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 paper leaf, decorates with a smiley face, tied on to the branch of a white tree.A close up of a 3D network of green ropes, connected by nodes of small silver spheres.An illustration of an owl lying on the floor of a library, reading a book.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, in collaboration with the American Studies Association and the Japanese Association of American Studies, a grant in support of an exchange of American and Japanese scholars exploring the role of AI in pedagogy and governance.

Latest News and Events

2026-27 UCHI Fellow's Talk. "Dunahay Pereyra is doctoral candidate in Sociology at the University of Connecticut. Her research is situated at the nexus of medical sociology and the sociology of embodiment with a focus on lived experiences of chronic illness and disability, particularly for invisibilized chronic illnesses. Her doctoral dissertation utilizes qualitative narrative interviews with people diagnosed with polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome to understand the ways that social and medical knowledge and meaning are constructed for chronic illness patients, and how their social and reproductive futures are shaped by illness." Dunahay Pereyra, PhD Candidate, Sociology, UConn. October 28, 3:30pm, UCHI Conference Room, 4th Floor HBL.

Fellow’s Talk: Dunahay Pereyra on PMOS Patients’ Sense of Self

October 19, 2026

Employing feminist social constructions of health and gender alongside theories of embodiment, Dunahay Pereyra examines how medicalized knowledge as a form of power intimately shapes gendered illness identities and dominant meanings about bodies for people living with the chronic illness PMOS. October 28, 3:30pm.

[Read More]
2026-27 Environmental Humanities. Environmental Careers Panel. October 28, 12:15pm. Cosponsored by the Center for Career Readiness and Life Skill with support from the office for sustainability.

Environmental Careers Panel

October 19, 2026

UCHI’s Environmental Humanities Initiative will be hosting an Environmental Careers panel with UConn alumni to discuss their career journeys, with a focus on humanities careers within the realm of the environment. October 28, 12:15pm.

[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

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Stephen Dyson says #YouShould...

Watch Drive (2011)

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What Are We Talking About When We Talk About AI? logo

Ever wonder why AI conversations feel like people are talking past each other? That's because they are. Join scholars from around the world as they tackle the most important terms in AI—and discover they don't mean the same thing to everyone. From Storrs, Connecticut to Rabat, Morocco, from computer labs to philosophy seminars, we're eavesdropping on the conversations that reveal how different fields understand artificial intelligence. Spoiler alert: the differences matter more than you think. Made possible by funding from CHCI and the Mellon Foundation.

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