Mapping the Humanities

Finding creative solutions to global problems

The power of medicine and engineering is easy to see – a surgeon performs a hand transplant, an engineer builds the replacement.

But what about when technological innovation offers no solution? When a terrorist uses a knife to attack a crowd of people, technology could not avert that disaster. But cultural and historical awareness, creativity and reasoning, and critical thinking – skills taught in the humanities – might offer an answer.

Understanding military history to prevent future wars, exploring bioethics to improve healthcare, and analyzing the construction of race to promote justice are just some of the ways the Commonwealth Center for the Humanities and Society’s (CCHS) inaugural cohort of Faculty Fellows are using their research to address global problems.

“This year I will have the opportunity to engage with a poet, two historians, another philosopher, and an expert in modern languages,” said Prof. Lauren Freeman (Philosophy), a 2016-17 Faculty Fellow. “Building communities across disciplines in the arts and sciences is important so that we can broaden discussions, see common goals, share our ideas, and achieve solidarity with colleagues who we might not otherwise meet or engage with.

“Especially at a time like this, when intellectual pursuits are under attack and need to be defended, we in the Arts and Sciences need to build coalitions and defend what it is that we are doing: namely, trying to understand the world around us so that we can change it for the better.”      

The CCHS is foregrounding humanities research through the Faculty Fellows program, as well as fostering interdisciplinary conversations on campus and actively engaging faculty with the community. The 2016-17 fellows are working on research as diverse as the nature of emotion, the ethics of interpretation, and issues in bioethics, civil rights history, and the politics of mixed-race identity.

“The Faculty Fellows program is a powerful tool of advocacy, one that demonstrates the indispensability of the values we champion and the knowledge we produce,” said CCHS Director Prof. John Gibson. “It allows us to support research that speaks to issues of broad cultural relevance, raising awareness of the significance of what we do as scholars and educators. In the humanities, we don’t just generate knowledge; our ideas become public goods that contribute to the intellectual, cultural, and physical health of the community in very concrete ways.”

UofL Board of Trustees member Emily Bingham sees great potential in the new program, made possible in part by a 1963 gift to the Division of Humanities from her grandparents Barry and Mary Bingham. “With its new Faculty Fellows Program, the Commonwealth Center for the Humanities & Society is leveraging the deep pool of talent within UofL’s College of Arts & Sciences—creating new knowledge, sparking public conversations, and yielding fresh courses to inspire undergraduate learners.”