Welcome to the Humanities Initiative

Created in 2007, the Humanities Initiative at NYU draws on the talents and energies of our faculty and students across the university to provide a forum for cross-disciplinary discussion and collaboration in the humanities and arts. To foster and enhance the humanities community at NYU, the Initiative sponsors a number of endeavors aimed at promoting interdisciplinary dialogue, teaching, and research.

2009-2010 Award Competitions

We are pleased to announce the next round of our award competitions. If you are interested in applying to any of our programs, please follow the links below to the corresponding program descriptions and guidelines. Please contact Asya Berger with any questions.

Faculty Research Fellowships
Monday, November 9, 2009

Graduate Student Research Fellowships
Monday, November 9, 2009

Grants-in-Aid
Monday, November 2, 2009
Thursday, April 1, 2010

Team-Teaching Stipends
Monday, January 25, 2010

Working Research Group Grants
Monday, January 25, 2010

News

Congratulations to NYU University Professor David Levering Lewis, to whom President Obama awarded a National Humanities Medal this week!

To Help the People of Haiti, please visit MSNBC and the NY Times for lists of charitable organizations.

Recommended Reading

Our Faculty and Graduate Student Research Fellows have weighed in on their favorite academic reads. Discover (or rediscover!) these great works.

External Funding

American Academy of Arts and Sciences Visiting Scholars Program

American Council of Learned Societies
Collaborative Research Awards

Bellagio Center Residency Competition for Scholars and Creative Artists

Fulbright Programs for US Scholars

Harry Ransom Center Fellowships

The Institute for Human Sciences

Newhouse Center for the Humanities

Princeton University Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts Postdoctoral Fellowships

Social Science Research Council

Traditional Fulbright Scholar Program

UC President's Postdoctoral Fellowship

Save the Date

March 9, 10AM-3PM: Application-Writing Workshop presented by City College, CUNY, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Event Details, Read more... This workshop is free and open to all, but pre-registration by March 5 is required, please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to reserve a seat.
Location: The City College of New York, 160 Convent Avenue, Shepard Hall 250

Great New Books in the Humanities Series
March 9, 6-8PM: The Language of Medicine: Doctors and Patients, a joint book launch for Medicine in Translation: Journeys with My Patients, by Dr. Danielle Ofri (NYU School of Medicine) and Pale Faces: Masks of Anemia by Dr. Charles Bardes (Weill Cornell Medical College)
Reception to follow
Location: 20 Cooper Square, 5th Floor

Discussing the Archive: Ideas Practices, Institutions Lecture Series
March 11, 5:30-7:30PM: "Collecting and Collectivities." Sponsored by the Humanities Initiative, Departments of English, History, and Social & Cultural Analysis, the Archives and Public History Program, the Working Group on Slavery and Freedom, and the Colloquium on American Literature and Culture, NYU
Location: 20 Cooper Square, 4th Floor

March 13, 11AM-6PM: Between Hope & History: When Disaster Strikes. A free, all-day symposium with Philip Gourevitch, David Rieff, Lewis H. Lapham and others. Read more...
Presented by the New York Institute for the Humanities and the Institute for Public Knowledge at NYU
Location: Cantor Film Center (36 E. 8th Street)

March 22, 6-8PM: Negotiating Community and Difference in Medieval Europe: Gender, Power, Patronage and the Authority of Religion in Latin Christendom, a book launch for Penelope Johnson (NYU)
Reception to follow
Location: 20 Cooper Square, 5th Floor

Our Newest Award Recipients

Faculty Research Fellowships
Emily Apter (French; Comparative Literature)
Martin Daughtry (Music)
Michah Gottlieb (Hebrew & Judaic Studies)
Crystal Parikh (Social & Cultural Analysis; English)
Arvind Rajagopal (Media, Culture, & Communication)
Zhen Zhang (Cinema Studies)

Graduate Student Research Fellowships
John Diehl (History)
Paul Sager (French Studies; History)
Peter Valenti (History; Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies)

Honorary Graduate Student Research Fellowships
Elena Bellina (Italian Studies)
Melis Erdur (Philosophy)
John Melillo (English)

Team-Teaching Stipends
Joyce Apsel (Liberal Studies)
Nina Cornyetz (Gallatin)
Stephen R. Duncombe (Gallatin)
Fiona J. Griffiths (History)
Jonathan R. Kahana (Cinema Studies)
Catherine King (Liberal Studies)
Peter W. Meineck (Classics, Ancient Studies)
Martin R. Scherzinger (Media, Culture, & Communication)
Laura M. Slatkin (Gallatin)
Kathryn A. Smith (Art History)

Working Research Group Grants
Jim Anderson (Recorded Music)
Gabriella Coleman (Media, Culture, & Communication)
Sybille Fischer (Spanish & Portuguese)
Ben Kafka (Media, Culture, & Communication)
Bradley Lewis (Gallatin)
Jacques Lezra (Comparative Literature; Spanish & Portuguese)
Jerome Lowenstein (Medicine)
Jennifer Morgan (Social & Cultural Analysis; History)
Robert Rowe (Music & Performing Arts Professions)
Lidia Santarelli (European & Mediterranean Studies)
Clifford Siskin (English)
Robert Young (English; Comparative Literature)

The Humanities Initiative's offices are located at:

20 Cooper Square
(at East 5th Street)
Fifth Floor
New York, NY 10003-7112

We are excited to have a bright, spacious environment with large and small seminar rooms, a library for our Graduate Student Fellows, shared office space for our Faculty Fellows, and comfortable lounge areas. We are also pleased to have as our neighbors on the fifth floor the NY Institute for the Humanities , the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, the Institute for Public Knowledge, and the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue.

Please come and visit us. We look forward to welcoming you here for future talks and activities.

The Humanities Initiative is thrilled to be the new home of "Anghiari Verde," a painting donated to the Initiative by Italian artist Vittoria Chierici.