SAS creates new humanities forum

The new center will bring together faculty in a number of disciplines. Its missions: To foster academic exchange between professors from disciplines within and outside the humanities. To bridge gaps between Penn and the community. To make the University a livelier center of intellectual life. They might sound like tough tasks, but the University's new Humanities Forum and its director, English Department Chairperson Wendy Steiner, say they're ready for the challenge. In an effort to foster intellectual exchange among School of Arts and Sciences faculty in different departments, the Dean's Planning and Priority Committee voted unanimously last month to create the humanities forum. The forum, slated to open next fall and operate out of Bennett Hall, aims to serve three main functions: to create a network for intellectual exchange between faculty; provide a broad context for discussion of the humanities in the Philadelphia community; and create a calendar of humanities events each semester. Its principal endeavor of encouraging the exchange of ideas between professors -- not restricted to the humanities -- stems from the notion that professors can benefit from one another. "[The] Humanities Forum is meant to connect the humanities to disciplines outside of it," Steiner said. "The idea of it is to create a kind of synergy among scholars of different fields who are addressing the same issue." Administrators hope that this type of intellectual interaction will lead to Penn's establishment as a focal point for artistic activities. "We think that [the forum] is really going to be a galvanizing influence on the humanities at Penn and the relationship between Penn and the community," SAS Dean Samuel Preston said. In order to create this atmosphere, the forum will invite visiting faculty and has begun recruiting post-doctoral students from various fields in the humanities. Funds for recruitment are being provided both by the forum's budget and the consolidation of the current Mellon Foundation Fellowship in the humanities into the structure of the Forum. Post-doctoral students are being recruited based on their affinity to a particular theme, decided by the forum each year, and are expected to teach a course related to it. Recipients of the scholarship will also engage in frequent deliberations over the theme with scholars from various departments. Next year's theme will be human nature. "We chose human nature as the first topic for the forum because of the implications it possesses for numerous departments throughout the university," Steiner said. "[Human nature] pressures faculty from the humanities, sciences and social sciences to think about the constraints of their views." While the forum is scheduled to operate out of Bennett Hall next year, funds exist for the construction of a facility to house the forum. According to Preston, officials should identify a construction site for the institution within the next few months. Preston said last semester that Penn has raised $2.1 million for the project. The forum also plans to offer a team-taught course in the fall, open to Penn students as well as Philadelphia residents. "The [team-taught] course will probably have one teacher who will act like a main professor and a lot of guest lecturers and visitors from different disciplines on the topic to offer various perspectives," Steiner said. A planning group consisting of scholars from various University departments -- Anthropology, History, Romance Languages, Classical Studies, History of Art, Linguistics, Music, and English -- has recently begun discussing the issues relating to a team-taught course, as well as many other facets of the program. "The group is working to build a basis of thinking about human nature in the world," Steiner said. "This way, when the forum begins its first activities in the fall, scholars will have some basis to go on." In line with the goal of facilitating interdisciplinary study and interaction, the forum will provide scholarships for 10 undergraduate students to conduct research. Research is not, however, the only endeavor the forum is associating itself with. It also seeks to improve communication between the University and Philadelphia community, especially in relation to the humanities. "The idea is that Penn's made of knowledgeable people whose ideas concern people in the outside world," Steiner said. "There are lots of outreach possibilities at Penn. It is unfortunate how little spills over into the community." In order to try to solve this dilemma, the forum will open all its classes to the public and plans on creating an advisory board made up of cultural and community leaders -- museum directors, politicians, college presidents and Philadelphia residents, to name a few groups The forum will also host a major collaboration program between the forum and the community. The first program of this sort, "A Celebration of Philadelphia Writers," will be held on the weekend of March 26 and will take place on both Penn's campus as well as throughout Philadelphia. Numerous writers, artists, film directors and poets are scheduled to appear, among them authors Buzz Bissinger and Chaim Potok and film directors Jonathan Demme and Brian DePalma. "We are helping the city to create an image of itself as a cultural center for the humanities," Steiner said. "Penn lives in Philly; we could have an impact on the humanist outlook of the city." The final mission of the forum is to offer students and community members a comprehensive list of available humanities activities to participate in. Beginning next fall, the forum will be printing a calendar listing the various events sponsored by Penn's departments. "A calendar is badly needed in order to allow people to plan events without conflicts," said Romance Languages Professor Joan DeJean, who serves on the forum's planning committee.