Newberry Library Undergraduate Seminar
Newberry Library Undergraduate Seminar, Spring 2027:
"Responding to the City: Imagined Pasts, Utopian Futures"
The Newberry Library Undergraduate Seminar (NLUS) is a six-credit humanities research and writing course, taught at the Newberry Library. The seminar allows students to combine an intensive classroom experience with independent research carried out in the Newberry Library's collections, one of the country's richest archives of primary source materials on history and culture.
This year's seminar is entitled “Responding to the City: Imagined Pasts, Utopian Futures" and will be taught by Drs. Brandiann Molby (Loyola University) and Ben Weil (The Medieval Academy of America). For a full description of the course and further details, visit the Newberry Library's Undergraduate Seminar Website. And also see this flyer: NLUS 2027 Flyer.pdf
Five Loyola undergraduates will be selected to participate in NLUS, which also includes students from DePaul University, Roosevelt University, and the University of Illinois Chicago. Class meetings take place at the Newberry Library (near the Water Tower Campus) on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, from 2:00 - 5:00 p.m., from January 19 to April 29, 2027.
The seminar is open to qualified students in all majors and counts as both Writing Intensive and Engaged Learning. Those interested in applying to graduate school and to many professional schools, whether law school or library science, have found the Newberry Seminar an exhilarating challenge and an opportunity to work with both students and faculty from other universities at a very high level.
To Apply, please use this form: NLUS_Application_2027.docx. Note that the application also requires a writing sample. Please email your application to Loyola's NLUS Coordinator, Professor Theresa Gross-Diaz, at Tgross@luc.edu. She can also answer additional questions.
Applications are due via e-mail by noon on Thursday, October 29, 2026. Participants will be selected and notified by November 5, before the pre-registration period.
Previous NLUS Topics:
2026: "The Culture of Paper: Investigating a World-Changing Medium"
2025: "Chicago Memoir: From the Page to the Archive"
2024: "Medicines, Poisons, and Landscapes of Care in the Early Americas"
2023: “Inventing Mexico: Maps, Manuscripts, and Materiality, 1521-1921”
2022: “Writing Migration: Chicago, Haymarket to 1968”
2021: “Chicago: City of Art, Industry, and Labor”
2020: “Shakespeare’s Afterlives: Literature, Philosophy, Politics, and the Visual Arts, 1623-2020”
2019: “Modern Literature and Art in Chicago, 1900-1960"
2018: “Censorship and Freedom of Expression in an Era of Religious Change: Western Europe, 1450-1789”
2017: “Exchange before Orientalism: Asia and Europe, 1500-1800,” Laura Hostetler (University of Illinois at Chicago) and Ellen McClure (University of Illinois at Chicago)
2016: “Break the Chains: Revolt, Rebellion, and Resistance in the World of Atlantic Slavery," John Donoghue (Loyola University Chicago) and Jeffrey Glover (Loyola University Chicago)
2015: “Mexico and Peru through Word and Image, 1492-1820,” Priscilla Archibald (Roosevelt University) and Delia Consentino (DePaul University)
2014: “Representing the American Civil War: Art, History and Literature, 1820-1890,” Marcy J. Dinius (DePaul University) and Margaret M. Storey (DePaul University).
2013: “Exchange before Orientalism: Asia and Europe, 1500-1800,” Laura Hostetler (University of Illinois at Chicago) and Ellen McClure (University of Illinois at Chicago)
2012: "Texts and Technologies: From Manuscripts to Early Printed Books and Beyond," David Halsted (History, University of Illinois at Chicago) and Edward Wheatley (English, Loyola University Chicago)
2011: "Constructing the Queen: Elizabeth I in Political Pamphlets, Poetry, Personal Correspondence, Portraiture, Plays, Pulp Fiction, and Motion Pictures," Regina Buccola (English and Women's Studies, Roosevelt University) and Celeste Chamberland (History, Roosevelt University)
2010: "Islands: Missionaries, Migration, and Labor in the Atlantic World and on the Pacific Rim," Eric S. Gellman (History, Roosevelt University) and Lori Pierce (American Studies, DePaul University)
2009: "New Nation, New Culture: The United States in the Age of the Early Republic, 1770-1850," Larry Howe (English, Roosevelt University) and Diane Dillon (Newberry Library)
2008: “Islam and the West: European and American Views of the Muslim World, 1450-1900,” Katrin Schultheiss (University of Illinois at Chicago) and Kim Searcy (History, Loyola)
2007: “Constructing the Queen: Elizabeth I in Correspondence, Portraiture, Plays, Poetry, Pulp Fiction, and Motion Pictures.
2006: “Exchange before Orientalism: Encounters between Asia and Europe, 1500-1800,” Ellen McClure (French, UIC) and Laura Hostetler (History, UIC).
2005: "Sites of Democracy and Difference: U.S. Popular Culture and Entertainment, 1880-1930," Ann Brigham (English and Women's and Gender Studies, Roosevelt) and Lewis Erenberg (History, Loyola)
2004: "New Nation/New Culture: American Culture in the Early Republic, 1770-1850," Douglas Bradburn (Roosevelt) and Lawrence Howe (English, Roosevelt)
2003: "Constructing the Queen," Regina Buccola (English and Women's Studies, Roosevelt) and Robert Bucholz (History, Loyola)
2002: "The Pan-Hispanic World, 1492-1825," Glen Carrnan (Spanish, DePaul) and Valentina Tikoff (History, DePaul)
2001: "Experiencing the Civil War," Robin Grey (English, UIC) and Margaret Storey (History, DePaul)
2000: "London Town and Bath Spa: Two Concepts of Eighteenth-Century Urbanity," Robert Bucholz (History, Loyola) and Caryn Chaden (English, DePaul)
1999: "Mapping Identities: Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Configurations in Modernist Representations," Pamela Caughie (English, Loyola) and Ayana Karanja (Black World Studies, Loyola)
1998: "New Nation/New Culture: American Culture in the Age of the Early Republic," John Burton (History, DePaul) and Lawrence Howe (English, Roosevelt)
1997: "Competing Landscapes in the Struggle for an American National Identity," Robin Grey (English, UIC) and David Sokol (Art History, UIC)