National Humanities Center
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The National Humanities Center is an independent institute for advanced study in the humanities. It is the only major independent institute for advanced study in all fields of the humanities in the United States. It is privately incorporated and is not part of any university. The Center was planned under the auspices of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which saw a need for substantial support for academic research in the humanities. The center began operation in 1978.
The Center has no permanent fellows or faculty. Instead, each year, the Center admits approximately forty fellows, from a broad range of disciplines and institutions. They are selected based on the strength of their scholarship and projects. The center prides itself on the rigor and fairness of its application process, and actively seeks to support scholars whose work is exceptional, regardless of their institutional affiliation. Typically more than five hundred applications for fellowships are received by the Center each year. A few senior scholars are invited to assume fellowships by Center's trustees. Scholars in the humanities from any nation are welcome to apply.
The fellows are given substantial support in order to pursue their individual research and writing projects. Interdisciplinary seminars provide fellows the opportunity to share insights and criticism. Nearly a thousand books have been published by fellows since the Center opened. Many of these studies have proven to be influential in their fields. In 2006-2007 for example, the Center supported scholarly projects on topics ranging from the history of homosexuality in Berlin during the Weimar Republic, to a project focusing on a newly discovered text by Fourth Century BCE Greek orator, Hyperides.
The National Humanities Center is located in the Research Triangle Park of North Carolina on the campus of a consortium made up of Duke University, North Carolina State University, and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Although the Center is unique, it may be compared with other institutes of advanced study, such as the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, Harvard's Radcliffe Institute or Germany's Max Planck Institutes.
