The Humanities Center at Carleton cultivates the intellectual and cultural life at the College...

• by providing a locus for innovative research and interdisciplinary collaboration among faculty and students
• by fostering, coordinating, and publicizing diverse programming on campus
• by engaging students in the practice of the humanities, and
• by interrogating the relationship between humanistic study and artistic, ethical, and political issues in the contemporary world.

While the Center assumed an important virtual presence on campus at its inception in 2008, it now has a geographical location as well. The Humanities Center office in the Weitz Center for Creativity, Room 223, serves as a vital gathering place for interdisciplinary groups, and as a launching pad for the HC initiatives.

The initiative began in 2005 with a New Directions Grant from the Mellon Foundation, and is currently partially funded by a gift to Carleton from David and Marian Adams Bryn-Jones. The original Steering Committee included Deborah Appleman (Educational Studies), Shahzad Bashir (Religion), Jorge Brioso (Spanish), Susan Jaret McKinstry (English), Silvia López (Spanish), Susannah Ottaway (History), Diet Prowe (History), and Cathy Yandell (French and Francophone Studies). With the support of Carleton President Robert Oden, Dean Scott Bierman, and Director of Corporate & Foundation Relations Mark Gleason—and continued by President Steven Poskanzer and Dean Bev Nagel—the initiative has become a lively and vibrant program.

The faculty remain the driving conceptual force behind the Center, but our programming serves all constituencies: faculty, students, staff, and the surrounding community. We invite you to peruse the website and to participate in the seminars, discussions, lectures, and symposia sponsored by the Humanities Center, as well as the numerous interdisciplinary events that we promote on campus. Since the Center's newness invites experimentation and discovery, we encourage you to send us your ideas!

Susannah Ottaway
Director of the Humanities Center
sottaway@carleton.edu