University of Texas Humanities Institute
University of Texas at Austin

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Director

Samantha Pinto Professor of English and affiliated faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies, African and African Diaspora Studies, The Warfield Center for African American Studies, and LGBTQ Studies

Associate Director for Health and Humanities

Phillip J. Barrish

Associate Director for Digital Humanities

Tanya Clement

Assistant Director

Melissa Biggs

About

Since 2001, the University of Texas Humanities Institute has offered an array of interdisciplinary programs bridging campus and community. Using the motto "thinking in community," the Institute defines the humanities expansively. In addition to a variety of public humanities programs, we feature a Humanities, Health, and Medicine program that offers a new master’s degree. We are currently building programs in Digital Humanities and Intersectional Humanities.

Every two years we choose a broad theme for our public lectures and faculty seminars: our theme for 2022-2024 is “Digital Futures and Social Justice.” A series of distinguished visiting lecturers has been chosen to engage this issue from the perspective of their own experience and intellectual practice. The visiting lecturers also participate in a seminar with our Faculty Fellows, whose fields include the arts, social sciences, communication, education, information, public affairs, and social work in addition to the humanities.

We also offer distinctive programs for undergraduates (Difficult Dialogues courses, a Digital Humanities certificate) and community leaders (the Community Fellows program). We partner with the Austin Public Library in offering the Controversy and Conversation film series. The Institute has received funding from the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, CHCI/Mellon Foundation, and several local foundations.