Our Mission

The Oregon Humanities Center promotes discussion across disciplines. We encourage individual disciplines to rethink basic assumptions and to articulate their aims in language that is accessible to other disciplines as well as to the public at large. The Center encourages innovation and excellence in teaching, supports an humanities interdisciplinary research, and provides a public forum for discussion and reflection on issues important to individuals and communities in and beyond Oregon.

TEACHING

The Humanities Center offers teaching fellowships to encourage the development of innovative undergraduate courses in the humanities. These courses span disciplines and cultural perspectives. They offer faculty an opportunity to teach subjects they would not normally teach, in ways they would not normally teach them—for example, in small team-taught seminars that often include distinguished guest speakers from around the country. Through these innovative courses, the standard undergraduate curriculum undergoes change, faculty become invigorated, and students benefit from fresh ideas and approaches. Faculty teach humanities courses that range from European history to Chinese literature, from the American Constitution to Greek mythology, from logic to music, and from public policy analysis to cognitive science.

RESEARCH

The Humanities Center supports research in the humanities through research fellowship programs for UO faculty and doctoral students. A research fellowship is regarded as a golden opportunity to devote time exclusively to research for an entire academic term. Because the University of Oregon is a research university—an institution whose faculty members define the very nature of the fields they teach—the importance of these fellowships cannot be overestimated.

PUBLIC OUTREACH

The Humanities Center is committed to fostering public awareness and discussion of university research in the humanities. We administer a rich array of free public programs both on and off campus. These events include faculty presentations, lectures by renowned thinkers, poetry readings, art exhibitions, conferences, symposia, and debates. Past events include a spring 1996 conference on "Ethics After the Holocaust," which brought extraordinary scholars—such as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel—to the University of Oregon, and which attracted national and international attention as well as substantial community support. Public outreach is essential to building the public support that is crucial to the University's success.