Skip to main
University-wide Navigation

The 2026 Clark Lecture The Shape of What's Gone: Craft, Labor, and the American South with Kimberly English

Artist and educator Kimberly English explores how cloth can be used to interrogate American mythologies of labor, heritage, and belonging, particularly as they take shape in the South. Working with inherited textile structures such as overshot and coverlet drafts, the artist reconfigures pattern through interruption, distortion, and negative space, treating absence as both a formal strategy and a historical condition.

a gaines center for the humanities mini grant event Denim Day Fashion Show: Awareness, Advocacy, and Action Registration Now Open

Rock your denim and join us for a powerful day raising awareness, standing up, and making change happen! Clothing is not consent. Join us for an evening of fashion, storytelling, and change as we challenge harmful myths and support survivors.

The 2026 Lafayette Seminar in Public Issues Humanities in Action: Origins and New Directions Registration Now Open

The Gaines Center for the Humanities will host the 2026 Lafayette Seminar, “Humanities in Action: Origins and New Beginnings,” from 3.00pm until 5.00pm on Thursday, April 16, in the Hardymon Theater, Davis Marksbury Building.

now accepting applications Gaines Humanities Cooperatives

The Gaines Center for the Humanities is excited to introduce “Gaines Humanities Cooperatives”—an initiative that fosters new and emerging working groups on Humanities-focused research, pedagogy, advocacy, and public scholarship. Envisioned as a generator of community across departments and colleges, Gaines Cooperatives assist in the formation of these university networks by providing funding, space, and other institutional support for coalescing around common interests and goals.

The 2026 Breathitt Lecture with Beaux Hardin Black Que(e)ries: Bridging Communities through Poetic Origins from Black Archives Registration Now Open

Beaux Hardin, a University of Kentucky College Arts & Sciences senior, has been selected to give the 31st annual Edward T. Breathitt Undergraduate Lectureship in the Humanities. Hardin’s lecture will discuss poetry as a creative medium that invents new language, ultimately connecting people from around the world and creating an immaterial space that redefines identity.

Twelve New Gaines Fellows Named

Twelve University of Kentucky students have been selected as the newest Gaines Fellows, representing nine colleges across campus and marking a record number of applications for the highly competitive program. The Gaines Fellowship in the Humanities is a distinctive, two-year program designed to enrich undergraduate education through interdisciplinary coursework, independent research and community engagement. Fellows are selected for their academic achievement, research potential, interest in public issues and commitment to exploring the human condition through the humanities.

NOW AVAILABLE Our Fall 2026 Newsletter

The Fall 2026 newsletter includes the many (many!) things happening over here in the UK Gaines Center including our 40th anniversary alumni reunion celebrations, our 2025-2026 mini-grant recipients, and spotlights on current senior fellow Marc Vazsonyi and alumna Cat Wentworth.

NOW AVAILABLE TO STREAM The 2025 Bale Boone Symposium with Ebony G. Patterson

The 2025 Bale Boone Symposium with Ebony G. Patterson is now available to stream on our YouTube channel. CLICK HERE TO STREAM

now available to stream 2025 Breathitt Lecture with Lucas Carlos de Lima

The 2025 Breathitt Lecture, Crystal Palaces: Designing a Better World Amidst Social Chaos presented by Lucas Carlos de Lima, is now available to stream on our YouTube channel.  Click here to view the lecture. 

Gaines Class of 2027 Gaines Center Selects Newest Cohort of Fellows

The University of Kentucky Gaines Center for the Humanities is thrilled to announce the selection of 12 undergraduates as the newest class of Gaines Fellows. These students will join the prestigious Gaines Fellowship Program in the Humanities for the 2025-2026 academic year.

Filter News