TAFT&

Hard to Swallow, a screening and Q&A with Tunde Wey & Theo Schear 

Friday, March 27, 7–9pm | Esquire Theater, 320 Ludlow Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45220 | Register

Directed by Tunde Wey & Theo Schear, Hard to Swallow (2025) is an essayistic and reflexive, docuseries that recounts Wey’s explosive career while building a critique of the social structures that disenfranchise Black peoples globally. Traveling across the United States, Tunde investigates the ways food culture is shaped by race and class. Through unsparing interviews, poetic narration, and reflections on the filmmaking process, Tunde calls out individuals, systems and himself, prompting viewers to rethink their own position in system inequality. Official Selection at the 2024 SeriesFest and 2024 Cannes Series: Docuseries Competition.

Presented in partnership with the Niehoff Center for Film & Media Studies, The Devou Good Foundation, Great Meadows Foundation, and The Carnegies as part of Altered States: (A) Critical Response, the inaugural symposium dedicated to advancing critical discourse around contemporary art. 

2026 TAFT 
PROFESSOR LECTURE

Let's Talk About Guilt

Heidi Maibom and Charlie Kurth
Thursday, April 9, 4–5pm | Downtown Main Library, 3 South Room E, 800 Vine St | Register

Guilt tends to be loved or loathed. Those who love it view the emotion as moral ballast: guilt helps us see that we’ve done something wrong and the awful feeling it brings is not just penance, but a goad for us to make amends. Loathers see guilt as an anchor that weights us down. Not only can we be plagued by guilt when we have done nothing wrong—as we see in survivor guilt or the guilt we feel after harming others in a freak car accident—but guilt also too often leads us to self-loathing and depression. What, then, are we to make of guilt? In her inaugural Taft Distinguished Professor lecture, Heidi Maibom is joined by Charlie Kurth to discuss their book, Good Guilt, Bad Guilt: A Philosophical Guide to a Complicated Emotion.

2026 TAFT 
PROFESSOR LECTURE

What We Know So Far: The Life & Legacy of Charles McMicken

Anne Steinert and the 2026 McMicken Research Cohort
Tuesday, April 21, 1–2:30pm | Taft Research Center | Register

How should the University of Cincinnati best tell the story of our founding donor Charles McMicken? Join 2025–27 Taft Professor of Social Justice Anne Delano Steinert and 2026 McMicken Research Cohort 11 undergraduates dedicating a year to exploring McMicken’s life and legacy, as they share their findings to date.