The 2024-2025 Altman Symposium invites the entire Miami University community to explore the humanities futures, past and present.  Timed to coincide with Provost Elizabeth Mullenix’s two-year “Humanities Futures Initiative,” the program will bring together faculty, students, distinguished visitors, and the public to consider the future of the liberal arts in modern democratic society and our own university. How has the idea of the humanities evolved from its ancient scholarly roots through Renaissance humanism, the rise of universities, the nationalisms of the twentieth century, the spread of critical theory, and the global turn? What can we learn from Miami’s own history? How should we respond to the pressures of the present? And can we chart a future in which Miami serves as a model for the future of the liberal arts and humanities everywhere?