First Class of Fellows Selected for NYU’s New Humanities Initiative

Created in 2007, the Humanities Initiative at NYU provides the University’s faculty and students a forum for cross-disciplinary discussion and collaboration in the humanities and arts.

To foster and enhance the humanities community at NYU, the initiative sponsors a number of endeavors aimed at promoting interdisciplinary dialogue, teaching, and research. Among these efforts are one-year research fellowships for full-time faculty and advanced graduate students in the humanities and the arts; team teaching stipends for course development and implementation; the Humanities Festival, an annual event designed to bring members of the NYU and New York City communities together, in collaboration with the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU; working research groups designed to bring together NYU faculty and students on a focused topic in the humanities; grants that assist in funding humanistic events on campus and at NYU’s sites abroad, as well as individual research projects; and a speakers series to discuss a range of issues relevant to the role of the humanities in everyday life.

The initiative, directed by Jane Tylus, professor of Italian studies, Faculty of Arts and Science (FAS), and vice provost for academic affairs, recently selected its first team of graduate and faculty fellows, who have been meeting on a weekly basis to discuss their work-in-progress and that of invited guests. The 2007-08 Faculty Fellows are Jane Burbank, Department of History, FAS; Alexander Galloway, Department of Media, Culture and Communication, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development; Janet Neipris, Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing, Tisch School of the Arts; Cyrus Patell, Department of English, FAS; Gabriella Petrick, Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health, Steinhardt; Bambi Schieffelin, Department of Anthropology, FAS; and Bryan Waterman, Department of English, FAS. The 2007-08 Graduate Fellows are Michael Birenbaum Quintero, Department of Music, Graduate School of Arts and Science (GSAS); Marcela Echeverri, Department of History, GSAS; and Karen Santos Da Silva, Department of French, FAS.

For more information on the Humanities Initiative at NYU, go to www.nyu.edu/humanities.initiative.