Public Intellectuals

Thinking More Expansively

The National Humanities Center provides scholars with resources to generate new knowledge and further understanding of all forms of cultural expression, social interaction, and human thought.

Despite their intensive focus on the larger projects they work on, many Fellows also participate in a variety of activities to share their knowledge with the public.

The most substantial products of their efforts can be seen in the books and scholarly works produced as a result of their time at the Center. But, the hope of the fellowship program is not simply that Fellows complete their books more quickly than they would otherwise. Rather, we seek to provide a setting in which projects may be transformed in unexpected ways and become qualitatively different as a result of serendipitous conversations across disciplines, special events at the Center, and our librarians’ extraordinary ability to procure rare and difficult-to-find sources.

Despite their intensive focus on the larger projects they work on, many Fellows also participate in a variety of activities to share their knowledge with the public. This year, for example, Fellows gave talks across the country and abroad and lent their expertise to broader intellectual conversations through radio interviews, podcasts, and by writing op-eds in response to emerging issues. For example, historian of technology Mar Hicks wrote a piece for the Guardian, “Why Tech’s Gender Problem is Nothing New;” James Chappel cowrote a piece on ageism in the forthcoming elections for the Washington Post; and Honor Sachs wrote for the Washington Post, “How Pocahontas—The Myth and the Slur—Props up White Supremacy.”

Troops to Teachers

Understanding What Things Cost

Helping educators combine their particular skills and expertise with those of scholars has been the hallmark of the Center’s innovative professional development programs.

This past year, for instance, with the generous support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Center welcomed 15 educators, who are also veterans, for a project-based initiative to use humanities resources to help their students and communities better understand the military experience.

Teaching, like military service, is a profession in which the personal and professional are very closely tied.

Teaching, like military service, is a profession in which the personal and professional are very closely tied and the culture of teaching reflects a civic-minded call to duty, and the motivation and reward is often intrinsic. Helping these service minded professionals share their experiences, noted literary scholars like Patrick Deer of New York University and codirector Hilary Lithgow from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill worked with participants to use literary fiction and nonfiction, poetry, and popular media culture to explore key themes such as duty, sacrifice, and homecoming. The cohort then designed projects to support their home communities and students gain a deeper understanding of these ideas.

A further description of the Center’s recent initiatives using literature to explore military life and the experience of war is available here.