Mission

One of the largest and most comprehensive humanities centers in the United States, the Simpson Center for the Humanities is known internationally for its initiatives in public scholarship and the digital humanities. It serves a broad-based academic research mission supporting four objectives:

• Crossdisciplinary research and inquiry
• Initiatives in the humanities at the leading edge of change
• Innovative study at the graduate level
• Scholarship that reaches audiences beyond the academy

What Are the Humanities?

The Simpson Center has adopted the definition offered by National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act (1965):

The term “humanities” includes, but is not limited to, the study and interpretation of the following: language, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence; philosophy; archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism and theory of the arts; those aspects of social sciences which have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods; and the study and application of the humanities to the human environment with particular attention to reflecting our diverse heritage, traditions, and history and to the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of national life.

Via the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Read more about:

• Crossdisciplinary research informs all Simpson Center programs
• Curriculum includes innovative, crossdisciplinary courses, and the graduate Certificate in Public Scholarship.
• Public Scholarship refers to diverse modes of creating and circulating knowledge for and with publics and communities.
• Digital Humanities scholarship and support.