The Franke Lectures in the Humanities are made possible by the generosity of Richard and Barbara Franke, and are intended to present important topics in the Humanities to a wide and general audience.
The annual Franke Lectures in the Humanities present public lectures organized in conjunction with an upper-level seminar in the Humanities Program.
The spring 2026 Franke Lectures in the Humanities follow the theme of the Yale College seminar “Media and Protection,” taught by Professor Francesco Casetti and postdoctoral fellow Carolyn Bailey.
About the Seminar and Lectures: “Media and Protection” examines how an increasing number of media—from alarm systems in private homes to electronic biometric checkpoints at border crossings to AI-powered apps designed to help users in distress—offer protection against perceived threats, while paradoxically imposing limitations on how we experience the world. Protection allows us to step back from the direct experience of reality by mediating the inconvenience of everyday life.
But is the world ready to be safe? Is security guaranteed to all? And ultimately, is protection the only remedy for our fears?
The seminar addresses these questions by examining past and present forms of protective media such as bunkers, checkpoints, control rooms, artificial environments, and AI-powered platforms before moving on to a structural analysis of what protection means in our contemporary risk society.
The following public lectures bring this examination beyond the classroom.
All lectures take place on Mondays at 5:00 pm.
February 9 • HQ 136: Ranjodh Singh Dhaliwal, University of Basel
February 16 • HQ 136: Jacqueline Wernimont, Dartmouth College
February 23 • HQ 136: Marijeta Bozovic, Yale University, and Ben Peters, University of Tulsa
March 23 • HQ 136: Marta Boni, Université de Montréal
Francesco Casetti, author of Screening Fears: On Protective Media, currently teaches courses on semiotics, film and media theories, post-cinema and technical images, and media and space. He is the author of six books, translated into (among other languages) French, Spanish, Czech, and Korean; he is also co-author of two books, editor of more than ten books and special issues of journals, and author of more than sixty essays.
Carolyn Bailey is the Franke Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University. She holds a Ph.D. in Film and Visual Studies from Harvard University. Her research focuses on media history and information theory in relation to issues of political and social agency.
