Research Initiatives
The Northeastern Humanities Center supports faculty and student research in the humanities and social sciences; facilitates collaboration across disciplines; and presents humanistic and social scientific research to the wider university community and general public. Through our signature fellowship program, working groups, discussion forums, symposia, seminars, informal dialogues, conferences, and joint projects, the Humanities Center fosters a wide-ranging interdisciplinary exchange of ideas in an atmosphere of respect for diverse perspectives and expertise.
The Humanities Center Fellowship program brings together scholars from various disciplines, both within the College of Social Sciences and Humanities as well as from other colleges of Northeastern University. The Fellowship program provides a focused period of time for Northeastern Humanities Fellows to pursue research, to collaborate with others around a common theme, and to share their work with the Northeastern community.
Throughout the year, fellows discuss topical readings and one another’s pre-distributed papers. Public presentations are held for fellows to discuss their work with the Northeastern community. In addition, the center provides support for web projects and a final event that showcases collaboration and research results.
A call for applications is announced each fall semester. Both faculty and graduate students are selected to form a fellowship cohort for the following academic year.
The Faculty Works-in-Progress Colloquium is sponsored by the Dean of the College of Social Sciences and Humanities and the Northeastern Humanities Center. Faculty members from all colleges have the opportunity to share their current research with colleagues and benefit from questions and discussions. Lunch and refreshments are provided at each talk.
The schedule for the upcoming academic year is planned during the summer. If you are interested in giving a Works-In-Progress presentation, please contact: Ángel David Nieves, Director of the Humanities Center (a.nieves@northeastern.edu)
The Northeastern Humanities Center’s Collaborative Research Clusters (CRC) give faculty the opportunity for a range of interdisciplinary research collaborations with awards up to $2,000. These clusters bring together scholars and practitioners from different disciplines, both within and outside the university community, around a common issue of humanistic significance. The purpose is to facilitate productive discussions and collaborations among the participants, with a view toward the development of joint projects, conferences, publications, and grant applications.
The Humanities Center funds a wide range of themes and topics. Past groups have organized around such topics as critical social theory; sexual citizenship; urban environmental governance; food; and race and visual culture studies.
The Northeastern Humanities Center invites Events and Programs (EvP) applications to support special events, conferences, and programs during the coming academic year. Events or programs may be funded for up to $5,000 each; applications for co-sponsored programs are encouraged.
Humanities Center events and programs aim to bring together organizers and audiences from different disciplines, both within and beyond the Northeastern community. We welcome collaborative proposals that engage the Boston and wider public as participants or audiences; events of interest to graduate and/or undergraduate students across disciplines; programs with a global component; events that offer a distinctive humanistic perspective on the major NU research themes of health, security, and sustainability; and events that speak to the 2021-2022 Humanities Center Fellows’ theme of “Reckonings”