The university is a place charged with imagining our collective future. We turn to the humanities to craft the values that will shape that future, and to guide us as we face the challenges ahead.

Anna Mae Duane, Director, UConn Humanities Institute
A photograph of a tin robot toy.A large group of faculty members and students gathered in the UCHI conference room to participate in a public event. One group sits around a conference table, while other participants sit in chairs lining the wall.A room full of multi-colored chairs arranged theater-style.

How do we know what we know? What does the truth look like? Consider these questions and more at our exhibition

Seeing Truth: Art, Science, Museums, and Making Knowledge

William Benton Museum of Art

January 17–March 10, 2023

Learn more

This exhibition is supported by the Henry Luce Foundation.

Image: Blazing the Trail to the Distant Past by Arthur A. Jansson, used with permission from the American Museum of Natural History.

Support Undergraduate innovation this UConn Gives with a gift to the UConn Humanities Institute.

What does it mean to be human?

UConn Humanities

We turn to the humanities to craft the values that will shape our future, and to guide us as we face the challenges ahead. What will it mean to be human in the face of technological and ecological upheaval? How does art and culture enable us to anticipate trends we want to embrace, and help us to avoid ancient pitfalls?

The mission of the UConn Humanities Institute (UCHI) is to catalyze, facilitate, and promote research on these questions, and advocate for that research on local and global stages. By hosting annual fellowships to support scholarship here at UConn and across the world, by supporting humanities-focused programming, and by facilitating an interdisciplinary space for scholars to think, collaborate, and create, UCHI serves as a creative laboratory for scholars and students dedicated to foregrounding human values.

Humanities Institute Success

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Established, with the support of a grant from CLAS, the Human-Centered AI team, a cross-disciplinary team of over twenty UConn researchers, to advance AI research that integrates critical humanistic and social scientific perspectives.

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Created, with our partners at the Université Internationale de Rabat, multidisciplinary dialogue on AI and its implementation in the US and Africa, supported by a grant of $25,000 by the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI).

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Awarded a two-year grant of $140,000 by the National Endowment for the Humanities to investigate how legacies of slavery are shaping the perception and reception of conversational artificial intelligence.

Latest News and Events

Humanities Undergraduate Research Symposium

Humanities Undergraduate Research Symposium

March 30, 2025

The fourth-annual Humanities Undergraduate Research Symposium (HURS) will take place on April 4th, 2025 from 9:00am–5:30pm. Breakfast and lunch will be provided for all attendees and participants. The event will be followed by a reception with refreshments.

[Read More]
Undergraduate Humanities Research Fellowship Colloquium. Kathryn Andronowitz (The Business of Domesticity: A Study on Homemaker Influencer Content on Instagram), Kanny Salike (The Evolution of Black American Sign Language (BASL) and African American English (AAE)), and Evan Wolfgang (Resurrecting Frances: Creating Going to the Lordy). April 2, 3:30pm. Humanities Institute Conference Room, HBL 4th floor.

Undergraduate Humanities Research Fellows Colloquium

March 25, 2025

2024-25 Undergraduate Research Fellows Kathryn Andronowitz, Kanny Salike, and Evan Wolfgang share their research projects, on social media homemakers, the co-evolution of BASL and AAE, and on dramatizing the assassination of James Garfield, respectively. April 2, 3:30pm.

[Read More]
Story Slam. March 27, 3:30pm. Ballard Black Box Theatre. Six students will perform their personal stories in an intimate show reflecting on issues of social isolation and connection.

Story Slam

March 13, 2025

Six students will perform their personal stories in an intimate show reflecting on issues of social isolation and connection. March 27, 3:30pm. Ballard Museum Black Box Theatre.

[Read More]
Sambhaji Bhagat stands at a music stand with a group of other South Asian men. They are all singing.

Manisha Desai says #YouShould...

Watch Sambhaji Bhagat

Drive (2011) movie poster

Stephen Dyson says #YouShould...

Watch Drive (2011)

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