Duke Today
Six visiting scholars representing liberal arts institutions, historically black colleges and universities (HBCU), and Durham Technical Community College will arrive at Duke this summer to collaborate with faculty as part of an innovative humanities initiative.
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-funded Humanities Unbounded is designed to nurture collaboration and inventive expressions of the humanities at Duke and beyond. Among other aims, it expands Duke's curriculum by launching research-based humanities labs that enrich undergraduate education by extending the learning experience outside of the classroom.
“Through our previous Mellon grant, Humanities Writ Large, visiting faculty fellows greatly enriched the humanities ecosystem at Duke,” said Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies Ed Balleisen, who is also a principal investigator for Humanities Unbounded. “Those fellows brought compelling research questions, inventive approaches to communicating humanistic arguments, and a deeply collaborative spirit to our campus.”
Four visiting scholars from HBCUs and liberal arts colleges are central to that effort through their leadership of research projects over the next year, and will broaden the effects of Humanities Unbounded as they extend their work once returning to their home institutions.
Durham Tech faculty will work with Duke doctoral students to develop pedagogical modules that foster collaborative humanistic inquiry at the community college. Meanwhile, the Ph.D. students will gain exposure to new modes of teaching, a highly diverse community college student population and faculty mentorship.
The inaugural cohort:
“We are eager to welcome a new cohort of superb humanists to Duke,” said Gennifer Weisenfeld, divisional dean for the humanities in the Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, “to see how they interact with our faculty and students, and to facilitate their contributions to our humanities labs, the training of our doctoral students and humanistic dialogue more broadly.”
Weisenfeld is also a principal investigator on the Humanities Unbounded grant, as is Ranjana Khanna, director of the Franklin Humanities Institute.