Our community — the Washington University community — is currently spread across the globe. Even those remaining in the St. Louis region are isolated and distanced, one from the other. Where are the lifelines? How do we stay connected beyond our classes and our daily work lives? At the Center for the Humanities, with April’s National Poetry Month right around the corner, we decided: This is how we do it!
The Kemper Museum exhibition “Truths and Reckonings: The Art of Transformative Racial Justice,” curated by Associate Professor of African and African-American Studies Geoff Ward, combines the spirit of the “pop-up museum” phenomenon with the mission-driven ethos of a memorial museum. Citing its geographical and historical setting, Ward writes that St. Louis is a location particularly suited for telling this story.
Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs has shocked the world with the sheer number of extrajudicial killings his campaign has racked up — 27,000 as of July 2019. But Filipinos have seen this kind of strongman before. Joy Sales, postdoctoral fellow in immigration, culture and law in the American Culture Studies program, highlights the threads that tie Duterte to Ferdinand Marcos and the Filipino elites who designed such tools of political repression from the very establishment of the colony.
The publication of a monograph or significant creative work is a milestone in the career of a scholar in the humanities. It represents a decade’s worth — and sometimes much longer — of research, writing and rewriting. This work is made possible by fellowships, sabbaticals, research grants and a deep dive into materials in often far-flung locations. Finally, and amid the competing demands of teaching, service and other research projects at various stages, a book is born. Read about the journey to publication for several 2019 humanities authors.
Internationally renowned singer, writer, performer and visual artist Patti Smith will receive the International Humanities Prize during a free public event on Tuesday, November 17, 2020, in recognition of her contributions to the arts and humanities over her 45-year career. The award, which comes with a $25,000 prize, is given biennially to a person who has contributed significantly to the humanities.
The human fingerprint maps our identity, the ties that bind us, the lingering traces we leave on this earth. As humanists, we explore the durability as well as the fragility of the human condition — opening windows onto worlds near to home and oceans away, worlds we interpret through stories and images, poems and performance, history and narratives, sounds and silence. At Washington University in St. Louis, the Center for the Humanities facilitates the labor of humanists by nurturing innovative research, transformative pedagogy, and vibrant community engagement locally and globally.
Read More About Our Mission and Our History
Pursuing new scholarly ideas about the world takes funding — whether it's for a two-month tour of research sites in Japan or a two-week trip to an archive to view materials available only there — that can be hard to find via regular channels. The Center for the Humanities fills this gap with a number of funding opportunities for Washington University faculty in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. Learn more about their stories!
THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED - Vaughn A. Booker, Jr., Assistant Professor of Religion and African and African American Studies, Dartmouth College. Reception begins at 5 pm.
View EventTHIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED - The Washington University Prison Education Project presents excerpts from the recent PBS documentary College Behind Bars, a film that highlights students pursuing college degrees through the Bard Prison Initiative. The film screening will be followed by a panel discussion featuring the voices of current PEP students, PEP student alumni, and members of the PEP community.
View EventTHIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED - Banumathi Subramaniam, Professor and Chair, Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of Massachusetts
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The humanities center facilitates the labor of humanists by nurturing innovative research, transformative pedagogy, and vibrant community engagement locally and globally.
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