2026 Nuveen Lecture delivered by Patrick Jagoda—Nonhuman Creation: Approaching AI Art through Apophatic Aesthetics, Nonconscious Experiments, and Alien Imaginaries

The University of Chicago Divinity School presents the 2026 Nuveen Lecture, delivered by Patrick Jagoda, William Rainey Harper Professor (https://english.uchicago.edu/people/patrick-jagoda) in the Departments of English Language and Literature, Cinema and Media Studies, and Obstetrics and Gynecology, and the College. Jagoda's lecture will examine contemporary art made with generative AI through two earlier lineages: apophatic aesthetics, the practice of approaching divinity through absence and the limits of expression, and the modernist, surrealist, and Dada experiments that relied on nonconscious cognition and algorithmic process. From there, he asks whether generative AI can replenish or meaningfully change contemporary art, in literature, film, and games. Rather than treating the technology as either promise or threat, Jagoda will focus on "critical making," the hands-on techniques that let critical AI studies test its questions in the humanities and arts.The Nuveen Lecture, established in 1972 by the Trustees of the Baptist Theological Union, brings a distinguished University of Chicago faculty member to the Divinity School each year. Contact: [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])