory (MCT) Lecture Series, titled “Theory in University,” was held on September 8. Through an overview of three foundational moments in the history of the modern university in the West—namely Berlin around 1810, Urbana, Illinois around 1900, and Berkeley around 1950—Chad Wellmon (University of Virginia) offered what he later described, during the Q&A, as a theory of the university: an attempt to rethink what the university ought to be vis-à-vis what it has become in the United States today. He situated this question...
We invite you to attend the Fall 2026 MCT lecture series, featuring discussions on contemporary theory and its varied engagements. Lectures will be held every Tuesday from 5:15 to 6:45 PM.
'Tóbi is a PhD student in African, African American and African Diaspora history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His ongoing research situates the Obama Presidential Center within...
Aishi Bhattacharya is a PhD student in the Department of Comparative and World Literature at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on South Asian literature and culture,...
Alunood is a PhD student in Philosophy. Her research interests lie in practical philosophy, particularly at its intersections with political, moral, and social philosophy. She focuses on questions of...
Former Director of the Unit for Criticism, Susan Koshy, is leading a faculty team that has been awarded a Mellon Sawyer Seminar grant to study the challenges to academic freedom and democracy in US universities today. The co-organizers of the Sawyer Seminar are Rosalyn LaPier (History/...
We are deeply troubled by the recent circulation of an image that appears to glorify violence and to frame federal agents as executioners rather than officers bound by law.
![Demonstrators gathered on the U of I Quad to protest the university’s investments in South Africa [1978]](/sites/default/files/2026-10/UIUC%20Demonstration%20Smile%20Politely.jpg)
