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
An aerial view of people gathered at the Seeing Truth exhibition at the Benton Museum. Art is hanging on blue walls and in the middle of the room a table covered in a black table cloth holds silver objects.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.A photograph of three actors on stage, two facing one another. One of those actors is pointing a gun at the third actor, who is seated behind her, and is gagged and appears to be tied to a chair.

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 help of a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the first-ever New England Humanities Consortium, bringing together both ivy-league and state-sponsored institutions.

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Chosen to be an affiliate partner with the Yale Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition. UCHI Director Anna Mae Duane will co-direct a two-year seminar convening an international group of leading scholars of the history of slavery.

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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

2024-25 UCHI Fellow's Talk. "Abiding River: Connecticut River Views and Stories," Janet Pritchard, Professor of Art and Art History, UConn. With a response by Josha Jelitzki. December 4, 3:30pm. UCHI Conference Room.

Fellow’s Talk: Janet Pritchard on Connecticut River Views

November 18, 2024

Janet L. Pritchard will discuss her current creative research project in landscape photography, Abiding River: Connecticut River Views & Stories, which is being published as a book. She will explore her process for selecting from thousands of photographs, and detail how the books structure reflects the river itself. December 4, 3:30pm.

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2024-25 UCHI Faculty Talk. "Theatre as Dialectics: Justice, Reconciliation, and Peace." with Gary English, Distinguished Professor of Dramatic Arts. November 2, 12:15pm. Humanities Institute Conference Room, Homer Babbidge Library 4th floor.

Faculty Talk: Gary English on Theatre as Dialectics

November 13, 2024

Gary M. English (Dramatic Arts) explores how theatre production critiques the dichotomy between justice and reconciliation by insisting that justice and a positive peace cannot be achieved without criminal accountability regarding the most egregious violations of international law.

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Why We Argue features conversations with scholars, artists, and scientists about topics related to truth, science, art, political conviction, and more.

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