Innovation and Collaboration
Our granting programs empower researchers to fuse insights from the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering. In our interdisciplinary seminars, lectures, conferences, and working groups, faculty and graduate students find a supportive environment in which to present their work to peers who question and challenge it. Enriching Princeton’s intellectual community with distinguished visitors, our fellowship programs host scholars, journalists, artists, and writers from around the world.
Confronting Racism
The Council sponsors path-breaking projects that tackle systemic racism, along with the inequality and injustice it engenders. Topics include racist policing and police violence, public health crises such as COVID-19, educational disparities, and climate change. Partnering humanities scholars with artists, activists, scientists, and journalists, we deepen understanding, foster difficult conversations, and catalyze reform.
Global Perspectives
Through multi-year research and teaching collaborations, the Council is developing new humanities networks on five continents: Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, and South America. With our advice and resources, faculty create Breakthrough Seminars reaching beyond the traditional classroom, or across disciplinary boundaries, to intensify as well as internationalize learning. Council funding enables students to research theses abroad, report news from overseas, and visit Greece or Rome to see the roots of Western civilization. At the macro level, we build bridges between institutions in the United States, China, Russia, Japan, France, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, among other countries.
Public Humanities
In collaboration with local organizations and individuals, the Council invites people of all backgrounds to make discoveries, exchange ideas, and experience the excitement of cutting-edge research. We co-host the sole North American hub of Being Human, the international festival of the humanities. This town-gown event series gathers New Jersey residents to explore the findings of faculty, students, and staff. Our Public Humanities Working Group probes how Princeton’s humanistic achievements can shape cultural values, service, and activism. Through Outreach Grants, we fund faculty and graduate students who share their expertise with audiences beyond campus. Our Rapid Response Magic Grants address pressing societal concerns, such as by bolstering scholarship and community amid social distancing.
