Humanities Center : 91��̳

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Fostering multidisciplinary perspectives

Supporting collaboration

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Exploring artifacts of the human experience

Announcement

Associate Director Named

On January 1, we welcomed Tanya Bakhmetyeva as Associate Director of the Humanities Center. Bakhmetyeva will work closely with the Director to set Center priorities, develop funding requests, and co-edit the “Humanities in the World” series we launched earlier this year with the 91��̳ Press.

Bakhmetyeva is Professor of Instruction in the Department of History and is also currently the Associate Academic Director of the Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies, a position she will dually hold through the Spring semester of 2024. Bakhmetyeva is the author of Mother of the Church: Sophia Svechina and the Politics of Catholicism in 19th Century Russia and France (Northern Illinois University Press, 2016), which won her the Harry C. Koenig Book Award from the American Catholic Association. Her next book, The Politburo goes Hunting: Masculinity, Nature and Power among the Soviet Political Elite is under contract from Northern Illinois University Press, now an imprint of Cornell University Press.

What is the Humanities Center?

As scholars in the humanities and humanistic social sciences at the 91��̳, we examine human culture in its myriad forms: literature, language, media, philosophy, religion, history, anthropology, visual and performing arts, and much more. We are committed to critical thinking, reasoned discourse, inclusiveness, civility, empathy, and compassion—values that lie at the center of humanistic inquiry and that are essential for a thriving democratic citizenry. The Humanities Center, located in Rush Rhees Library, is our home base for interdisciplinary exchange and collaboration. We offer programs for faculty, students, and the public. To become an affiliate of the Center and receive emails about our events, contact humanities@rochester.edu.

Upcoming Events

News & Announcements

November 20, 2024

Click here to read more about this collaboration with the Stanford Humanities Center.

October 21, 2024

The Van Cleef & Arpels Fellowships in Choreography and Poetry sponsors annual Fellowships for a choreographer and a poet of any nationality. Jennifer Grotz is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Still Falling. Everything I Don't Know, the selected poems of Jerzy Ficowski, co-translated from the Polish with Piotr Sommer received the PEN Award for Best Book of Poetry. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Nation, The New Republic, New York Review of Books, Ploughshares, New England Review, and in five volumes of the Best American Poetry anthology.

October 2, 2024

‘ICE HUMANITIES’: In a sense, glaciers have become a new endangered species. For a pair of 91��̳ historians, including Interim Humanities Center Director Tanya Bakhmetyeva, collecting and preserving human history—and the history of glacial science—takes on new urgency in the face of rapid climate change.

August 21, 2024

Richard Fadok, a postdoctoral fellow in the Humanities Center, was recently interviewed by The Conversation about his course “Space/Power/Species.” This innovative seminar-studio, which he writes about in his new research in Teaching and Learning Anthropology, invites students to design buildings from the standpoint of urban wildlife in order to teach them about how humans live with other animals.

May 21, 2024

As leaders of the Department of Health Humanities and Bioethics and of the Humanities Center, respectively, Lainie Ross, Dean’s Professor, and Peter Christensen, the Arthur Satz Professor of the Humanities and associate dean of the School of Arts & Sciences, are teaming up to foster greater collaboration among 91��̳’s scientists and humanists.

May 14, 2024

Anna Rosensweig Receives President’s Ferrari Humanities Research Award

Anna Rosensweig, an associate professor of French and the director of the Graduate Program in Visual and Cultural Studies, has been named the latest recipient of the President's Ferrari Humanities Research Award.

March 5, 2024

Poet, satirist, literary critic, novelist, and media personality Dmitry Bykov is one of Russia’s best-known public intellectuals. He has authored more than 70 books, including novels, poetry, biographies, and literary criticism. He is currently the inaugural Scholar in Exile in the Humanities Center and will be teaching courses in MLC on Russian culture, current events and world literature through the 2024-25 academic year.

March 21, 2023

2022-23 external fellow Shanté Smalls' book, Hip Hop Heresies: Queer Aesthetics in New York City, was awarded the New York Society Library’s New York City Book Award for 2022-2023. Established in 1995, the award honors books of literary quality or historical importance that, in the opinion of the selection committee, evoke the spirit or enhance appreciation of New York City.

Research Spotlight

“Smash the Crash,” a research initiative made up of a team of dedicated student volunteers and faculty, hopes to accurately document these collisions and recommend solutions for preventing bird-window collisions on campus. The study is led by anthropologist Dr. Richard Fadok, a postdoctoral fellow in the Humanities Center.

Annual Report

2023-2024 Annual Report Now Available

We are proud to feature the highlights and accomplishments of the Humanities Center in our new annual report.

The Humanities Center

Fostering Interdisciplinary Collaboration

In the Humanities Center, faculty, fellows, students, affiliates, and the public gather to collaborate and create community. Seminars, workshops, lectures, digital projects and other forms of humanistic inquiry animate our beautiful new space in Rush Rhees Library.

24departments and programs

With majors and degree programs that incorporate dozens of disciplines.

Comprised of hundreds of courses based in the School of Arts and Sciences.

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91��̳ is uniquely positioned to pursue research that spans the arts and humanities. If you would like more information about the humanities at 91��̳ or the , please .

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