The Center promotes understanding of the humanities and highlights their vital role in a vibrant, democratic society through a variety of public programs and initiatives, podcasts, and events.
Public Events
An Evening with Jane Ferguson
September 21, 2023
Join the National Humanities Center, the Hussman School of Journalism and Media, and UNC Global Affairs to enjoy an evening of conversation with award-winning journalist Jane Ferguson, reflecting on her career and sharing insights from her memoir.
Restoring Our Vitality: The Heart of the Matter and the Future of the Humanities
February–April 2023
In the wake of a global pandemic, amid festering social and political divisions, and with trust in higher education and other institutions ebbing, how might the humanities meaningfully improve life in twenty-first-century America?
A Crisis of Caring: The Humanities and Our Health
April 11–14, 2022
This interdisciplinary conference considers the ways that knowledge drawn from humanities disciplines and methodologies can help identify the symptoms and causes of our malaise while guiding us toward a healthier, more caring future.
In Our Image: Artificial Intelligence and the Humanities
April 7–22, 2021
This conference examines issues surrounding the integration of AI through a series of virtual events highlighting perspectives from leading humanists, scientists, engineers, artists, writers, and executives collectively advancing inquiry into key emerging questions.
Videos
UNC-TV’s “Conversation”: An Interview with Robert D. Newman
From the Director
National Humanities Center President and Director Robert D. Newman discusses the significance of the humanities in everyday life, the enduring importance of humanities scholarship, and the mission of the Center to advance humanities research, teaching, and public engagement.
Making Negro Literature: Literary Workspaces at the Margins of Print Culture
Public Events
Elizabeth McHenry (NHC Fellow, 1998–99) has been focusing on African American bibliographies, which emerged as experimental knowledge structures that provided ways of mapping and making sense of an emerging and rapidly evolving canon of “Negro literature.”
The Pre-History—and Likely Sequels—of the Insurrection at the U.S. Capitol
Scholar-to-Scholar Talk
The attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, was the most violent assault on democracy in modern American history. Nancy MacLean (NHC Fellow, 2008–09; 2021–22) explains how it was the product of decades of intentional cultivation.
An Evening with Seymour Hersh
Public Events
Seymour “Sy” Hersh, one of our nation’s most important investigative journalists, discusses his most recent book, Reporter: A Memoir.
Podcasts
Activism and Resistance in Contemporary Latinx Theater
Elena Machado Sáez (NHC Fellow, 2022–23)
Sáez analyzes the ways that Latinx theater in the United States depicts forms of activism and resistance while building shared archives and communities.
The Zealy Daguerreotypes: Confronting Images of Enslavement
Gregg A. Hecimovich (NHC Fellow, 2022–23)
Some of the best-known pre-Civil War images of enslaved African Americans, these photographs tell us about legacies of white supremacy and enslavement in the United States.
Discovery and Inspiration
Podcast Series
What makes scholars so passionate about the subjects they pursue? What is it like for them to make a new discovery? To answer a confounding question? And what can we learn by taking the time to ask scholars about the research they are doing?
Nerds in the Woods
Podcast Series
A series of virtual audio journeys through the intellectual woods, surveying some of the compelling topics being studied by historians and philosophers, scholars of literature, art, and other fields who come to the Center from all over the world.
Humanities Moments
Creating Stories and Memories from Tradition
The final months of the year provide a chance to reflect on what connects us to one another, to remember the shared past and envision the future.
Artificial Intelligence Technology in Hispanic Digital Literature
“It was an exciting discovery when I read Condiciones Extremas by Juan B. Gutiérrez. Beyond the outstanding quality of the content, this digital novel also impressed me with its use of innovative technology.”
A Poem Remembered, a World Created
“The moment when this poem, this memory, and this essay came together is an example of the boundless and unpredictable infectiousness that operates between the minds of people and the objects and symbols of the natural world.”
Madonna’s Mandorla
A student’s curiosity about a painting of the Madonna helped Caroline Jones realize that such symbols, so pervasive and recognizable in Western culture, are not as simple and self-contained as they may seem to some of us.
Humanities in Action
Individual Rights vs. Social Responsibilities in a Pandemic
In a pluralistic society committed to personal freedom, how can the humanities help us take action to ensure the common good?
Healing Rifts and Restoring Civility
What role do the humanities play in resolving conflicts, establishing justice, and fostering unity?
Addressing Structural Racism in the Academy
We must pay attention to those whose experiences of the academy have been shaped by encounters with racial bias if we are to have hope of correcting it.
Pursuing Justice and Preserving Open Debate
How do we balance our pursuit of a more just and equitable society with our desire to protect freedom of expression?
