The National Humanities Center has selected thirty-two undergraduates for its National Humanities Leadership Council. Nominated by faculty from colleges and universities across the country, these students will receive professional development and mentoring from leading scholars and other humanities professionals as well as research support, opportunities for networking, and access to NHC programming and expertise.
Inspired by and undertaken in partnership with the United Kingdom’s “Being Human” Festival, this inaugural US version will include community-focused events in nine locations across the country. Each will highlight the ways that the humanities add depth and meaning to our lives, help us understand ourselves and one another, and provide context for the complex world around us.
The NHC is developing an emerging humanities toolkit with Joanna Brooks, associate vice president of faculty advancement and professor of English and comparative literature at San Diego State University, that features stories of faculty members and conversations around what counts in faculty career advancement.
At its recent meeting, the Board of Trustees of the National Humanities Center elected Daniela Bleichmar, professor of art history and history at the University of Southern California (USC), as the Center’s newest trustee. Bleichmar is also the founding director of the Levan Institute for the Humanities and director of the USC Society of Fellows in the Humanities.
After nine years at the helm of the National Humanities Center, President and Director Robert D. Newman has announced his retirement. He will step down as director in July 2024. Newman assumed leadership of the Center in 2015 and has overseen an array of initiatives expanding opportunities for humanities scholars and teachers.
The board of trustees of the National Humanities Center has elected Porter Durham, who recently retired as managing partner of Global Endowment Management, as its new chairman. He succeeds Ben Vinson III, the newly appointed president of Howard University. Joining Durham as officers of the NHC's board are entrepreneur Rishi Jaitly, vice chairman; Karen Lawrence, president of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, secretary; and Raymond Wiacek, a partner at Jones Day, who was re-elected as treasurer.
This month we highlight the research of Fellows from the class of 2023–24 whose projects consider the ways that humans and environments act upon one another, challenging people physically, culturally, and ethically to commune, negotiate, innovate, and adapt.
This month we highlight the research of Fellows from the class of 2023–24 whose projects consider the role that music plays in shaping lives. From churches in medieval Iberia to movie houses in the Soviet bloc to the streets and dancehalls of New Orleans and Nigeria, these scholars are examining music’s profound power to reveal and reimagine the world around us.
This month we highlight the research of Fellows from the class of 2023–24 whose projects focus on the voices of women, from medieval hagiographers to contemporary rappers, exploring the ways that an author’s gender influences her perspective—across genres, eras, and geographies.
How does our understanding of American history and culture change when viewed through the eyes of Black women? How should we incorporate Black women’s voices in curriculums to ensure students can benefit from those perspectives? These and related questions will be the focus of (re)Centering the Narrative: Black Women’s Voices of the 19th and 20th Centuries which will be held July 10–14, 2023 at the National Humanities Center.