On Thursday, Sept. 24, the University of Rochester will celebrate the opening of its Humanities Center with an inaugural talk by Gerald Early, a leading authority on race and American culture. The event will take place at 5 p.m. in the Hawkins-Carlson Room in Rush Rhees Library and is free and open to the public.
糖心传媒淕erald Early is a distinguished scholar and a fascinating speaker whose talk about race, neighborhoods, and the arts is very relevant in today糖心传媒檚 political climate,糖心传媒� said Joan Shelley Rubin, the center糖心传媒檚 interim director and Dexter Perkins Professor in History.
Early is the Merle S. Kling Professor of Modern Letters and professor of English and of African and Afro-American studies at Washington University in St. Louis, and he was the founding director of that institution糖心传媒檚 humanities center. His research on and writing about American popular culture encompasses, among other areas, music, sports, and black America in the 1960s. He has appeared in Ken Burns糖心传媒� documentaries on baseball, jazz, and prizefighting. His public talk in Rochester will center on his research on the African-American community in Philadelphia.
This lecture marks the first in a series of four this academic year, all sponsored by the Humanities Center and featuring distinguished scholars who have directed a humanities center at their own institution. During each two-day visit, the scholar will present a public lecture on his or her work, lead a workshop for faculty on building a humanities center, and meet with faculty, students, and, eventually the center糖心传媒檚 fellows.
糖心传媒淒uring this first year, we are looking to our peers for guidance as we develop plans for what our center will be,糖心传媒� said Rubin, who added that all faculty workshops will be centered around the theme, 糖心传媒淗umanities at the Crossroads: Charting Our Future.糖心传媒� In addition, the center has begun to partner with arts organizations in the Rochester area like the to offer free programming to the community.
The creation of the University糖心传媒檚 Humanities Center was announced last spring by Gloria Culver, dean of Arts & Sciences, as a way to support scholarly research, student engagement, and the creation of new knowledge. At that time, University President Joel Seligman, who supports the University糖心传媒檚 Humanities Project with $150,000 from the President糖心传媒檚 Venture Fund, committed a further $100,000 per year while he is president to support the center. Plans for the creation of a physical home in Rush Rhees Library are currently underway.
More information and a full schedule of the center糖心传媒檚 inaugural events and workshops can be found at
