CHICAGO — The best way to explain the latest lineup for the Chicago Humanities Festival is to imagine yourself at a house party and some of these people you know and many you don’t know, but, invariably, every conversation, every one, proves interesting. On May 17, for instance, should you just hang around the main concert hall in Northwestern University’s music building all day, you’ll run into filmmaker John Waters (who is turning 80 next month!), journalist Walter Isaacson (who will do a deep dive into the meaning of “We hold these truths to be self-evident”) and the classics professor Mary Beard (who should get you prepped for Christopher Nolan’s take on “The Odyssey,” coming in July).

That’s just one day.

You never feel backed into a corner at this party.

Right around now the next six months of festival season are being unveiled — Ravinia Festival came last week, and Lollapalooza also dropped Tuesday, and Riot Fest will be here shortly, and the free Millennium Park concert schedule arrives later this spring — but those are for Chicagoans who want to stand body to body in gigantic fields and sweat.

The 2026 spring edition of the Humanities Festival — which officially begins March 24 with Melissa Auf der Maur, the former bassist of the Smashing Pumpkins and Hole, talking about her juicy new tell-all, “Even the Good Girls Will Cry: A ‘90s Rock Memoir” — is better for those who would prefer to cancel brunch plans, listen to someone insightful talk for an hour and then get to bed by 9:30 p.m. (Which is probably a lot of us, right?) You don’t even have to commit to a long weekend.

Evanston Day, on May 17, is as eclectic as one of those old Pitchfork Festival lineups. It brings Chicago chef Curtis Duffy discussing his memoir (“Fireproof”), and Illinois congresswoman Lauren Underwood, and Chicago-based sci-fi author Veronica Roth (“Divergent”), and three of the great-nieces of Frida Kahlo, and Dr. Zeke Emanuel — yes, of that Emanuel family — to talk about misinformation and wellness influencers.

Lakeview Day, on May 9, offers genius cartoonist (and former Evanstonian) Lynda Barry; and critical-race-theory pioneer Kimberle Crenshaw; and New Yorker essayist Jelani Cobb; and Padma Lakshmi (who was the last compelling thing about “Top Chef”); and Gregory Dreicer, the innovative thinker on built and social environments. Plus David Axelrod, on the left, will talk to the New York Times’ David French, on the right, about democratic norms.

Bridgeport Day, on April 18, is maybe the most eclectic of the three. It will see Ibram X. Kendi discussing the great-replacement theory with Mayor Brandon Johnson; and cartoonist Art Spiegelman; and the journalists of NPR’s Planet Money (which has deep roots in Chicago); and the Chicago pianist Charles Joseph Smith; and author Yann Martel (“Life of Pi”); and travel writer Rick Steves (who could tell you what European travel is like for Americans right now); and activist and typographer Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. (who started in Chicago); and a chat on housing and justice with local artists Tonika Lewis Johnson and Amanda Williams talking to historian (and former Chicagoan) Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.

Running throughout this festival, like a host threading a theme, will be Peter Sagal of “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me,” leading a series of conversations on the working (and the badly oiled) mechanics of the United States Constitution, from our roiling crisis of American democracy to the legacy of the Warren Court to what we assume about its guarantees. Party guests include Akhil Reed Amar (an expert on the theory of originalism), the New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie, legal scholar Kate Shaw and Jess Bravin, who has covered the Supreme Court for the Wall Street Journal for the past 20 years.

That’s not everyone attending.

Shermann Dilla Thomas will give two of his Bridgeport bus tours on April 18; and Will Quam, of Brick of Chicago, will lead walking tours in both Bridgeport and Lakeview, telling you more than you ever expected to know about the variety of bricks in the city.

Dave Eggers returns to Illinois (he grew up in Lake Forest) on June 10, and the bestselling speculative novelist R.F. Kuang arrives April 11, and Ann Patchett closes out the spring lineup at the Athenaeum Center on June 28. And even that’s not everyone.

But by the time you get their voices out of your head, it’ll be fall.

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