ACLS President Joy Connolly 2025 Speaking Engagements

ACLS President Joy Connolly is a celebrated scholar of ancient Roman rhetoric and political thought and their enduring influence in modernity. She is also a thought leader on the future of the humanities and fostering what we call the “new academy”—where a vibrantly curious professoriate can pursue scholarly inquiry with creativity and a sense of wonder; where collaboration and mentorship are valued; and where faculty are rewarded for their efforts to connect with an emerging generation.

She speaks and writes regularly on these topics and will be featured at the following public events in 2025:

Tuesday, December 16, 10:00 am – 11:00 am

The EdUP Experience: How to Build the New Academy Through Creativity & Experimentation

Joy Connolly joins Elvin Freytes and Dr. LaNitra Berger on the EdUp Experience podcast to discuss how ACLS has demonstrated that the humanities can pivot quickly by placing over 40 scholars in jobs in just three months during COVID. Dr. Connolly discusses examples such as the ACLS Public Humanities Graduate Fellows program which challenges the “English major barista” stereotype by connecting PhD scholars with organizations in finance, law, healthcare, and social work.

Thursday, December 4, 2:30 pm – 4:00 pm

Keynote Presentation: Toward Bold New Models of Graduate Education
Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) Annual Meeting: Marriot Marquis Washington, DC

Rapid changes in the workforce, changing student demographics, and mounting higher education costs create an opportunity to imagine bold new graduate education models and programs. Panelists will explore issues raised in the 2025 CGS Taskforce report on “Controlling Costs and Optimizing the Value of Graduate Education.” How might graduate curricula and capstone projects adapt to meet the reality of diverse and rapidly changing careers? How might the costs of delivering high- quality graduate education be controlled and better distributed?

Tuesday, October 28, 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Strength and Growth in the Liberal Arts: Strategies, Arguments, Stories, Tactics
Fairfield University: Kelley Center Presentation Room  

In this timely lecture, Dr. Connolly will discuss the current state and future of the liberal arts in an increasingly complex social and political environment, and how public funding for higher education remains a keystone of a robust democracy.

Thursday, October 16, 4:30 pm – 6:15 pm

The Future of Research Funding: How Do We Move Forward in a Changing Landscape?
Hofstra University: The Institute for Public Humanities and Arts (IPHA)

Joy joins co-panelist Laura Auricchio for a discussion on the future of research, funding, and higher education, moderated by Rhonda Garelick. The conversation will cover strategies for sustaining scholarly work, navigating grants, and rethinking the university’s role today, followed by audience Q&A and informal discussion.

Friday, October 10, 1-5 pm

Producing original scholarship in audio: Can Podcasts Save the University?
NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute

The event will feature conversations with scholars reflecting on how working in audio has influenced their thinking and research, and will consider how academic norms and standards may evolve as podcasting becomes a more established scholarly practice.

Friday, September 26, 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm

Ancient Societies Workshop: What is the University For? Making the Case for Ancient Studies
Archaia: Yale Program for the Study of Global Antiquity
William L. Harkness Hall, Room 309

Monday, September 22

Against the Grain (ATG) Podcast Conversation with Michael Upshall

Joy joins guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) on the Against the Grain podcast. Against the Grain discusses the latest news about libraries, publishers, book jobbers, and subscription agents. Their goal is to link publishers, vendors, and librarians by reporting on the issues, literature, and people that impact the world of books and journals.

Thursday, May 8, 11:00 AM-12:00 PM EDT

Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Annual Conference for Corporate and Foundation Relations Officers
“Future of Liberal Arts/Humanities Funding”

This annual event brings together more than 300 development professionals, grant writers, officers and prospect researchers to engage in conversation about the challenges in securing external support for our institutions.

Tuesday, April 8, 9:00 AM-12:30 PM CET

Fiesole Retreat 2025: Learning from the Past, Informing the Future
Session 2: “Through the Lens of the Humanities“

“The humanities” are always in a constant state of reinvention, deconstruction, and crisis. The digital revolution, large upheavals in the global sociopolitical landscape, and too many news stories about universities cutting back, closing down, and “rightsizing” their humanities programs have all made the last quarter-century memorably distracting. What are the humanities today and who are they for? Speakers in this session will draw lessons from this recent past and point to strategies promising success for the decades to come.

Thursday, April 3, 5:00-7:00 PM EDT

New York University Center for Ancient Studies’ Ranieri Colloquium on Ancient Studies: Reimagining Ancient Worlds: New Stories of the Distant Past
Keynote Conversation: “Frameworks and De-Formations of Ancient Worlds”
NYU Silver Center for Arts & Science, Jurow Lecture Hall

This conference brings together established and emerging leaders in the conversation about how we can rethink the study of the distant past in radical ways. The keynote conversation will feature ACLS President Joy Connolly, Oliver Harris (University of Leicester), Dan-el Padilla Peralta (Princeton University), and Josephine Crawley Quinn (University of Cambridge).

Friday, March 7, 9 am – 5 pm

Discourse: In Action, Theory, and Democracy
Keynote Speaker: “What is the Purpose of Education in a Democratic Society?”
The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts, Texas Union Ballroom

Discourse is a one-day event, hosted by the College of Liberal Arts at The University of Texas at Austin, dedicated to exploring aspects of the relationship between free speech, civil discourse, democracy, and higher education in America. Through a series of moderated arguments on issues of public significance, featuring some of the nation’s leading scholars and writers, we seek to model what it looks like to engage in democratic debate and discussion in a spirit of openness and collegiality. We’re also hoping to have some fun.