The humanities center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
www.iprh.illinois.edu

The humanities and the arts teach students how to interpret people, societies, artifacts, and events, locally as well as globally, in past and present contexts. Humanists interrogate the nature of truth and beauty, contemplating justice, and exploring the ethical obligations humans bear toward each other and the world. Study in the humanities trains students to recognize the diversity of human life, making what is familiar both inviting and strange. It helps students to question, comprehend, and transform an increasingly cosmopolitan globe. Humanists engage with and extend existing knowledge making it palpable for students. In so doing, we make the creation of new knowledges possible by framing what is known and revealing new truths.

IPRH grants fellowships to Illinois faculty and graduate students, and in fall 2010 welcomed the first Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellows in the Humanities, supported by a six-year grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

IPRH coordinates and hosts numerous lectures, symposia, and panel discussions on a wide variety of topics, and provides awards that recognize excellence in humanities research to faculty and students. IPRH supports faculty-driven initiatives for interdisciplinary public programming in the humanities through its Events Grants Program, and provides support to faculty and graduate student reading groups.

Since 2006, the Odyssey Project has operated as a free nine-month humanities course offered to members of the Champaign-Urbana community who live at or near the poverty level. The course—which is supported by the Office of the Chancellor, the College of Education, and a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council—is taught by Illinois faculty. IPRH has also been in affiliation with the Education Justice Project, a prison education program supported by the Illinois Humanities Council and individual donors, since 2008.