The Franke Lectures in the Humanities take place in conjunction with an upper-level seminar in the Humanities Program. The Franke Lectures take important conversations in the humanities beyond the classroom with a series of public lectures. Thanks to the generosity of Richard and Barbara Franke, the Franke Lectures in the Humanities bring distinguished scholars to Yale University, where they present vital work in the humanities to a wide and general audience.
The Spring 2025 Franke Lectures in the Humanities will follow the theme of the Yale College seminar “Architecture of Illness,” taught by Professor Fatima Naqvi and postdoctoral fellow Michelle Rada.
Join distinguished scholars in the medical and health humanities as they explore how the rise of the hospital and clinical spaces has shaped people’s experiences of illness from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. These public lectures will appeal to those interested in biopolitics, the history of medicine, concepts of care, hospital design and architecture, contagion, and ideas about health and sickness.
Michelle Rada, the inaugural Franke Postdoctoral Fellow, is a scholar and editor with research interests in psychoanalysis, literary and visual modernism, feminism, media studies, and critical theory. She holds a Ph.D. in English from Brown University (2024). Her current book manuscript threads together innovations in modernist literature, architecture, and design with the contemporaneous rise of the psychoanalytic clinic.