The National Humanities Center (NHC) is an independent institute for advanced study in the humanities. The NHC operates as a privately incorporated nonprofit and is not part of any university or federal agency. 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. Located in

Research Triangle Park Research Triangle Park (RTP) is the largest research park in the United States, occupying in North Carolina and hosting more than 300 companies and 65,000 workers. The facility is named for its location relative to the three surrounding cities ...

, North Carolina, United States, near the campuses of

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

North Carolina State University North Carolina State University (NC State) is a public land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina. Founded in 1887 and part of the University of North Carolina system, it is the largest university in the Carolinas. The universit ...

, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NHC fellows enjoy library privileges at these three universities, as well as the NHC's own reference facility. The National Humanities Center is one of the ten members of the

Some Institutes for Advanced Study The Some Institutes for Advanced Study (SIAS) consortium organizes ten "institutes for advanced study" founded on the same principles as the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. The members are: * Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, ...

consortium–which are modeled after the Princeton, New Jersey, Institute for Advanced Study

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 NHC admits approximately forty fellows chosen from among hundreds of applicants from institutions in the United States and abroad representing a broad range of disciplines. In addition, a few senior scholars are invited by the Center's trustees to assume fellowships. The National Humanities Center has no permanent fellows or faculty. NHC fellows are given substantial support to pursue their individual research and writing projects. Interdisciplinary seminars provide fellows the opportunity to share insights and criticism. For the 2022–2023 academic year, NHC fellows' research topics include peculative fictionby and about Black women, the rmenian genocide the history of the nfodemicphenomenon, and social revolt in early twentieth-century Latin America, as well as other subjects in the fields of African American studies; East Asian studies; education studies; environmental studies; gender and sexuality studies; history; history of art and architecture; Indigenous studies; languages and literature; Latinx studies; Middle East studies; music history and musicology; philosophy; religious studies; and Slavic studies. Since 1978 the NHC has welcomed over 1,500 scholars who have published over 1,700 books. Many of these studies have proven to be influential in their fields and have been recognized for the quality of their scholarship and writing.

Selected prizes won by National Humanities Center fellows

* Albert J. Beveridge Award of the American Historical Association *

American Academy of Religion The American Academy of Religion (AAR) is the world's largest association of scholarly method, scholars in the List of academic disciplines, field of religious studies and related topics. It is a nonprofit member association, serving as a profes ...

Book Award * Bancroft Prize * British Council Prize in the Humanities * Haskins Medal of the Medieval Academy of America * Herskovits Award of the African Studies Association * History Book Club Main Selection *

Louis Gottschalk Prize Louis Reichenthal Gottschalk (February 21, 1899 in Brooklyn – June 23, 1975 in Chicago.) was an American historian, an expert on Lafayette and the French Revolution. He taught for many years at the University of Chicago, where he was the Gustav ...

of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies * Merle Curti Award of the

Organization of American Historians The Organization of American Historians (OAH), 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. and abroad inc ...

* National Book Award * Phi Beta Kappa Christian Glauss Award * Philip Schaff Prize of the American Society of Church History * Prix du Rayonnement de la langue et de la littérature françaises of the

Académie Française An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

* Ralph Bunche Award of the

American Political Science Association The American Political Science Association (APSA) is a professional association of political science students and scholars in the United States. Founded in 1903 in the Tilton Memorial Library (now Tilton Hall) of Tulane University in New Orleans, ...

* Robert F. Kennedy Prize * James Russell Lowell Prize of the

Modern Language Association The Modern Language Association of America, often referred to as the Modern Language Association (MLA), is widely considered the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature. The MLA aims to "st ...

Education programs

The National Humanities Center is distinctive among centers for advanced study in its commitment to linking scholarship to improved teaching. Programs developed at the NHC provide teachers with new materials and instructional strategies designed to make them more effective in the classroom on a wide range of topics. Through its AmericaInClass.org site, the NHC allows participants to learn directly from leading scholars and access an extensive archive of primary source materials – arranged in online collections and accompanied with discussion questions and instructional planning guides for classroom use. The NHC makes these materials available without charge. TeacherServe, the NHC's online interactive curriculum enrichment service, supplements its training and primary source collections with essays by leading scholars, instructional activities, and links to online resources to enrich teachers' understanding of topics and suggest approaches for more effective classroom teaching. Recent initiatives from the Center include projects to improve teachers' subject knowledge on Vietnam, to help teachers use digital mapping technologies in classroom instruction, and to explore the experience of military veterans through literature.

Outreach

The National Humanities Center hosts a variety of public events, both to stimulate public awareness of humanities scholarship and to address special topics. In recent years, events have included appearances by

A. S. Byatt Dame Antonia Susan Duffy ( Drabble; born 24 August 1936), known professionally by her former marriage name as A. S. Byatt ( ), is an English critic, novelist, poet and short story writer. Her books have been widely translated, into more than t ...

, Seymour Hersh, Michael Ignatieff, Oliver Sacks, Michael Pollan,

Elaine Scarry Elaine Scarry (born June 30, 1946) is an American essayist and professor of English and American Literature and Language. She is the Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University. Her interests inc ...

, Wole Soyinka, Raymond Tallis, Wang Hui, and E. O. Wilson and addressed a wide variety of topics including the relationship between rock and roll and literature, humanities and the public good, and the role of the humanities in addressing climate change and

environmental degradation Environmental degradation is the deterioration of the environment (biophysical), environment through depletion of resources such as quality of air, water and soil; the destruction of ecosystems; habitat destruction; the extinction of wildlife; an ...

. In recent years, the Center has also launched initiatives designed to demonstrate the value of the humanities in the lives of individuals from all walks of life and to promote a deeper understanding of, and more productive discourse around, public issues. The Center's interactiv
Humanities Moments
project was created in partnership with the Federation of State Humanities Councils in an effort to gather, store, and share personal accounts of how the humanities illuminate and transform the lives of individuals and thereby help "reimagine the way we think and talk about the humanities." Featuring news about the humanities and highlighting perspectives from leading humanists on compelling issues, the Center also launche
Humanities in Action
in 2018 to help scholars, teachers, students, and other citizens "connect, learn more, and get involved" encouraging visitors to become better informed about issues affecting humanities research and education as well as to better appreciate how the humanities can contribute to public debate on questions of broad concern.

Leadership

Since 1978 the National Humanities Center has been led by six directors: Charles Frankel,

William Bennett William John Bennett (born July 31, 1943) is an American conservative politician and political commentator who served as secretary of education from 1985 to 1988 under President Ronald Reagan. He also held the post of director of the Office of ...

, Charles Blitzer, W. Robert Connor, Geoffrey G. Harpham, and current director

Robert D. Newman Robert D. Newman is an American literary scholar, poet, and the current president and director of the National Humanities Center. From 2001 to 2015 he served as dean of the College of Humanities, Associate Vice President for Interdisciplinary Studi ...

. The NHC is governed by a distinguished board of trustees from academic, business, and public life and has included a number of the leading figures in American scholarship over the past thirty years. Among these are its founders

Meyer Abrams Meyer Howard Abrams (July 23, 1912 – April 21, 2015), usually cited as M. H. Abrams, was an American literary critic, known for works on romanticism, in particular his book ''The Mirror and the Lamp''. Under Abrams's editorship, ''The Norton A ...

Morton W. Bloomfield Morton W. Bloomfield (May 19, 1913 – April 14, 1987) was an American medievalist. He was the Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of English at Harvard University. He is best known for his scholarly work, teaching and mentoring on Medieval literatur ...

Frederick Burkhardt Frederick Burkhardt (13 September 1913 – 23 September 2007) was an American educator and foundation administrator. He was President of the American Council of Learned Societies ( ACLS), then after his retirement devoted decades of work on ''Th ...

Robert F. Goheen Robert Francis Goheen (August 15, 1919 – March 31, 2008) was an American academic, president of Princeton University and United States Ambassador to India. Biography Robert Francis Goheen was born on August 15, 1919, to Anne (Ewing) and D ...

Steven Marcus Steven Paul Marcus (December 13, 1928 – April 25, 2018) was an American academic and literary critic who published influential psychoanalytic analyses of the novels of Charles Dickens and Victorian pornography. He was George Delacorte Professo ...

Henry Nash Smith Henry Nash Smith (September 29, 1906 – June 6, 1986) was a scholar of American culture and literature. He was co-founder of the academic discipline "American studies". He was also a noted Mark Twain scholar, and the curator of the Mark Twain P ...

Gregory Vlastos Gregory Vlastos (; el, Γρηγόριος Βλαστός; July 27, 1907 – October 12, 1991) was a preeminent scholar of ancient philosophy, and author of many works on Plato and Socrates. He transformed the analysis of classical philosophy ...

, John Voss, and founding director Charles Frankel, historian John Hope Franklin, educator

William C. Friday William Clyde Friday (July 13, 1920 – October 12, 2012) was an American educator who served as the head of the University of North Carolina system from 1956 to 1986. He was born in Raphine, Virginia and raised in Dallas, North Carolina. Friday ...

, and philanthropists Archie K. Davis and

Stephen H. Weiss Stephen H. Weiss (1935, Manhattan – April 16, 2008) was an American investment banker, philanthropist, and former chairman of the Cornell University Board of Trustees. Biography Weiss was born to a Jewish family and graduated from Cornell in ...

References

External links

*
America in Class

On the Human
{{authority control Humanities institutes Research institutes in North Carolina Education in Durham, North Carolina Research institutes established in 1978 Institute for Advanced Study