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Honors Program Events

Halloween party, local students

Honors enriches its students’ extracurricular experience through an extensive program of cultural events, discussions, social occasions, and excursions both within and beyond the Baltimore-Washington area.

2023 - 2024 Events

This is what we have lined up so far — more to come!

 

AUGUST 2023

Thursday, 31   Honors Freshmen Orientation
     

SEPTEMBER 2023

Monday, 4   Labor Day (No Classes)
   

Homer and Pizza
5:30 - 7:45 PM

 

Thursday, 7  

Odds Bodkin Performance
The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast
McGuire East
7:00 PM

Odds Bodkin Performance 2018
Odds Bodkin with Honors Students 2018
Renowned storyteller Odds Bodkin performs a 70-minute long presentation that follows Odysseus through reflections on the War at Troy while he waits with the others inside the Trojan Horse, through the Sack of Troy, then to Ismaros, the Great Storm, the Lotus Eaters, the Isle of Goats and lastly through some vivid and terrifying scenes in the Cave of the Cyclops. Odds is a mesmerizing performer whose presentation is without props and told in voice and character. 

Odds Bodkin has been called “one of the great voices in American storytelling” by Wired and “a consummate storyteller” by The New York Times. Loyola audiences have given Odds standing ovations for this performance in the past. Come see why. Experience Homer’s great story in a clear, accessible way.

Friday, 15   

Everyman Theatre - A Doll's House

By Henrik Ibsen
A New Adaptation Written And
Directed by Joanie Schultz
East Coast Premiere

Offering a fresh perspective on Ibsen’s timeless classic, Schultz’s 90-minute adaptation of A Doll’s House invites audiences to engage with updated themes of gender, power, and identity while holding true to the playwright’s original intentions.

8:00 PM   315 West Fayette Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

Monday, 18

 

Honors Fall Dinner
McGuire East
6:00 PM

Friday, 29   Celebrate the Humanities!
Fourth Floor Program Room
3:00 PM

OCTOBER 2023

Wednesday, 4  

How Philosophy Became Exclusively European in 18th and 19th Century Germany
lecture by Rolf Elberfeld

Prof. Rolf Elberfeld, Professor at the University of Hildesheim, will explore how  “philosophy” became exclusively “Western philosophy,” that is, how its purview became restricted to the Western tradition rather than continuing to include Asian and other non-Western traditions, in 18th and 19th century Germany. The field of philosophy is only now beginning to pluralize and "decolonize," and Prof. Elberfeld is leading this movement in Germany and more broadly in Europe. 
Reception following with light refreshments.

Fourth Floor Program Room
4:30 PM

Friday, 6  

Baltimore Center Stage - Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill
by Lanie Robertson
Musical Arrangements by Danny Holgate
directed by Nikkole Salter

In March 1959, four months before her passing, Billie Holiday gives an unforgettable performance at Emerson’s Bar & Grill in South Philadelphia. However, her songs are just one part of the show. In between renditions of some of her greatest hits, like “Strange Fruit” and “God Bless the Child,” Billie shares the triumphs and heartbreaks of a life and career like no other in this immersive cabaret experience that marks the directorial debut of Pulitzer nominated artist, Nikkole Salter.

8:00 PM  700 North Calvert Street, Baltimore, MD 21202

Tuesday, 10    Writers at Work Series Faculty Reading
Jane Satterfield and Gary Slack

Jane Satterfield is the author of five poetry books, including The Badass Brontës (a winner of the Diode Editions Book Prize, published in 2023), Apocalypse Mix (Autumn House Poetry Prize, 2016), Her Familiars, and Assignation at Vanishing Point. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts poetry fellowship, the 49th Parallel Award for Poetry from Bellingham Review, the Ledbury Poetry Festival Prize, and more. Her nonfiction book, Daughters of Empire: A Memoir of a Year in Britain and Beyond, features selections that received the Florida Review Editors’ Prize and the Faulkner Society/Pirate’s Alley Essay Award. 

Gary Slack is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the English Department at Loyola University Maryland. Gary’s research interests include print culture and publishing during the Black Arts Movement. His dissertation, titled Editing Black Aesthetics: Hoyt Fuller, Toni Morrison and the Black Book, examines how editors, in their search of “Black aesthetics,” shaped African American literature of the 1960s and 1970s. He is currently revising his dissertation into a book centered around The Black Book (1974).

Fourth Floor Program Room
6:00 PM 
Friday, 13   

Center for the Humanities Student Grants Info Session

Join us to learn what grants are available for Loyola students from the CFH! 
 

We will discuss Student-led Seminars, Summer Research Fellowships, stipends for Summer Study programs, stipends for otherwise unpaid Internships, and our pilot program Digital Humanities Summer Fellows. After the presentation by CFH Student grant coordinator, Dr. Matthew Moser and past student recipients, there will be time for pizza and conversation.

Writing Department Lounge
Maryland Hall 038
4:15 PM

Friday, 13  

Chesapeake Shakespeare Company - As You Like It
by William Shakespeare
directed by Ian Gallanar

All the world's a stage, and in this story, Rosalind, Shakespeare’s greatest comic heroine, rebels and takes on an unexpected role. In the deep woods, romance and mischief lead a group of outcasts on an incredible path to self-discovery.

8:00 PM    7 South Calvert Street, Baltimore, MD 21202

Monday, 23   

Colonizing the Past: Situating Ancient Race in Place and Time
lecture by K. Wilson

Dr. K. Wilson teaches Classics at Washington University in St. Louis and will investigate ancient Greek and Roman depictions and ideas of Black Africans and other non-white cultures. The history of scholarship on non-white populations and colonial practices produced by the disciplines of History and Classics is crucial to understanding both modern and older views of ancient Egypt, Nubia, and North African people.

Knott Hall B03
4:30 PM

Saturday, 28   First-year students' trip to Metropolitan Museum in New York City
building facade at twilight with red banners
Your HN 201 professor will provide the details you will need!

NOVEMBER 2023

Friday, 3  

Joseph Bottum
Poetry Reading


Catholic intellectual, essayist, and poet Joseph Bottum will read from his latest book, Spending the Winter, a brilliant, formalist, religious and whimsical collection of poems.

Knott Hall B01
2:00 PM

Friday, 3  

Modern Masters:
Kathleen Hall Jamieson

Kathleen Hall Jamieson employs rhetorical analysis, surveys, and experiments to understand campaign communication, the science of science communication, and ways to blunt misinformation and conspiracy theories.

McGuire Hall
5:00 PM

Saturday, 4  

First-year Eloquentia Perfecta trip to Washington, DC

facade of National Musuem of African American History & CultureYour HN 210 professor will provide the details you will need!

Wednesday, 8- Wednesday, 15  

NATIONAL FRENCH WEEK

NATIONAL FRENCH WEEK - Celebrating Créolité

Wednesday, November 8
"Derek Walcott, Peter Doig, and the ‘Great Noise’ of Trinidad"

Keynote Speaker Martin Munro, Ph.D., Eminent Scholar and Winthrop-King Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Florida State University
6-7 p.m. • Knott Hall B03
Wednesday, November 8

Wednesday, November 8
Soca Sing-Along
Led by Caribbean Students’ Union
7 p.m. • 3rd Floor of Andrew White Student Center

Thursday, November 9
Haitian Kreyòl Workshop
Led by Komité Ayiti

This interactive Haitian creole workshop led by native speakers Garry Bien Aimé and Joe Gaston includes a cultural presentation, drumming led by master drummer Gerald Rameau, Ph.D., and free food tasting.
6 p.m. • McGuire Hall West

Saturday, November 11
French Mass
4 p.m. • Alumni Memorial Chapel

Wednesday, November 15
Creole and Music
Loyola Steel Pan Ensemble, directed by Barry Dove, leads an open rehearsal followed by an interactive workshop with students.
7-8 p.m. • College Center W010

Check loyola.edu/frenchweek for times and other details. Or you may contact the Department of Modern Languages.

Thursday, 9  

Writer at Work series:
T. Kira Māhealani Madden

T Kira Māhealani Madden is a Chinese, Kānaka Maoli writer and amateur magician. A recipient of fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Hedgebrook, Tin House, MacDowell, and Yaddo, she serves as the Founding Editor of No Tokens, a magazine of literature and art. She is the author of the 2019 New York Times Editors’ Choice memoir, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls, which is now being developed as a feature film, and her work has appeared in Harper’sThe Sun, and New York Magazine. 

Fourth Floor Program Room
6:00 PM

Friday, 10   

Everyman Theatre -  A Chinese Lady

By Lloyd Suh
Directed by Nana Dakin
Baltimore Premiere

Be transported on a poetic journey of discovery and enlightenment by Lloyd Suh’s critically acclaimed play, The Chinese Lady. Inspired by the true story of Afong Moy, the first Chinese woman to step foot in America in 1834, this play follows her to New York, where she is destined to become a living curiosity in a museum. As she becomes well-known as a commodified oddity, she struggles to maintain her sense of self and her connection to her heritage. This powerful, moving, and often humorous tribute to a woman who spent her life trying to bridge the gap between East and West serves as a reminder of the ongoing struggle for understanding across cultural divides.

8:00 PM    315 West Fayette Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

Tuesday, 21    Thanksgiving Break begins after last class
Wednesday, 22 - Sunday 26   Thanksgiving Break

DECEMBER 2023

Friday, 1   

Chesapeake Shakespeare Company -  A Christmas Carol 
adapted from Dickens by Laura Rocklyn
directed by Erin Bone Steele

Dickens’ hauntingly beautiful tale of hope and redemption. In 19th-century Baltimore, a miser is compelled to abandon his old rulebook and give in to the generous spirit of the holidays.

8:00 PM   7 South Calvert Street, Baltimore, MD 21202

Friday, 8   

BSO Tickets -  How the Grinch Stole Christmas (movie with Orchestra)
Thiago Tiberio, conductor

creature with a green face in a santa costume

Discover the Magic of the Mean One this holiday season. Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas is a celebration of the holiday spirit no home should be without! Why is the Grinch such a grouch? No one seems to know, until little Cindy Lou Who takes matters into her own hands and turns both Whoville and the Grinch’s world upside down, inside out and funny side up in her search for the true meaning of Christmas. (© 2023 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.)

7:30 PM Meyerhoff Symphony Hall
Wednesday, 6  

Honors Holiday Party

A festive occasion to eat, drink, and be merry!
Hug Lounge & Refectory
5:00 - 6:30 PM

Monday, 11   Last Day of Classes
Tuesday, 12   Study Day
Wednesday, 13 - Thursday 21   Exam Period
Friday, 22 - Monday, January 2   University Closed

JANUARY 2024

Wednesday, 3   University Reopens
Monday, 15
  Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Commemoration (University Closed)
Tuesday, 16
  Classes start 
Friday, 26  

BSO Tickets - Back to Future in Concert
Movie with Orchestra
Anthony Parnther, conductor

teen examining watch in front of a delorean car

Recharge your flux capacitor...and get ready to celebrate this unforgettable movie classic as you’ve never seen and heard it before! Join Marty McFly, Doc Brown and a time traveling DeLorean for the adventure of a lifetime as they travel to the past, present and future, setting off a time-shattering chain reaction that disrupts the space-time continuum! Fans will experience the thrill of Back to the Future as never before–on a big hi-def screen with a full symphony orchestra performing Alan Silvestri’s dazzling musical score. A further, exclusive treat: approximately 20 minutes of brand-new music added by award-winning composer Silvestri to the film’s score especially for live orchestra presentations. (© Universal City Studios LLC and Amblin Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
7:30 PM Meyerhoff Symphony Hall

FEBRUARY 2024

Friday, 2  

BSO Tickets - Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue 
Wayne Marshall, conductor and piano

man in black turtleneck with conductor's baton

 

 

COPLAND Music for the Theatre
GERSHWIN Rhapsody in Blue
BERNSTEIN On the Town: Three Dance Episodes
ELLINGTON Harlem

A noted Gershwin interpreter at the keyboard, Wayne Marshall celebrates the 100th anniversary of Rhapsody in Blue “a quick wit and a cool head, the ability to convey (just as Gershwin strove to do) the jazzman’s freewheeling, rhapsodic manner alongside a concert pianist’s formality.” (Gramophone) Leading three other American classics from the conductor’s podium, Marshall finds the common thread among Copland’s spiky tribute to the theater, Bernstein’s dreamy dance sequence from a Broadway hit, and Ellington’s tribute to the Manhattan neighborhood where Black culture soared.

8:00 PM Meyerhoff Symphony Hall

Friday, 9  

Center for the Humanities Student Grants Info Session 

Join us to learn what grants are available for Loyola students from the CFH!
 
We will discuss Student-led Seminars, Summer Research Fellowships, stipends for Summer Study programs, and stipends for otherwise unpaid Internships. After the presentation by CFH Student grant coordinator, Dr. Matthew Moser and past student recipients, there will be time for pizza and conversation.

Writing Department Lounge
Maryland Hall 038
4:15 PM

Friday, 16   

Chesapeake Shakespeare Company - The Oresteia
Adapted from Aeschylus by Ellen McLaughlin
directed by Lise Bruneau

A vibrant and excitingly modern new adaptation. Aeschylus's elemental tale of a bloody chain of revenge examines a treacherous royal family forced to balance soul-stirring guilt and their desire for justice. A play about democracy from the beginning of democracy.

8:00 PM     7 South Calvert Street, Baltimore, MD 21202

Friday, 23  

Second-year students' trip to Glenstone

modern white and gray stone buildings perched on rolling hills surrounded by forests

Glenstone is a place in Potomac Maryland that seamlessly integrates art, architecture, and nature into a serene and contemplative environment.

Guided by the personal vision of its founders, Glenstone assembles post-World War II artworks of the highest quality that trace the greatest historical shifts in the way we experience and understand art of the 20th and 21st centuries. These works are presented in a series of refined indoor and outdoor spaces designed to facilitate meaningful encounters for our visitors. Your HN 204 instructors will provide the details you need.

MARCH 2024

Monday, 4 - Sunday, 10   Spring Break
Wednesday, 13 - Thursday, 14   Student-Faculty Colloquia for the 2024 Humanities Symposium "Celebrating Nature"
Aimee Nezhukumatahil's World of Wonders 

Two days during the official Symposium week are set aside for Loyola student/faculty colloquia. During each scheduled class period, faculty and their classes will meet with faculty and students from other classes. These colloquia have traditionally been led by panels composed of faculty members from different disciplines who lead informal discussion, posing questions to stimulate the participation of students, and to engage the Symposium text across narrow disciplinary boundaries. This year’s text is World of Wonders by Aimee Nezhukumatathil.
The colloquia will be in-person. They are open to Loyola faculty, staff, and students.

McManus Theater.
Thursday, 14   Humanities Symposium Keynote Address -Aimee Nezhukumatathil
woman with necklace and green blouse

McGuire Hall
6:30 PM
Friday, 15   

Baltimore Center Stage -  Mexodus
Written and performed by Brian Quijada & Nigel D. Robinson 
directed by David Mendizábal

Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson blend Hip-Hop and history to tell a unique story about the Underground Railroad that led south, highlighting the power of Black and Brown unity. A groundbreaking, theatrical experience, Mexodus is a live-looped musical, composed in real time, that explores the often-untold stories of enslaved people in the United States who sought freedom in Mexico.

8:00 PM  Mosaic Theatre
700 North Calvert Street, Baltimore, MD 21202

Thursday, March 28 - Monday, April 1

  Easter Break

APRIL 2024

Tuesday, 2   Classes resume
Friday, 5   

Everyman Theatre -  The Book Club Play
By Karen Zacarías
Directed by Laura Kepley
Baltimore Premiere

Popular DC-based playwright Karen Zacarías’ Helen Hayes Award-winning comedy is neatly bound by equal parts humor and charm. This hilarious play follows Ana and her friends whose book club becomes the subject of a legendary documentarian. All appears to be going as planned until an unexpected new member throws the group’s dynamics into chaos. The Book Club Play is a playful testament to the power of literature and its ability to bring people together.

8:00 PM  315 West Fayette Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

Thursday, 11
 

Writers at Work Series:
Matt Bell

Matt Bell is the author most recently of the novel Appleseed (a New York Times Notable Book) and the craft book Refuse to Be Done, a guide to novel writing, rewriting, and revision. He is also the author of the novels Scrapper and In the House upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods, as well as the short story collection A Tree or a Person or a Wall, a non-fiction book about the classic video game Baldur's Gate II, and several other titles.A native of Michigan, he teaches creative writing at Arizona State University.

Fourth Floor Program Room
6:00 PM

Friday, 12  

BSO Tickets -  Igor DAMN Stravinsky (BSO Fusion series)
Steve Hackman, conductor

A daring fusion of two powerful and poignant masterpieces, the work combines Stravinsky’s Petrouchka with Kendrick Lamar’s Pulitzer Prize-winning album DAMN. As the puppets of Stravinsky’s ballet are made human and begin to experience emotions, we encounter the corresponding songs of Kendrick’s album: ‘LOVE.’, ‘FEAR.’, ‘XXX.’, ‘FEEL.’, ‘LOYALTY.’, ‘HUMBLE.’, and more.

8:00 PM Meyerhoff Hall

Friday, 19    Baltimore Center Stage -  The Hot Wing King
By Katori Hall 
Directed by Christopher Betts

Pulitzer Prize Winner Katori Hall’s work returns to our stage with her award-winning play, The Hot Wing King, in which Memphis, Tennessee’s annual Hot Wang Festival is quickly approaching, and Cordell Crutchfield is determined to be crowned king of the wings. With support from The New Wing Order, made up of his partner Dwayne and his friends Isom & Big Charles, victory seems inevitable. However, Cordell soon finds himself preparing for the festival while caring for his teenage nephew who moves in after a family tragedy. Will this new arrangement be a recipe for success or disaster?

7:30 PM  700 North Calvert Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
Friday, 26  

BSO Tickets - Simon, Ives, And Rachmaninoff
Marin Alsop, Conductor
Yunchan Lim, piano

woman outdoors in white jacket
CARLOS SIMON AMEN!
IVES Symphony No. 2
RACHMANINOFF Piano Concerto No. 2

When the 18-year-old pianist Yunchan Lim became the youngest ever winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, he launched a global phenomenon, with more than nine million views and counting of his Rach 3 performance conducted by Marin Alsop. Now the BSO Music Director Laureate welcomes Lim to present Rachmaninoff’s stunningly gorgeous Piano Concerto No. 2. Alsop continues her role as a leading champion of American music, presenting the hymn-filled Second Symphony of Ives (a work premiered by her mentor, Leonard Bernstein) along with Carlos Simon’s bluesy AMEN!

8:00 PM Meyerhoff Hall

Monday, 29   Last Day of Classes
Tuesday, 30   Study Day

MAY 2024

Wednesday, 2 - Thursday 9

  Exam Period
Friday, 17   Academic Honors and Departmental Awards Ceremony
11:00 AM McManus Theater
Friday, 17   Baccalaureate Mass
1:30 PM
Reitz Arena
Saturday, 18  

Commencement,
Location tbd
11:00
 AM