New humanities center to foster collaboration

A new Humanities Center will take an interdisciplinary approach to improve partnerships and interaction between humanities and other disciplines on campus.

Center director Steven Nadler, UW–Madison professor of philosophy who chaired the committee that developed the proposal, says the new center will act as a clearinghouse for issues and activities in the humanities. UW–Madison has 23 humanities departments or programs encompassing history, philosophy, language, literature, the arts and culture. The UW–Madison College of Letters and Science houses all humanities programs.

“What has been lacking at UW–Madison is a way to make humanists more aware of each other’s work, encourage them to communicate across traditional academic boundaries, learn what is new and interesting in each other’s fields of study, share their knowledge, and collaborate in teaching and research projects,” Nadler says. “We also urgently need an effective way to interact with the public.”

Unlike the university’s Institute for Research in the Humanities, which since 1959 has provided support for individual research projects, the center will sponsor activities and sustained dialogues that cut across disciplines. The center is expected to be up and running next semester.

Chancellor David Ward sees the new center as an excellent means of fostering interaction among scholars. “It will be a key element in the movement to break down barriers that may exist, sometimes artificially, between disciplines,” he says.

Ward adds the new center also will act as a gateway for the general public to take advantage of UW–Madison humanities resources.

Nadler says the committee also has some specific partnerships in mind for the center. “We need to talk to and collaborate with libraries, the public schools, museums, businesses, government agencies, retirement communities and schools,” he says.

According to Letters and Science Dean Phillip Certain, faculty of all disciplines will benefit from the new center.

“It will play an important role in encouraging conversations among humanists, and also foster interactions between the humanities, and the natural and social sciences,” Certain says.

Jane C. Tylus, L&S associate dean for the humanities, will have administrative responsibility for the center. Tylus says the first order of business will be to establish an executive committee and advisory board. She also says plans will get under way for a major symposium to inaugurate the center.

The center will help scholars and administrators rethink the relationship of the humanities to the university and to the larger community.”