The National Humanities Center (NHC) is an independent institute for advanced study in the

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...

. 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 The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

, which saw a need for substantial support for academic research in the humanities, and began operations in 1978. Located in Research Triangle Park,

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...

, United States, near the campuses of Duke University, North Carolina State University, and the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

, 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 consortium–which are modeled after the Princeton, New Jersey,

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent schola ...

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 The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world. Founded in 1884, the AHA works to protect academic freedom, develop professional s ...

* American Academy of Religion Book Award *

Bancroft Prize The 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, with a bequest from Frederic Bancroft, in his memory and that of his brother, ...

* British Council Prize in the Humanities * Haskins Medal of the Medieval Academy of America * Herskovits Award of the

African Studies Association The African Studies Association (ASA) is a US-based association of scholars, students, practitioners, and institutions with an interest in the continent of Africa. Founded in 1957, the ASA is the leading organization of African Studies in North ...

History Book Club Bookspan LLC is a New York–based online bookseller, founded in 2000. Bookspan began as a joint endeavor by Bertelsmann and Time Warner. Bertelsmann took over control in 2007, and a year later, sold its interest to Najafi Companies, an Arizon ...

Main Selection * Louis Gottschalk Prize of the

American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies The American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS) is an academic society for humanities research related to the "long" eighteenth century, from the later seventeenth through the early nineteenth centuries. ASECS was established in 1969, ...

* Merle Curti Award of the Organization of American Historians *

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ...

Christian Glauss Award * Philip Schaff Prize of the

American Society of Church History The American Society of Church History (ASCH) 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 perspectiv ...

* Prix du Rayonnement de la langue et de la littérature françaises of the Académie Française * Pulitzer Prize * Ralph Bunche Award of the American Political Science Association * Robert F. Kennedy Prize * James Russell Lowell Prize of the Modern Language Association

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 Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

, to help teachers use

digital mapping Digital mapping (also called digital or computer cartography) is the process by which a collection of spatial data is compiled and formatted into a virtual image on a computer. The primary function of this technology is to produce maps that give a ...

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,

Seymour Hersh Seymour Myron "Sy" Hersh (born April 8, 1937) is an American Investigative journalism, investigative journalist and political writer. Hersh first gained recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam Wa ...

Michael Ignatieff Michael Grant Ignatieff (; born May 12, 1947) is a Canadian author, academic and former politician who served as the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Leader of the Official Opposition from 2008 until 2011. Known for his work as a histo ...

Oliver Sacks Oliver Wolf Sacks, (9 July 1933 – 30 August 2015) was a British neurologist, naturalist, historian of science, and writer. Born in Britain, Sacks received his medical degree in 1958 from The Queen's College, Oxford, before moving to the Uni ...

Michael Pollan Michael Kevin Pollan (; born February 6, 1955) is an American author and journalist, who is currently Professor of the Practice Non-Fiction and the first Lewis K. Chan Arts Lecturer at Harvard University. Concurrently, he is the Knight Professo ...

, Elaine Scarry, Wole Soyinka,

Raymond Tallis Raymond C. Tallis (born 10 October 1946) is a philosopher, poet, novelist, cultural critic and a retired medical physician and clinical neuroscientist. Specialising in geriatrics, Tallis served on several UK commissions on medical care of the ...

, Wang Hui, and

E. O. Wilson Edward Osborne Wilson (June 10, 1929 – December 26, 2021) was an American biologist, naturalist, entomologist and writer. According to David Attenborough, Wilson was the world's leading expert in his specialty of myrmecology, the study of an ...

and addressed a wide variety of topics including the relationship between

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm a ...

and literature, humanities and the public good, and the role of the humanities in addressing climate change and environmental degradation. 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 Charles Frankel (December 13, 1917 – May 10, 1979) was an American philosopher, Assistant U.S. Secretary of State, professor and founding director of the National Humanities Center. Early life and personal life Born into a Jewish family in New ...

, William Bennett, Charles Blitzer, W. Robert Connor, Geoffrey G. Harpham, and current director Robert D. Newman. 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, Morton W. Bloomfield, Frederick Burkhardt, Robert F. Goheen, Steven Marcus, Henry Nash Smith, Gregory Vlastos, John Voss, and founding director Charles Frankel, historian

John Hope Franklin John Hope Franklin (January 2, 1915 – March 25, 2009) was an American historian of the United States and former president of Phi Beta Kappa, the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Southern Histo ...

, educator William C. Friday, and philanthropists Archie K. Davis and Stephen H. Weiss.

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