On February 12, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences unveiled its new Humanities Center, one of several initiatives to enhance the role of the humanities here at Carnegie Mellon. Visiting professor Eric Foner from Columbia University delivered a lecture, “The Idea of Freedom in America,” the first of a series of seminars aimed toward an undergraduate audience that will be hosted by the Center.

Directed by David Shumway, a professor of English and literary and cultural studies, the Center is a new partnership between the English, history, modern language, and philosophy departments. In order to encourage interdisciplinary faculty collaboration and to promote research in the humanities, the Center will grant fellowships to both Carnegie Mellon’s faculty and visiting scholars. These fellowships will allow the participating scholars to lighten their teaching loads in order to devote more time to personal research. In the future, the Center hopes to be able to grant undergraduate fellowships as well. Currently, the Center is being financially supported by H&SS, with an annual budget of approximately $20,000. The size of future fellowship, grants, and funding for expansion will be determined by future endowments raised to support the Center.

Visiting fellows will be required to teach at least one class a semester. While some of these might be seminars reserved for participants in the new H&SS Humanities Scholars program, many of the courses will be available to all Carnegie Mellon students. By incorporating the insights of these visiting scholars into the subject matter that is taught in the humanities, as well as in the research that is being done by our faculty, the new Humanities Center will help make H&SS an ever more diverse learning environment.

The theme for this year’s Humanities Center lecture series is “freedom.” The next seminar will be on March 30, and will be a discussion of marriage, conducted by Carnegie Mellon professors Robert Cavalier (philosophy), Tera Hunter (history), and David Shumway (English). In April, there will be a panel discussion on the “Humanities after 9/11.” Next year, when the theme will be “Global Migration and National Cultures,” the Humanities Center will also be sponsoring a national conference, “Humanities and Expertise.”