The Humanities Center provides a physical home as well as intellectual, financial, and organizational support for students, faculty, and staff who wish to come together to participate in humanistic inquiry, understood in the broadest possible terms. We seek to enrich the work of existing academic departments and programs in the humanities, by stimulating a wide range of activities that move beyond
and across disciplines, urging members of the community to consider in the freest and fullest ways what humans are or have been, what humans have produced and are producing. We seek to break down the division between work and play, between the classroom and the rest of life
We aim to foster vibrant intellectual inquiry, and to diffuse the energies of such inquiry into the broader culture of the Lehigh campus. We choose a theme for each year (Creativity, The Public Intellectual, Waste, Just Globalization, New Bethlehem, Speaking Bodies are examples) and bring a series of scholars, intellectuals, artists, writers, activists, and visionaries to address related issues. We sponsor interdisciplinary curriculum, including team- taught courses. We also host conferences, co-sponsor visiting speakers, support reading groups, and organize a works-in-progress series. The Humanities Center also hosts a wide range of informal activities to create lively, unstructured humanistic community.
