A meeting ground for students, scholars, and the Philadelphia public, the Penn Humanities Forum focuses each year on a broad-ranging topic, offering a series of distinguished lectures, performances, conferences, and seminars that demonstrate the centrality of the "thinking arts" in every aspect of contemporary experience.

Each topic generates a high-profile program of public lectures, exhibitions, and performances, most free and all open to the public. Anonymous 4, Tariq Ali, Ian Buruma, Manuel deLanda, Stephen Greenblatt, Jenny Holzer, Elaine Pagels, Kiki Smith, and Art Spiegelman are just a few of the distinguished thinkers and artists who have addressed our town–gown audiences over the years (see Sitemap for complete listing).

Through annual fellowships, students, professors, and experts from Philadelphia's cultural institutions conduct independent research on the year's topic that cuts across barriers of field and intellectual orientation. Fellows meet in seminars, conferences, and cultural events.

Click on the individual topic listings (left) for descriptions and more information on each year's programs and fellowships.