About
Overview
About the IPRH
The Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities was established in 1997, and moved to its Pennsylvania Avenue location in summer 1998. The IPRH is a division of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and is a member of the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes.
Fellowships
Since fall 1998, the IPRH has awarded 73 faculty fellowships and 74 graduate student fellowships to U of I scholars in more than 40 departments; between fall 2002 and spring 2007, the IPRH also awarded 9 external post-doctoral fellowships. In fall 2009, the IPRH is pleased to welcome its first Post-Doctoral Fellow in digital humanities.
Advisory Committee
The IPRH Advisory Committee has included 50 tenured faculty members from approximately 25 departments, representing the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the College of Fine and Applied Arts, the College of Communication, the School of Medicine, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science.
Reading Groups
Since the 2000-01 academic year, the IPRH has provided support to nearly 250 different faculty and graduate student reading groups, with membership representing every college and school on the U of I campus.
Conferences
The IPRH has organized and hosted 16 conferences – most of them coordinated with past IPRH annual themes, some in collaboration with the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory and the Center for Advanced Study, and two of them as part of a joint venture with our counterpart unit at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the Institute for the Humanities.
Public Events
The IPRH has organized more than 200 panel discussions, lectures, and other events that bring together scholars from the U of I and elsewhere in interdisciplinary conversations about the humanities.
Film Series
The IPRH Film Series, established in fall 2000, has screened more than 80 films, many of them with related panel discussions, gallery conversations, and visits by directors and film scholars from on and off campus.
Public Engagement
In fall 2006, the IPRH launched the Odyssey Project, a free yearlong humanities course for members of the community who live at or near the poverty level; Odyssey is supported by a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council, the Office of the Chancellor, and the Office of the Provost. In fall 2008, the IPRH began an association with the Education Justice Project, a college-in-prison program that is supported by the Illinois Humanities Council and the U of I campus.
Co-Sponsorships
Since its formation in 1997, the IPRH has co-sponsored more than 500 events involving more than 60 campus units and departments. Co-sponsorships have ranged from small contributions to major collaborations involving significant involvement. The IPRH has made every attempt to concentrate its limited resources on those projects and events that are most consistent with the mission of an interdisciplinary humanities program; and, wherever possible, the IPRH has become involved with such relevant programming by becoming a partner in the planning, publicity, and execution of the events.
Arts Initiatives
The IPRH arts initiatives have included more than 35 exhibitions of works by U of I faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates; local artists; and visiting nationally and internationally recognized artists. The IPRH has also organized numerous Curtain Call discussions following performances at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, gallery tours and conversations at the Krannert Art Museum, and performances by artists from the U of I and elsewhere.
