For the 2020-21 season at the DePaul Humanities Center (DHC) we have pivoted to meet the demands of a new and newly complicated world. As we investigate “The Year of Communicability” we realize that we will have no choice at times but to follow the suit of most other institutions, offering the occasional online event (though, we hope, with special additions and surprising reimaginings of the technology that will make our virtual events distinctive). However, we are also committed to exploring ways to bring us together that employ non-virtual technology.
Each event in the “My Brilliant Pen Pal” series will unfold across several weeks, with correspondences going back and forth between a special guest—the brilliant pen pal—and audience members, providing a unique experience unavailable anywhere, anyhow, or anywhen else.
At a time in which the U.S. Postal Service is in a crisis, a time in which email has all but replaced postal mail, a time in which the remaining mail we do receive all too often includes only bills or bad news, we wish to celebrate a moment when checking the mailbox could be exciting and fun. We wish to reinvigorate the pleasure and excitement of having a pen pal. We wish to put aside the virtual and marvel at the wonders of the physical: the stationery, the rhythm of the correspondence, the stamps, the words and thoughts of a pen pal arriving across countless miles to speak to you.