National Humanities Center
Encyclopedia
The National Humanities Center (NHC) is an independent institute for advanced study in the humanities
. It is the only major independent institute for advanced study in all fields of the humanities in the United States. The NHC operates as a privately incorporated nonprofit and is not part of any university. The center was planned under the auspices of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
, which saw a need for substantial support for academic research in the humanities, and began operations in 1978.
The National Humanities Center is located in the Research Triangle Park
of North Carolina
a research and industrial park in Durham County
. It is near the campuses of Duke University
, North Carolina State University
, and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In addition to the Center maintaining its own library, fellows have library privileges at these three universities.
Although the Center is unique, it may be compared with other institutes of advanced study, such as the Institute for Advanced Study
in Princeton, New Jersey, Harvard's Radcliffe Institute or Germany's Max Planck Institutes and the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin. It is a member of the group Some Institutes for Advanced Study
.
Fellowship Program – Each year, the Center admits approximately forty Fellows, from a broad range of disciplines and institutions. They are selected based on the strength of their scholarship and projects. The Center prides itself on the rigor and fairness of its application process, and actively seeks to support scholars whose work is exceptional, regardless of their institutional affiliation. Typically more than four hundred applications for fellowships are received by the center each year. A few senior scholars are invited to assume fellowships by the Center's trustees. Scholars in the humanities from any nation are welcome to apply. The National Humanities Center has no permanent fellows or faculty.
NHC Fellows are given substantial support in order to pursue their individual research and writing projects. Interdisciplinary seminars provide Fellows the opportunity to share insights and criticism. Since 1978, the Center has welcomed over 1,200 Fellows who have published more than 1,300 books. Many of these studies have proven to be influential in their fields and have been recognized by their peers for the quality of their scholarship and writing.
Selected Prizes Won by National Humanities Center Fellows
In 2010-2011 the Center supported scholarly projects on topics ranging from intellectual models in the Bible
to anthropometric history
and a wide range of projects in the fields of anthropology, African studies, African-American studies, art history, Asian studies, classics, comparative literature, English literature, environmental studies, ethnomusicology, French, German, history, Islamic studies, Judaic studies, law, musicology, philosophy and sociology.
Education Programs – The National Humanities Center is distinctive among centers for advanced study in its commitment to linking scholarship to improved teaching. Model programs in American Studies developed at the Center provide teachers with new materials and instructional strategies to make them more effective in the classroom and rekindle their enthusiasm for the subjects they teach.
The NHC offers live, on-line workshops and intensive summer institutes for high school teachers and liberal arts college faculty that allow them to work with alumni Fellows and other leading scholars on topics drawn from American art, history and literature. Workshops and institutes are also used to assemble, discuss and share extensive archives of primary source materials – arranged in “toolboxes” and accompanied with discussion questions and instructional planning guides for easy classroom use. The center makes these toolboxes available free of charge on its Web site and trains teachers to use them in their home school districts across the United States.
Each year hundreds of thousands of teachers and students visit TeacherServe®, the Center's online interactive curriculum enrichment service. TeacherServe supplements the seminar toolboxes with secondary sources - essays by leading scholars, instructional activities, and links to online resources - that enrich their own understanding of topics and suggest approaches for more effective classroom teaching.
Outreach – The National Humanities Center hosts a variety of public events, both to stimulate public awareness for humanities scholarship and to address special topics. In recent years, events have included appearances by A. S. Byatt
, Oliver Sacks
, Michael Pollan
, Wole Soyinka
, Raymond Tallis
, and E. O. Wilson
.
From 2006-09, the NHC sponsored an initiative exploring emerging issues in human self-understanding. This initiative, which involved fellowships, guest lectures, faculty seminars, and three annual conferences on “The Human and The Humanities” brought leading scientists from disciplines as diverse as neurolinguistics, primatology and information technology together with literary critics, historians and philosophers in dialogue about how their research interests and recent discoveries were both interconnected and overlapping. This initiative led to the creation of a new Web site, OnTheHuman.org, where dialogue continues, and an archive is being compiled of resources and research related to the topic.
In 2010, the National Humanities Center hosted an academic conference on "The State and Stakes of Literary Study" bringing together leading figures from the study of literature to discuss changes in the field, emerging directions, and the contributions that are being made by literary scholars, not only in the education of students but in public understanding of contemporary issues.
, Charles Frankel
(first director of the Center), Robert F. Goheen
, Steven Marcus
, Henry Nash Smith
, Gregory Vlastos
and John Voss, as well as luminaries such as historian John Hope Franklin
and philanthropists Archie K. Davis and Stephen H. Weiss
.
Since 1978, the center has been led by five directors: Charles Frankel
, William Bennett
, Charles Blitzer, Robert Connor and current director Geoffrey G. Harpham.
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
. It is the only major independent institute for advanced study in all fields of the humanities in the United States. The NHC operates as a privately incorporated nonprofit and is not part of any university. The center was planned under the auspices of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
, which saw a need for substantial support for academic research in the humanities, and began operations in 1978.
The National Humanities Center is located in the Research Triangle Park
Research Triangle Park
The Research Triangle Park is a research park in the United States. It is located near Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill, in the Research Triangle region of North Carolina...
of North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
a research and industrial park in Durham County
Durham County
Durham County may refer to:*Durham County, North Carolina*Durham County, Ontario*Durham County, New South Wales*Durham County, Western Australia*Durham County -See also:*County Durham, a ceremonial county in North East England...
. It is near the campuses of Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
, North Carolina State University
North Carolina State University
North Carolina State University at Raleigh is a public, coeducational, extensive research university located in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Commonly known as NC State, the university is part of the University of North Carolina system and is a land, sea, and space grant institution...
, and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In addition to the Center maintaining its own library, fellows have library privileges at these three universities.
Although the Center is unique, it may be compared with other institutes of advanced study, such as the Institute for Advanced Study
Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study, located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, is an independent postgraduate center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It was founded in 1930 by Abraham Flexner...
in Princeton, New Jersey, Harvard's Radcliffe Institute or Germany's Max Planck Institutes and the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin. It is a member of the group Some Institutes for Advanced Study
Some Institutes for Advanced Study
The Some Institutes for Advanced Study consortium organizes ten "institutes for advanced study" founded on the same principles as the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, which is also one of the members.- Overview :...
.
Programs
The National Humanities Center offers dedicated programs in support of humanities scholarship and teaching as well as a regular schedule of public events, conferences and interactive initiatives to engage the public in special topics and emerging issues.Fellowship Program – Each year, the Center admits approximately forty Fellows, from a broad range of disciplines and institutions. They are selected based on the strength of their scholarship and projects. The Center prides itself on the rigor and fairness of its application process, and actively seeks to support scholars whose work is exceptional, regardless of their institutional affiliation. Typically more than four hundred applications for fellowships are received by the center each year. A few senior scholars are invited to assume fellowships by the Center's trustees. Scholars in the humanities from any nation are welcome to apply. The National Humanities Center has no permanent fellows or faculty.
NHC Fellows are given substantial support in order to pursue their individual research and writing projects. Interdisciplinary seminars provide Fellows the opportunity to share insights and criticism. Since 1978, the Center has welcomed over 1,200 Fellows who have published more than 1,300 books. Many of these studies have proven to be influential in their fields and have been recognized by their peers for the quality of their scholarship and writing.
Selected Prizes Won by National Humanities Center Fellows
- The Albert J. Beveridge Award of the American Historical AssociationAmerican Historical AssociationThe American Historical Association is the oldest and largest society of historians and professors of history in the United States. Founded in 1884, the association promotes historical studies, the teaching of history, and the preservation of and access to historical materials...
- The American Academy of ReligionAmerican Academy of ReligionThe American Academy of Religion is the world's largest association of scholars in the field of religious studies and related topics. It is a nonprofit member association,...
Book Award - The Bancroft PrizeBancroft PrizeThe Bancroft Prize is awarded each year by the trustees of Columbia University for books about diplomacy or the history of the Americas. It was established in 1948 by a bequest from Frederic Bancroft...
- The British Council Prize in the Humanities
- The Haskins Medal of the Medieval Academy of AmericaMedieval Academy of AmericaThe Medieval Academy of America is the largest organization in the United States promoting excellence in the field of medieval studies. It was founded in 1925 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts...
- The Herskovits Award of the African Studies AssociationAfrican Studies AssociationThe African Studies Association is an association of scholars and professionals in the United States and Canada with an interest in the continent of Africa. Started in 1957, the ASA is the leading organization of African Studies in North America. The associations headquarters are Rutgers...
- History Book ClubBook of the Month ClubThe Book of the Month Club is a United States mail-order book sales club that offers a new book each month to customers.The Book of the Month Club is part of a larger company that runs many book clubs in the United States and Canada. It was formerly the flagship club of Book-of-the-Month Club, Inc...
Main Selection - The Louis Gottschalk Prize of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century StudiesAmerican Society for Eighteenth-Century StudiesThe American Society for 18th-century Studies is an interdisciplinary group, established in 1969, dedicated to the advancement of scholarship in all aspects of the period from the later 17th through the early 19th centuries...
- The Merle Curti Award of the Organization of American HistoriansOrganization of American HistoriansThe Organization of American Historians , formerly known as the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, is the largest professional society dedicated to the teaching and study of American history. OAH's members in the U.S...
- The National Book AwardNational Book AwardThe National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
- Phi Beta KappaPhi Beta Kappa SocietyThe Phi Beta Kappa Society is an academic honor society. Its mission is to "celebrate and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences"; and induct "the most outstanding students of arts and sciences at America’s leading colleges and universities." Founded at The College of William and...
Christian Glauss Award - The Philip Schaff Prize of the American Society of Church HistoryAmerican Society of Church HistoryThe American Society of Church History was founded in 1888 with the disciplines of Christian denominational and ecclesiastical history as its focus. Today the society's interests include the broad range of the critical scholarly perspectives, as applied to the history of Christianity and its...
- The Prix du Rayonnement de la langue et de la littérature françaises of the Académie FrançaiseAcadémie françaiseL'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...
- The Pulitzer Prize
- The Ralph Bunche Award of the American Political Science AssociationAmerican Political Science AssociationThe American Political Science Association is a professional association of political science students and scholars in the United States. Founded in 1903, it publishes three academic journals...
- The Robert F. Kennedy Prize
- The James Russell Lowell Prize of the Modern Language AssociationModern Language AssociationThe Modern Language Association of America is the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature...
In 2010-2011 the Center supported scholarly projects on topics ranging from intellectual models in the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
to anthropometric history
Anthropometric history
Anthropometric history is a term coined in 1989 by John Komlos to refer to the study of the history of human height, focusing on explaining secular trends, cycles of various lengths and cross sectional patterns by changes in the socio-economic and epidemiological environment.-Development of the...
and a wide range of projects in the fields of anthropology, African studies, African-American studies, art history, Asian studies, classics, comparative literature, English literature, environmental studies, ethnomusicology, French, German, history, Islamic studies, Judaic studies, law, musicology, philosophy and sociology.
Education Programs – The National Humanities Center is distinctive among centers for advanced study in its commitment to linking scholarship to improved teaching. Model programs in American Studies developed at the Center provide teachers with new materials and instructional strategies to make them more effective in the classroom and rekindle their enthusiasm for the subjects they teach.
The NHC offers live, on-line workshops and intensive summer institutes for high school teachers and liberal arts college faculty that allow them to work with alumni Fellows and other leading scholars on topics drawn from American art, history and literature. Workshops and institutes are also used to assemble, discuss and share extensive archives of primary source materials – arranged in “toolboxes” and accompanied with discussion questions and instructional planning guides for easy classroom use. The center makes these toolboxes available free of charge on its Web site and trains teachers to use them in their home school districts across the United States.
Each year hundreds of thousands of teachers and students visit TeacherServe®, the Center's online interactive curriculum enrichment service. TeacherServe supplements the seminar toolboxes with secondary sources - essays by leading scholars, instructional activities, and links to online resources - that enrich their own understanding of topics and suggest approaches for more effective classroom teaching.
Outreach – The National Humanities Center hosts a variety of public events, both to stimulate public awareness for humanities scholarship and to address special topics. In recent years, events have included appearances by A. S. Byatt
A. S. Byatt
Dame Antonia Susan Duffy, DBE is an English novelist, poet and Booker Prize winner...
, Oliver Sacks
Oliver Sacks
Oliver Wolf Sacks, CBE , is a British neurologist and psychologist residing in New York City. He is a professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University, where he also holds the position of Columbia Artist...
, Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan is an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. A 2006 New York Times book review describes him as a "liberal foodie intellectual."...
, Wole Soyinka
Wole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka is a Nigerian writer, poet and playwright. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, where he was recognised as a man "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence", and became the first African in Africa and...
, Raymond Tallis
Raymond Tallis
Raymond Tallis F.Med.Sci., F.R.C.P., F.R.S.A. is a British philosopher, humanist, poet, novelist, cultural critic and retired medical doctor.-Medical career:...
, and E. O. Wilson
E. O. Wilson
Edward Osborne Wilson is an American biologist, researcher , theorist , naturalist and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants....
.
From 2006-09, the NHC sponsored an initiative exploring emerging issues in human self-understanding. This initiative, which involved fellowships, guest lectures, faculty seminars, and three annual conferences on “The Human and The Humanities” brought leading scientists from disciplines as diverse as neurolinguistics, primatology and information technology together with literary critics, historians and philosophers in dialogue about how their research interests and recent discoveries were both interconnected and overlapping. This initiative led to the creation of a new Web site, OnTheHuman.org, where dialogue continues, and an archive is being compiled of resources and research related to the topic.
In 2010, the National Humanities Center hosted an academic conference on "The State and Stakes of Literary Study" bringing together leading figures from the study of literature to discuss changes in the field, emerging directions, and the contributions that are being made by literary scholars, not only in the education of students but in public understanding of contemporary issues.
Leadership
National Humanities Center Fellows and trustees have included many of the leading figures in American scholarship in the past thirty years. Among those most closely associated with the Center are its founders, Meyer Abrams, Morton Bloomfield, Frederick BurkhardtFrederick Burkhardt
Professor Frederick Burkhardt was for many years the President Emeritus of the American Council of Learned Societies . His decades of work on The Correspondence of Charles Darwin constituted a signal example of dedication to a demanding and ambitious scholarly enterprise. He was an Honorary Fellow...
, Charles Frankel
Charles Frankel
Charles Frankel was an American philosopher.Born in to a Jewish family in New York City, he was the son of Abraham Philip and Estelle Edith Frankel. He married Helen Beatrice Lehman on August 17, 1941. Together they had two children, Susan and Carl.Frankel was educated at Columbia, Charles...
(first director of the Center), Robert F. Goheen
Robert F. Goheen
Robert Francis Goheen was an American academic, president of Princeton University and United States Ambassador to India.-Biography:...
, Steven Marcus
Steven Marcus
Steven Marcus is an American academic and literary critic. He is George Delacorte Professor Emeritus in the Humanities at Columbia University.One of the founders of the National Humanities Center, he is a former Fellow and a current Trustee....
, Henry Nash Smith
Henry Nash Smith
Henry Nash Smith was an American culture and literature researcher. He was co-founder of the academic discipline "American studies"...
, Gregory Vlastos
Gregory Vlastos
Gregory Vlastos was a scholar of ancient philosophy, and author of several works on Plato and Socrates. He was also a Christian and has written on Christian faith as well.-Life and works:...
and John Voss, as well as luminaries such as historian John Hope Franklin
John Hope Franklin
John Hope Franklin was a United States historian and past president of Phi Beta Kappa, the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Southern Historical Association. Franklin is best known for his work From Slavery to Freedom, first published in 1947, and...
and philanthropists Archie K. Davis and Stephen H. Weiss
Stephen H. Weiss
Stephen H. Weiss was an American investment banker, philanthropist, and former chairman of the Cornell University Board of Trustees....
.
Since 1978, the center has been led by five directors: Charles Frankel
Charles Frankel
Charles Frankel was an American philosopher.Born in to a Jewish family in New York City, he was the son of Abraham Philip and Estelle Edith Frankel. He married Helen Beatrice Lehman on August 17, 1941. Together they had two children, Susan and Carl.Frankel was educated at Columbia, Charles...
, William Bennett
William Bennett
William John "Bill" Bennett is an American conservative pundit, politician, and political theorist. He served as United States Secretary of Education from 1985 to 1988. He also held the post of Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under George H. W...
, Charles Blitzer, Robert Connor and current director Geoffrey G. Harpham.