A Message from Director Anna Mae Duane
This year is a special one for all of us at UCHI, as we celebrate our 25th anniversary. From a small room nestled on the third floor of the Austin building to a thriving hub of activity here in the library, the Humanities Institute has grown and thrived because we have put our values into action.
Our fellowship program reflects the value of excellence in research and of the transformative power of shared knowledge. So, it’s only fitting that we spend this anniversary year celebrating our fellows and the world-class research they have produced over the past quarter-century. Keep an eye out for events showcasing our fellows’ award-winning works of history, philosophy, and filmmaking (to name just a few!). We are particularly excited to showcase our newest cohort of fellows: our undergraduate fellowship program, now entering its fifth year, has a growing cohort of accomplished alumni. These students, who have pursued their research projects here at UCHI alongside faculty and graduate students, are now charting new paths as Fulbrighters overseas, as playwrights in New York City, and as graduate students at Ivy League institutions.
Another indication of the global significance of humanities research can be found in UCHI’s growing international partnerships. This year will see expanding collaborations with colleagues in Japan and Morocco who are asking, alongside us, how artificial intelligence will reshape human life. As AI homogenizes so much of the text we find on our phones and laptops, we need the expertise the humanities bring to the complexities of cultural expression across borders and across disciplines.
Here at home, we see that expertise at work as our Humanistic AI Working Group continues to grow, bringing together scholars across the humanities and social sciences to ask how AI is reshaping our understanding of labor, authorship, and care. Their work is a vivid reminder that the humanities are not a retreat from technological change but rather provide the very skills we need to navigate that change wisely.
The humanities offer the tools that allow us to determine what makes human life meaningful, and to reassert the transformative power of human creativity and collaboration as our most valuable resources. It is our shared commitment to better understanding our world and one another that has built this institute, and I have no doubt that this commitment that will carry us through the next twenty-five years.
