This year we celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Center for the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Our mission is to foster cross-disciplinary critical engagement with current and historical events and to debate the meaning, value, and function of our culture in all of its manifestations.
We begin our anniversary year having just moved into beautiful new offices in the University Club. This major move brings the Center for the Humanities and Institute for Research in the Humanities under one roof, and is part of a multifaceted “Year of the Humanities,” which will showcase the best of humanistic inquiry and advocate for the importance of the humanities today. Martha Nussbaum and Elaine Pagels will deliver Chancellor’s Lectures framing the year’s activities, and in February, we will host a panel discussion on “The Humanities in the 21st Century,” with special guests including Jim Leach, chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Our annual “Humanities Without Boundaries” lecture series welcomes to Madison some of the most prominent writers and thinkers working in the world today. Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food, the first book selected in the Go Big Read! program, will launch the series with a lecture at the Kohl Center. Other speakers include Evelyn Fox Keller, Dave Eggers, Catherine Malabou, and Paola Antonelli. Novelist Chris Abani will be the keynote speaker at our Great World Texts conference, which will bring to campus students and teachers from across Wisconsin to study Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart.
The “What is Human?” Initiative, made possible by the Holtz Fund, continues to promote deep interdisciplinarity by connecting scientists and humanists. In October, we will host philosopher Ian Hacking and the founders of LabStudio Jenny Sabin and Peter Lloyd Jones, among many others as part of a three-day conference focused on the making of the human mind, brain, and body.
I am very pleased to announce that the Mellon Foundation has awarded the Center for the Humanities a $125,000 grant to continue our interdisciplinary workshops in the humanities. The workshops, which involve both faculty and students, are one of our most exciting programs, and have led to conferences, books, and teaching innovations.
This fall we also will launch First Book, a new program that will assist junior faculty in the humanities and interpretive social sciences to complete their first scholarly monographs. First Book is part of a portfolio of projects, including our Faculty Development Seminars and “Focus on the Humanities” faculty lecture series, aimed at supporting and recognizing UW faculty at all stages of their careers.
As our 2009-10 program shows, the Center for the Humanities is a center of creative inquiry and intellectual life, where world-class scholars from across the campus and around the world present cutting-edge research; where faculty and students collaborate outside of the classroom; where we look beyond the borders of the University to the city, state, and world; and where all members of the University and the broader community are invited to join the conversation.
Please attend our superb events, visit our website, add your name to our mailing list, and also consider supporting the Center as we continue to initiate bold cross-disciplinary dialogues that enrich every level of campus life.
Yours,
Sara Guyer
Director, Center for the Humanities
Associate Professor of English, Comparative Literature, and Jewish Studies
University of Wisconsin-Madison
