Led by CWRU’s Baker-Nord Institute for the Humanities, the festival examines some of society’s greatest questions through a series of public events in the spring
What do we hunger for in our personal and civic lives? How does longing shape the human psyche? How will AI and emerging technologies impact our collective appetites for knowledge?
These are just a few of the questions being explored during the 2025 Cleveland Humanities Festival on the theme “Appetite.”
Presented by Case Western Reserve University’s Baker-Nord Institute for the Humanities, the festival is in its 10th year of convening Northeast Ohio’s arts, cultural and educational institutions to celebrate humanistic inquiry.
“Our theme for our 10th season, ‘Appetite,’ feels universal,” said Michele Tracy Berger, director of the Baker-Nord Institute for the Humanities and the Eric and Jane Nord Family Professor at CWRU’s College of Arts and Sciences. “Everyone understands the physical sensation of hunger, but the word also opens up deeper conversations about our emotions and desires. As always, the festival offers our community a cornucopia of opportunities to connect with new people, places and ideas across Cleveland.”
The 2025 lineup is already underway, with many more events on the horizon. Through May 28, a series of theatrical performances, film screenings, interactive workshops and scholarly discussions will cover topics ranging from immigrant foodways and AI innovations in gastronomy to ethical debates around food insecurity and the role of hunger in literature.
Most of the programs are free, although some require online registration. Browse the full list of events for the 2025 Cleveland Humanities Festival, “Appetite.”
Books at the Market
April 5 | 10 a.m.–4 p.m. | West Side Market
The Rust Belt Humanities Lab, Cleveland Public Library and Literary Cleveland, along with local partners, are hosting Books at the Market. Pop-up vendors at West Side Market will offer books—fiction and non-fiction—as well as poetry, comics and more, alongside Cleveland’s favorite butchers, bakers and fishmongers. At 1 p.m., National Book Award winner Andrew Aydin (co-author of March with John Lewis) will be signing books.
Literary Cleveland: Hungry Heart
April 5 | 2 p.m. | West Side Market
This event features a free reading of original creative works by local authors on the theme of appetite. As Mary Oliver wrote, “We all have a hungry heart.” There is a desire, a drive in all of us that goes beyond our appetite for perogies or paczkis. What can food and drink reveal about deeper hunger and thirst? What does factory farming, low-wage restaurant work, food deserts, or food waste reveal about the impact of our cultural cravings? The poems, monologues and short dramatic pieces that make up this performance reflect on the people, places, systems, relationships and ambitions that make Cleveland a city of appetites.
Food, Appetite, and Our Sense of Place: From Wild Rice to Chicken Nuggets to Blue Cheese Made with AI
April 9 | 4:30 p.m. | Tinkham Veale University Center, Ballroom A
With industrial advances in food production, is it possible we have forgotten how food, as nature intended it, is supposed to taste? The chemical modifications of natural ingredients and our increasingly desensitized taste buds have contributed to overconsumption of tasty yet low-nutrient, calorie-dense foods. And with cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) technologies on the horizon, we are bound to experience even more change. Our panelists will reflect on the recent changes in human taste and appetite, and what it means to consume foods in one’s bioregion. Participants will be invited to sample foods that are native to the Great Lakes and AI-generated plant-based cheese.
Film Screening and Discussion: Breaking Bread Together: Immigrant Foodways and their Contribution to our Community
April 16 | 5:30 p.m. | Cleveland State University
The virtual reality film Breaking Bread brings viewers into the homes of four refugee families in Cleveland as they share traditional meals and their stories of resettlement. The short film Fresh Start follows a collective of refugee and immigrant farmers in rural New Hampshire as they rebuild their lives through the New American Sustainable Agriculture Project. There will be a discussion after the films, followed by a reception where guests can enjoy authentic Congolese dishes.
Film Series: Appetite and Its Others
April 18–20 | Cinematheque
A striving of the mind as much as of the body, appetite is the driving force of our personal and collective lives. Due to its relative and socially mediated nature, it is always entangled with its opposites, such as disgust, repulsion and revolt. What we hunger for is never independently determined; the shape of our desire is formed through the desires of others and how we associate with them. The three films in this series—The Stuff, Hunger, and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover—look at the dynamic relationship between appetite (in its various forms, such as consumerist desire, greed and political conviction) and its others (addiction, manipulation, excess, starvation.)
Explore the Ethical, Legal and Societal Implications of Existing and Emerging Technologies
April 23 | Tinkham Veale University Center
Join the Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence for the launch of the ELSI Think Tank as we explore the ethical, legal and societal implications (ELSI) of existing and emerging technologies.
About the Cleveland Humanities Festival
Through hundreds of events over its first decade, the Cleveland Humanities Festival has grown into a widely collaborative series celebrating the great cultural institutions of Cleveland and Northeast Ohio.
The festival is led by the Baker-Nord Institute for the Humanities at Case Western Reserve University. Founded in 1996 with a gift from Eric and Jane Nord, the institute supports research and creative endeavors, and hosts humanities events around the region. A recent commitment of $4 million from The Eric & Jane Nord Family Fund will elevate the impact of the institute by expanding multidisciplinary research and amplifying the arts and humanities.
The 2025 festival is co-sponsored by:
- CWRU Department of Art History and Art
- Center for Refugee and Immigrant Success at Cleveland State University
- Cinematheque at Cleveland Institute for Art
- Cleveland History Center
- Cleveland Institute of Art
- 49th Cleveland International Film Festival
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- The Cleveland Orchestra
- Cleveland State University School of Film and Media Arts
- Cleveland Psychoanalytic Center
- Cleveland Public Library
- Cuyahoga County Public Library
- Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence
- Lake Erie Ink
- Literary Cleveland
- Mastery School of Hawken
- Rocky River Public Library
- The Sculpture Center
- Ursuline College