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What are the Humanities?

At the University of Oregon, the humanities are understood broadly to include literature, history, philosophy, the study of languages, linguistics, the arts, archaeology, religion, ethics, jurisprudence, and interpretive dimensions of the social sciences, the natural sciences, and the professions. The humanities are important because they help us to understand, in the broadest sense, the historical roots and the dynamics of the contemporary world. Education in the humanities provides society with citizens who can think critically, write clearly, and speak compellingly.

What Does the Oregon Humanities Center Do?

Teaching

The Humanities Center offers teaching fellowships to encourage the development of innovative undergraduate courses in the humanities. These courses span disciplines and cultural perspectives. They offer faculty an opportunity to teach subjects they would not normally teach, in ways they would not normally teach them--for example, in small team-taught seminars that often include distinguished guest speakers from around the country. Through these innovative courses, the standard undergraduate curriculum undergoes change, faculty become invigorated, and students benefit from fresh ideas and approaches. Faculty teach humanities courses that range from European history to Chinese literature, from the American Constitution to Greek mythology, from logic to music, and from public policy analysis to cognitive science.

Research

The Humanities Center supports research in the humanities through research fellowship programs for UO faculty and doctoral students. A research fellowship is regarded as a golden opportunity to devote time exclusively to research for an entire academic term. Because the University of Oregon is a research university -- an institution whose faculty members define the very nature of the fields they teach -- the importance of these fellowships cannot be overestimated.

Public Outreach

The Humanities Center is committed to fostering public awareness and discussion of university research in the humanities. We administer a rich array of free public programs both on and off campus. These events include faculty presentations, lectures by renowned thinkers, poetry readings, art exhibitions, conferences, symposia, and debates. Past events include a spring 1996 conference on "Ethics After the Holocaust," which brought extraordinary scholars -- such as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel -- to the University of Oregon, and which attracted national and international attention as well as substantial community support. Public outreach is essential to building the public support that is crucial to the University's success.

Our Mission

The Oregon Humanities Center promotes discussion across disciplines. We encourage individual disciplines to rethink basic assumptions and to articulate their aims in language that is accessible to other disciplines as well as to the public at large. The Center encourages innovation and excellence in teaching, supports an humanities interdisciplinary research, and provides a public forum for discussion and reflection on issues important to individuals and communities in and beyond Oregon.

Where Can You Find Us?

The Oregon Humanities Center is centrally located near the Knight Library and the Museum of Art. We occupy a first-floor wing of Prince Lucien Campbell Hall (PLC), including offices for our resident fellows and staff, a conference room for meetings or scholarly presentations, a small research library, and computer resources. The Center was founded in 1983 through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and was organized and greatly expanded in 1987 when its current programs in teaching, research, and public outreach began.

Along with other centers at institutions such as Stanford, Yale, U.C. Berkeley, and the University of Virginia, the Oregon Humanities Center is a member of the national Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes. We have received financial support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), corporations, foundations, scholarly societies, and individuals.

About Our Logo

The root of the modern notion of the humanities is to be found in the European Renaissance, when scholars of the revival of classical learning were referred to as "humanists." These original humanists reacted against medieval scholasticism, which they associated with the spinning out of systems and minutiae that had lost their moorings in experience. The study of Greek and Roman literature remains an important pursuit. Despite the burgeoning of new and exciting fields, few self-respecting modern American universities want to do without a Classics Department. In today's increasingly intercultural world, however, we need to look around and beyond traditional boundaries. For the Renaissance humanists, going back to the sources meant returning to Greek and Latin. In today's world, those sources are many and varied. Our logo recognizes this fact. It can be read as the ancient Chinese character that means "culture,""literature,""refinement,""the arts,"—in other words, the humanities. It is pronounced (in Mandarin Chinese) "wen" (sounded something like the English word "one," with a rising tone); even in its earliest forms it depicted a human figure and it originally meant "pattern." This character means "culture" or "the arts" not only in China, but elsewhere in the Pacific Rim—in Japan and Korea, for example. The particular rendition of this character was designed for us as our logo happens to look like a dancer. It is joyous, moving, and alive—qualities that characterize many humanistic endeavors and aspirations.

Many thanks to Helen Liu, who helped us to trace the pictograph's lineage. Thanks also to Teresa Bowerman, who wrote us a thoughtful letter discussing the meanings of the character.

Updated: 7/5/05