Penn’s hub for interdisciplinary humanities research and public programming now has a permanent endowment thanks to Dick Wolf, C’69, PAR’15, the multiple Emmy-winning creator of the Law & Order and Chicago franchises. Building upon the tradition of the Penn Humanities Forum, the newly named Wolf Humanities Center seeks to demonstrate how vital the humanities are to the life of the mind and the health of society. The 2017-18 season will examine the topic “Afterlives” through a wide-ranging series of talks, conferences, films, and live performances that are free and open to the public.
“The Wolfs’ support for cinema studies and humanities scholarship at Penn has been extraordinary,” said Penn President Amy Gutmann. “This most recent gift will position the Wolf Humanities Center as the locus for interdisciplinary research on the human experience and a powerful catalyst for vibrant, public forums that contribute to the very core of our understanding of critical issues from a humanities perspective.”
The Wolf Humanities Center is moving to a newly-renovated wing of Williams Hall this fall and will continue the work of the Penn Humanities Forum. Since 1999, its programs have supported innovative scholarship through annual topic-based public forums in which scholars, students, and a diverse array of non-academic constituencies consider “our common stake in the thinking arts.”
“Hundreds of scholars have received our fellowships, and our public events draw thousands of people every year from throughout the Philadelphia area,” said James English, Wolf Humanities Center Director and John Welsh Centennial Professor of English. “The Wolf gift stands as a recognition of the Forum’s achievements and an endorsement of our ambition to make Penn a major hub for regional, national, and global humanities research.”
Led by topic director Emily Wilson, a professor of classical studies at Penn, the Wolf Humanities Center’s 2017-18 Forum on “Afterlives” opened September 27 with “Ghosts, Zombies, and the Afterlives of Slavery,” a public conversation between prize-winning author Colson Whitehead and Salamishah Tilllet, an associate professor of English and Africana studies at Penn.
More information about the Wolf Humanities Center and it 2017-18 programs is available at: wolfhumanities.upenn.edu.
