We are living through a deeply unsettling time, marked by a number of heightened challenges. Central among these are the ongoing climate crisis, threats to democracy at home and abroad, and the accelerating incorporation of artificial intelligence throughout multiple sectors of society, including higher education. These challenges cannot be separated from one another, and they have a particular relevance for the humanities, which will be called upon to play a critical role in the coming years — in representing the distinctiveness of the human in relation to technology, the importance of value pluralism to democracy, and the responsibility of humanity to planetary well-being. 

Given the difficulties we face, and the impact of the tragic events on campus this past December, the Cogut Institute this year joined many other units and colleagues at Brown in devoting its energies to community-centered intellectual life and programming attuned to the moment. Our faculty and students responded with marked engagement and presence at the institute, advancing our mission through collective inquiry and pedagogical innovation.  

Programs that generated campus-wide participation included a debate between Yale legal historian Samuel Moyn and Brown political economist Mark Blyth on whether our political moment is truly unprecedented; a conversation between Karan Marajan (Literary Arts) and Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jhumpa Lahiri on writing across languages and cultures; an intensive two-day workshop on AI and the humanities; and a symposium exploring the mining and fossil fuel industries, featuring an international roster of academics, conservation advocates, and artists.

Our annual fellows pursued distinctive, rigorous research on topics such as provincial identity in the Roman empire, the politics of Holocaust memory, universal humanism as a political and ethical aspiration, the idea of unlived experience in the French novel, and how we might imagine ecological virtue. All of the fellows filmed video introductions to their work, which I hope you’ll explore in our annual report.

The institute is committed to the support of individual faculty research, as evidenced in the fellows program, as well as the cultivation of collaborative research through our initiatives, labs, and doctoral certificates. This year we were proud to add another doctoral certificate, in environmental humanities, under the aegis of our Center for Environmental Humanities at Brown. The institute is honored to serve as a second home for many humanities doctoral students, who bring an added level of academic engagement to our diverse community of undergraduates, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty.

We once again concluded the year with a celebratory showcase of recent faculty book publications in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. The event featured 32 books representing 24 disciplines and programs on campus, on topics including the role of Black women in human rights advocacy, forms of lived religion in Late Antiquity, solar energy, the films of Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, the history of neurological difference, the philosophy of reading, and the experiences of undocumented Asian immigrants in the United States. These diverse research projects, along with the work of our fellows and our programming as a whole, demonstrate the pluralism of intellectual frameworks, methods, and value commitments emblematic of the humanities.

This past year marks my last as director of the institute. During the 11 years of my directorship, the institute has grown and evolved, hiring brilliant new faculty for the University, launching probing initiatives that emerge from and speak to the research interests of scholars across campus, and adapting thoughtfully and sustainably to the changing landscape of the humanities. It has been an honor and a privilege to lead this work in partnership with the wonderful institute staff as well as the many faculty and students who help advance our programs.

I’m pleased to welcome Shelley Lee (American Studies, History) as the incoming director. Her vital contributions to the institute — both in her capacity as an initiative director and as a faculty fellow — have consistently demonstrated her deep commitment to the humanities. For my part, as a member of the Cogut faculty, I will continue to lead the Doctoral Certificate in Collaborative Humanities program.

Thank you, as always, for your support of the Cogut Institute and of the humanities at Brown. I look forward to seeing the institute continue to initiate and shape meaningful new humanities research that puts Brown at the forefront of some of the most important conversations today.

Explore the 2025–26 Annual Report Give now to the Cogut Institute