The Center was created as a space where research in the Humanities could be championed and shared with colleagues across a wide range of disciplines. The Center recognizes that a fulfilling academic career must value research as a goal worthy of pursuit in its own right, and the Center exists to help faculty in humanities and related disciplines realize their research goals. At the same time, the Center also supports links between Humanities research and curricular efforts on campus.
For detailed information on the programs and opportunities sponsored by the Center, please visit the links below. We invite you to suggest additional ways the Center might advance its mission.
If you would like to play an active role in the Center's programming, please consider attending meetings of the Interest Group for the Center for the Humanities.
Faculty Works-in-Progress Lunches
Visiting Scholars in the Humanities
The Center for Humanities is governed by a Director, who consults regularly with a 6-member Advisory Board. Ideally, the Advisory Board includes members of all three Divisions at the College.
The Interest Group is open to all Grinnell College faculty, and meets twice each year. One of the Interet Group's primary functions is to elect the Advisory Board. If you are intereted in serving on the Advisory Board, or nominating a colleague for the Advisory Board, please attend the Interest Group meeting in the fall. These meetings also exist to solicit input from the campus more broadly, and discussions at Interest Group meetings are instrumental in shaping the planning carried out by the Director and Advisory Board.
Faculty Works-in-Progress Lunches
Faculty may present works at any stage of development to their colleagues at Grinnell College by speaking at one of our regularly-scheduled lunches. Typically the Center hosts 3-4 such lunches each semester, with 1 or 2 presenters appearing at each lunch and presenting to an audience of 10-20 fellow faculty members. The Center provides lunch to all participants who RSVP their intention to attend.
We want to emphasize the "in progress" part of these lunches, and invite you to consider this forum as a place to receive useful feedback on a project before final submission or conference delivery.
Upcoming meeting:
Thursday, November 19, JRC 209, 12:00 pm
Jee-Weon Cha, Assistant Professor of Music, will present “Johann’s Affections and René’s Passions: (Mis)Understanding Mattheson’s Affektenlehre through Cartesian Rationalism:” Lunches will be available for the first 20 faculty members who respond.
Please RSVP to Jan Graham (grahamj@grinnell.edu, or x4384) no later than noon on Wednesday, November 4th.
Visiting Scholars in the Humanities
In keeping with its mission to highlight some of the exciting contributions made by scholars in the Humanities to countless fields of research, the Center for the Humanities invites scholars from various disciplines to share their expertise with the Grinnell College community. In some years, our guest scholar is a Distinguished Visiting Professor who spends all or part of the fall semester on campus. In other years, the Visiting Scholar is in residence for the entire year.
For more information about the Visiting Scholar, and to learn about past Distinguished Visiting Professors, please click on the Visiting Scholars link.
In years in which the Center hosts Distinguished Visiting Professors, we offer a faculty seminar taught by our guest scholars in the area of their expertise. This seminar is open to all Grinnell College faculty with an interest in the topic.
For information about past faculty seminars, please click here.
The Center for the Humanities holds an annual symposium devoted to each year's chosen theme. The symposium welcomes back our Distinguished Visiting Professors from the fall semester, and invites other prominent scholars who can adderss our topic.
For information about past symposia, please see the Symposium page under Past Events.