WFU Humanities Institute celebrates 10 years
The Humanities Institute is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year by gathering stories from faculty about their collaborations with the Institute over the past decade.
Founding faculty leadership for the Wake Forest Humanities Institute, from left, Mary Foskett, David Phillips, Sally Barbour and Dean Franco.
Building on its liberal arts tradition, Wake Forest established the Humanities Institute to support innovative scholarship and collaboration in October 2010. The Humanities Institute publicly celebrated its launch in March 2011.
Mary Foskett, Wake Forest Kahle Professor of Religious Studies; Dean Franco, Winifred W. Palmer Professor in Literature, English; Sally Barbour, professor of Romance Languages; and David Phillips, associate professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities laid the groundwork and secured the funding that made the Institute possible. The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded Wake Forest a five-year, $500,000 challenge grant – the largest NEH grant Wake Forest had ever received. Original programming included faculty seminars, symposia, professional development, and support for collaborative faculty research and teaching.
In February 2013, Wake Forest alumnus Wade Murphy (’00) donated $1 million to support the Institute, extending the reach and impact of humanities and the liberal arts. Murphy was the youngest person in the University’s history to make such a large gift. Read more
Categories: Faculty News, Inside WFU, Staff News
Dean Franco named director of Humanities Institute
Professor of English Dean J. Franco has been named director of the Wake Forest University Humanities Institute beginning January 2017. The Institute, which was established in 2010, supports humanities scholarship which draws on disciplines like philosophy, literature, religion, history, and other fields to interpret the human experience, understand our world, and engage the issues of our time.
In the past six years, nearly 200 College faculty from 35 departments and programs across the humanities, natural and social sciences, and the arts, and 30 faculty from law, medicine, divinity and business, have collaborated with the Institute — helping bring together top scholars and leaders to produce new scholarship, inspire new directions in teaching, and demonstrate how the humanities can inform and impact important issues of our time, such as:
- Envisioning a community that protects the world’s citizens from the effects of climate change — especially the poorest countries and communities.
- Addressing the challenges of mass incarceration and the criminal justice system.
- Recognizing the importance of humanities training for the future of medicine and exploring holistic healing through storytelling and narrative medicine.
Franco along with Mary Foskett, Wake Forest Kahle Professor of Religious Studies; Sally Barbour, professor of Romance Languages; and David Phillips, associate professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities — laid the groundwork and secured the funding that made the Institute possible.
“Having played a leading role in the Humanities Institute since its inception, Dean is perfectly poised to become the Institute’s next director,” said Foskett, the Humanities Institute founding director. “He will not only carry on its mission, which he helped craft, he will infuse the Institute with his unique combination of brilliance, creativity, vision, and energy. I can’t wait to see what the Humanities Institute will do with Dean leading it forward.”
The Institute has also supported transformational programming in the College such as the Interdisciplinary Humanities Pathway to Medicine Program, which offers guaranteed admission to Wake Forest School of Medicine for up to five undergraduates majoring in the humanities or fine arts, and new interdisciplinary initiatives like a growing digital humanities community at Wake Forest.
Wake Forest was recently awarded a $650,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in support of engaged humanities – teaching, learning, mentoring and real-world problem solving that moves beyond the classroom. With support from this grant, the Humanities Institute will offer new programming in narrative medicine and will collaborate with Reynolda House Museum of American Art to host new scholarly conferences.
“I am excited about working with Reynolda House to implement the Mellon Grant funded Reynolda Conferences in 2018 and 2019,” Franco said. “This is a dream scenario — the opportunity to assemble scholars working on the same sets of questions for extended, deep learning.”
Franco joined Wake Forest 2001. He directs the Jewish Studies minor, has recently served as associate chair of the English department, and was the Scott Family Faculty Fellow from 2012-2014. He researches and publishes on race and literature.
Read more…
Humanities Institute established
Humanities Institute lands 500K grant
Humanities Institute receives $1 million donation
Categories: Faculty News, University Announcement
Centers and institutes update
The Office of the Provost has approved a one-year planning grant to establish the Eudaimonia Institute to study human flourishing.
The institute aims to create an interdisciplinary intellectual community of researchers, scholars, and students who will investigate the nature of eudaimonia—Aristotle’s word for “happiness,” “flourishing,” or “wellbeing”—as well as the political and economic institutions, the moral beliefs and attitudes, and the cultural practices that enable and encourage eudaimonia.
James Otteson, the Thomas W. Smith Presidential Chair in Business Ethics, will serve as Executive Director of the Eudaimonia Institute. He will continue to serve as Executive Director of the BB&T Center for the Study of Capitalism.
The Eudaimonia Institute is the third academic institute at Wake Forest. It joins the Humanities Institute, led by Wake Forest Kahle Professor of Religion Mary Foskett, and the Pro Humanitate Institute, led by Maya Angelou Presidential Chair and Professor of Politics and International Affairs Melissa Harris-Perry.
The Provost also recently approved renewals of the Center for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability (CEES) and the Center for Molecular Signaling (CMS), formerly known as the Center for Molecular Communication and Signaling (CMCS).
Miles Silman, the Andrew Sabin Family Foundation Presidential Chair in Conservation Biology, is the director of CEES. Biology professor Gloria Muday directs CMS.
Categories: University Announcement
Foskett to deliver 2015 Hubert McNeill Poteat Lecture
Mary Foskett, Wake Forest Kahle Professor of Religion, will lecture on “Biblical Studies and the Humanities: Reflections on Past Practices and New Directions” on Tuesday, April 21 at 4 p.m. at the Kulynych Auditorium at the Porter Byrum Welcome Center.
Foskett joined Wake Forest in 1997. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in biblical studies and is the director of Wake Forest University’s Humanities Institute. Her publications include, A Virgin Conceived: Mary and Classical Representations of Virginity, Ways of Being, Ways of Reading: Asian American Biblical Interpretation, and a forthcoming essay in The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Sexuality in the New Testament.
Foskett serves on the International Advisory Board of the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes and as Chair of Council for the Society of Biblical Literature.
Categories: University Announcement
Endowed Professors, Faculty Fellowships and promotions
Congratulations to the College’s newest endowed professors, this year’s Wake Forest Faculty Fellows and those faculty receiving promotions.
The Wake Forest Professorship award is an endowed chair position and is among the University’s highest honors. The selection criteria include exceptional skill and sustained dedication in the classroom; outstanding commitment to student learning and growth beyond the classroom; a wide-reaching and significant record in scholarly and creative work; a sustained exemplary service to the department, the discipline, the College, the University and the broader scholarly community.
Recipients of the Wake Forest Professorships are:
Categories: University Announcement
