The Chicago Critics Circles

Chicago Critics Circles position criticism as a vital cultural practice—one that not only reflects Black progress, but actively participates in shaping it. As the final gathering of the Spotlight Reading Series, this program offers a space to pause, reflect, and collectively ask:  What does it mean to inherit, interpret, and carry forward a century of Black cultural life?

Part I: Black Authorship

Saturday, August 22, 2026 | Green Line Performing Arts Center | 2:00pm
Free (Reservations Recommended)

This conversation centers Black publications as sites of cultural production, political imagination, and narrative control. Featuring a crucial network of local critics, writers, and cultural workers dedicated to archiving, amplifying, and shaping the documentation and interpretation of Black life, this discussion examines the role of self-determination and narrative sovereignty in A Century of Black Progress.

Part II: Claiming Space

Saturday, August 22, 2026 | Green Line Performing Arts Center | 4:00pm
Free (Reservations Recommended)

This conversation offers a deep, multi-layered exploration of the important role that both physical and social spaces play in the cultivation, preservation, and evolution of Black cultural life. Join us as we critically consider the lifecycle of these environments, how space is intentionally created out of necessity, fiercely held against the pressures of displacement and gentrification, tragically lost to systemic disinvestment, imaginatively reclaimed by new generations, and an essential pillar of cultural survival.

About the Partners

Arts + Public Life (APL), an initiative of the University of Chicago, is a dynamic neighborhood platform for arts and culture based in Washington Park. Operating out of a vibrant cluster of spaces along the Garfield Boulevard “Arts Block”, including  the Arts Incubator and the Green Line Performing Arts Center, the initiative intentionally centers people of color by providing paid artist residencies, design and theater apprenticeships for local youth, creative business accelerators, and free, artist-led public programming.

The Chicago Critic’s Table is a biennial, eight-month paid incubator hosted by Arts + Public Life at the University of Chicago and funded by the Mellon Foundation. Designed for emerging cultural critics, the program breaks down traditional silos to expand who gets to be a critic and what is considered “worthy” of criticism, with a deep emphasis on supporting South Side arts and culture.

Photo of Kamilah Rashied, Meida Teresa McNeal, Lisa Lynelle Moore, Aaron Mays, and Merrina Millsapp by Ollie Photography.

Presented in partnership with