National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman’s visit marks tenth anniversary of the UF Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere
On April 5, the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere at the University of Florida (founded in 2005 and launched in 2009), held a celebration in honor of its ten-year anniversary. The two-hour event welcomed special guests Kent Fuchs, President of the University of Florida, Steve Seibert, Executive Director of the Florida Humanities Council, and Jon Parrish Peede, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), who delivered the keynote address.
NEH Chairman Peede delivering his lecture to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere.
Following Chairman Peede’s address, there was a showcase of humanities projects at UF, including a saxophone performance from Laurent Estoppey from a piece composed by UF’s own Dr. Navid Bargrizan and inspired by a miniature album of paintings by Japanese artist Watanabe Shötei (1851 – 1918). Other projects included the NEH-funded Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) and the production “Telling: Gainesville,” which captured the poignancy of veterans discussing combat experiences, loss of comrades, and post-war traumas.
NEH Chairman Peede meeting with UF graduate and undergraduate students in the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere.
Rothman Chair and Director of the Center for the Humanities and Public Sphere, Dr. Barbara Mennel said, “The anniversary of the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere at the University of Florida was a great occasion to take stock and look forward as we engage the UF campus with its many constituencies and the public in questions of human and cultural values. Collaborating with the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Florida Humanities Council has allowed us to engage with diverse communities in Florida.”
Mennel also said, “Our name ‘Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere’ spells out our program to engage communities in Gainesville and North Central Florida in pressing questions from water and sustainability to history and culture. We are proud of many scholars and programs we have funded and look forward to the next decades.”
To learn more, visit https://humanities.ufl.edu/.
NEH Chair Peede with President Fuchs; Dean of Libraries Judith Russell; Associate Provost Angela Lindner; NEH Deputy Director Jeff Hardwick; members of the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere and the Florida Humanities Council.