Are the humanities in crisis, administered out of existence in places, threatening to disappear from university life? Or has there been too much recent doomsaying and not enough critical thought as to how to maintain them in a fast-changing world? Is the art world facing challenges of perception, as market forces gain prominence, with "branding" threatening to crowd out genuine creativity? How does individual identity inflect creative work of all sorts? Where are the arts and humanities now? Where are they going?

These and other questions will be foregrounded in a Conversations That Matter moderated by AAR Director Christopher S. Celenza, FAAR,'94, with panelists Simon During, Tim Parks, Jed Perl and Kimberly Bowes, FAAR'06, Andrew W. Mellon Professor-in-Charge of the School of Classical Studies.