Compare Constellations

[See the historical sketch in the finding aid for Institute for the Humanities records.]

The Institute for the Humanities at the University of Michigan was founded in 1987 in response to a recognized need for renewed dialogue across disciplines.

An interdisciplinary innovation in the humanities and the arts, the Institute soon became a widely recognized center for international scholarship. Each annual program includes courses, mini-courses, conferences, forums, panel discussions, lectures, and musical and theatrical performances. Humanities Camp, a weekend of seminars, field trips, lectures and gatherings for alumni, was instituted in 1991.

The Institute for the Humanities at the University of Michigan was founded in 1987 in response to a recognized need for renewed dialogue across disciplines.

An interdisciplinary innovation in the humanities and the arts, the Institute soon became a widely recognized center for international scholarship. Each annual program includes courses, mini-courses, conferences, forums, panel discussions, lectures, and musical and theatrical preformances. Humanities Camp, a weekend of seminars, field trips, lectures and gatherings for alumni, was instituted in 1991.

The Institute for the Humanities at the University of Michigan was founded in 1987 in response to a recognized need for renewed dialogue across disciplines.

An interdisciplinary innovation in the humanities and the arts, the Institute soon became a widely recognized center for internationalscholarship. Each annual program includes courses, mini-courses, conferences, forums, panel discussions, lectures and musical and theatrical performances. Humanities Camp, a weekend of seminars, field trips, lectures and gatherings for alumni, was instituted in 1991.

Since World War II there has been an evolution toward a division of knowledge into discrete fields, resulting in ever narrowing areas of scholarly interest and focus. The Institute for the Humanities at the University of Michigan was founded in 1987 partly in response to a recognized need for renewed dialogue across the disciplines. However, it was also developed because there was already evidence of increased intellectual overlap between and among fields in the humanities: literary scholars using the perspectives of anthropology to study the origins of myth; musicologists and art historians using economic history to explain how patronage affected stylistic development; classicists combining the methods of many disciplines in the quest for knowledge of the ancient world. James A. Winn, who was the center's first director, spoke to the synergistic nature of the Institute's mission: "We do not oppose specialization. Instead, we attempt to transcend it by challenging the expert researcher and the innovative theorist to think about their findings on a larger level, as they relate to other investigations in other disciplines, and to excel in original and innovative ways."

The first executive committee, which was formed to assist an appointed director on policy and advise in the selection of internal and visiting fellows and associates, included faculty members from law, romance languages, Japanese studies, music, classics, and history. They, along with interim director John Knott, worked to set the stage for an exemplary interdisciplinary innovation in the humanities and the arts. After several years of planning, the Institute for the Humanities moved into a newly renovated suite of rooms in the Horace H. Rackham Building in September 1987.

While the earliest years primarily focused on building the program, raising an endowment, and increasing the number of fellows, the Institute quickly became a widely recognized center for international scholarship. Under Winn's directorship, the Institute, in just a few years, realized every guiding principle originally envisioned and defined: encourage interdisciplinary discourse and activity; promote the innovative and controversial; build bridges between the creative and performing arts and the analytical work done by humanists; develop an undergraduate dimension; and make findings available to a broad audience. Winn promoted broad, collaborative, integrative teaching in the humanities. Unlike programs elsewhere, the UM initiative, from the start, included a vital teaching component. Fellows developed new pedagogical models for instruction, moved across departmental boundaries, and welcomed students of all levels in their courses.

Institute programs continued to expand and develop. In addition to sponsored courses and mini-courses, key conferences and forums punctuated each term. (Until 1999, conference papers and other program components were oriented around an annual theme.) The Institute's commitment to fostering new connections between the settings in which scholars express themselves and the settings in which artists express themselves resulted in numerous performances each year in theatre, dance and music. Events were framed by panel discussions, brownbag lunches, and lectures.

In 1990, the Institute incorporated into the dialogue the examination of intersections between scientific and humanistic thought. In that year, undergraduate science majors participated in discussions ranging from medical ethics and the behavioral differences among primates, to the implications of technological change for humanists. In 1991, the center innovatively reached out to alumni. A Humanities Camp was instituted. Alumni were invited to a spring weekend of seminars, field trips, lectures and informal gatherings - all oriented around the humanities and designed to showcase some of the best faculty and experiences available at the University of Michigan.

In 1997, as the Institute entered its tenth year, Tom Trautmann, a former fellow, became its second director. In a letter published in the 1996-1997 annual report, Trautmann reaffirmed the center's guiding purpose: "I believe strongly in the Institute's central mission of supporting a community of scholars, both faculty and students, engaged in the creation of knowledge in the humanities."