ArtsPass Exclusive: Oak Woods Cemetery Tour and Sketching with Prof. Pranathi Diwakar and Prof. Na’ama Rokem
Open to UChicago Students Only
Saturday, May 9th, 2026 from 9:45am to 12:30pm.
Meet at Café Logan in the Logan Center for the Arts, 915 East 60th Street, 60637
ArtsPass Exclusive: Free – Use the Link above to RSVP
Co-presented by Chicago Studies and the Logan Center for the Arts.
Join us for a UChicago ArtsPass Exclusive Tour and sketching session at Oak Woods Cemetery, with Prof. Pranathi Diwakar, Postdoctoral Researcher and Instructor in the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity and Prof. Na’ama Rokem, Associate Professor, Comparative Literature & MES; Chair, Department of Comparative Literature on Saturday, May 9th as part of our Spring ArtsPass Exclusives program.
During this walking tour and sketching session to the historic Oak Woods Cemetery in Woodlawn, we will explore this important South Side cemetery that reflects the diverse, and often conflicting, histories of the city of Chicago. With notable permanent residents including noted Civil Rights leader Ida B. Wells, former Chicago mayor Harold Washington, and musicians like Thomas A. Dorsey, the Staples family, Eddie Harris, and Albertina Walker, the cemetery presents a who’s who of Chicago’s multifarious legacies in politics, activism, music, science, sports, and entertainment. It also reflects the checkered histories of Chicago’s past, housing the contentious Confederate Monument commemorating Confederate Soldiers, as well as the Soldier’s Memorial for Union soldiers, and “Lincoln the Orator.” With the cemetery’s own history of anti-Black practices and the historic 1963 protests that forced the cemetery to desegregate burial practices, this walking tour will uncover some of the important political moments that indexed social and political transformations in Chicago’s South Side. We will provide sketchbooks for participants to observe and sketch the lush “rural cemetery” landscape and architectural details of Oak Woods Cemetery.
Coffee and pastries will be provided at Cafe Logan prior to commencing the 30-minute walk to Oak Woods Cemetery. The whole event is expected to last approximately 2.5 hours including the walk back to the Logan Center.
To find out more about ongoing research, teaching, and public programming initiatives as part of the University of Chicago’s Oak Woods Cemetery Project, please visit their website.
Schedule:
9:45 am – Welcome, Coffee and Pastries at Café Logan
10 am – Walk to Oak Woods Cemetery
10:30 am – Guided Tour and Sketching at Oak Woods Cemetery
Noon – Tour ends and walk back to campus
12:30 pm - Event Ends
To learn more about the UChicago ArtsPass program, visit artspass.uchicago.edu
To learn more about Chicago Studies, click here.
A program of the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, the UChicago ArtsPass is supported by a generous gift from Anne Van Wart and Michael A. Keable, AB’88, MBA’96. Additional support is provided by the Robert M. Rudolph Arts Endowment, the University of Chicago Women’s Board, the College, Michael Barin, AB’04, Bharath Dwarakanath Nath, AB’00, and Kara Braciale, AB’98 and the generosity of other alumni, friends, and partnering cultural institutions.