Humanities Initiative Helps Innovative Scholars Expand Personal and Professional Horizons at NYU
NYU’s Humanities Initiative was created in 2007 to help scholars find kindred spirits across campus, to support humanities work in the classroom and field, and to articulate the importance of the humanities to the NYU community and beyond.
One aspect of the new initiative is the annual selection of NYU Faculty and Graduate Student Research Fellows who gather under the leadership of Jane Tylus, professor of Italian studies and vice provost for academic affairs, to discuss their work and occasionally meet with campus administrators who have strong ties to the humanities. In 2007-08, 10 faculty and Ph.D. students from the Faculty of Arts and Science (FAS), the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and the Tisch School of the Arts (TSOA) have met weekly to immerse themselves in projects ranging from a study of law and literature in czarist Russia to a cultural history of New York City and a play about apartheid.
Gabriella Petrick, assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at Steinhardt, and Michael Birnbaum Quintero, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Music, are two Humanities Initiative Fellows who have benefited personally and professionally from the experience. Petrick’s project centers on the industrialization of taste in 20th century America, including the history of canning. She’s currently finishing up several articles and about to begin working on a book, Sweet, Sour, Salty, Bitter: Taste in American History, for the University of Illinois Press. The initiative, says Petrick, “has been an invaluable experience, as it’s helped me get back to my humanities roots.”
Birnbaum, who is completing a dissertation that examines the role of music in the formation of race in Colombia, agrees that the yearlong experience expanded his theoretical horizons.
“One of the most positive aspects of being a Fellow has been working out our ideas with a group of smart people,” says Birnbaum. “I have thought about, and in some cases incorporated, other Fellows’ comments and helpful ideas from different disciplines into my dissertation. For example, as an ethnomusicologist I have found it quite useful to talk to Bambi Schieffelin, a linguistic anthropologist, about creolization.”
Both scholars stressed the importance of being part of an intellectual community that goes beyond their own disciplines. For Petrick, the bonds that she’s formed through the initiative have led to other connections at NYU, a place, she says, “where you can easily get lost.” Her contact with Fellows Bryan Waterman and Cyrus Patell, both in the Department of English, led her to apply to be a Faculty Fellow in Residence, and Humanities Initiative activities have put her in contact with faculty in the Gallatin School of Individualized Study and the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, who share her research interests.
“For me, these relationships have made NYU feel more like a home than a place to work,” says Petrick.
Next year, the initiative will have a new home at 20 Cooper Square, with shared research space, a lounge, and a seminar room. In the meantime, the Humanities Initiative’s new virtual space has been launched at www. nyu.edu/humanities.initiative.
Research Fellows awarded funding for the 2008-09 academic year are: Markus Asper, Department of Classics, FAS; Thomas E. Augst, Department of English, FAS; Shamik Dasgupta, Department of Philosophy, FAS; Hasia R. Diner, Hebrew and Judaic Studies, FAS; Lerna Ekmekçio€lu, Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, FAS; Laura E. Levine, Department of Drama, TSOA; Shane E. Minkin, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, FAS; Jessie Morgan-Owens, Department of English, FAS; Kimberly K. Phillips-Fein, Gallatin School of Individualized Study; Beatrice Sica, Department of Italian Studies, FAS; Hala Y. H. Youssef, Department of Comparative Literature/Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, FAS; and Jennifer Zwarich, Department of Cinema Studies, TSOA.
Humanities Initiative Fellows Gabriella Petrick (left) and Michael Birnbaum
