Cogut Institute for the Humanities

Collaborative Humanities Initiative

Directed by Amanda Anderson, Director of the Cogut Institute for the Humanities and Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Humanities and English

The Collaborative Humanities Initiative promotes collaborative practices that transform modes of research, teaching, and learning in the humanities and across disciplines. Through dedicated events and courses, the initiative fosters an expanded sense of intellectual community for scholars and students dedicated to thinking together across disciplines, frameworks, and locations.

As part of the Collaborative Humanities Initiative, the Cogut Institute supports the development of new collaborative undergraduate courses across disciplines, divisions, and schools. In the spirit of Brown’s open curriculum, the Doctoral Certificate in Collaborative Humanities promotes forms of inquiry that adapt the resources of different disciplines to defined areas of research or specific research problems. Specially designed collaborative seminars and undergraduate collaborative courses explore long-standing problems and questions as well as more timely and urgent issues. These programs offer students the opportunity to practice and further develop their collaborative skills.

In both its content and structure, the Collaborative Humanities Initiative resonates with Brown University’s emphasis on collaborative, cross-disciplinary, and interdisciplinary approaches to research and teaching. It advances the important ways in which the humanities contribute to understanding and meeting the core challenges facing society and the world.

Collaborative Humanities Labs

Collaborative humanities labs catalyze research on topics that will benefit from combining distinct disciplinary methods to produce new and/or integrative knowledge. The labs provide an opportunity for pairs of Brown faculty members to develop and put into action robust interdisciplinary teaching, programming, and publication plans.

In the Curriculum

The institute enriches Brown’s curriculum with new research-based, team-taught courses. The doctoral certificate in collaborative humanities promotes forms of cross-disciplinary and community oriented work toward the most challenging questions facing humanities research today.

Events and seminars foster an expanded sense of intellectual community for scholars and students dedicated to thinking together across disciplines, frameworks, and locations.

Cogut Collaborative Humanities Fellowship

The fellowship supports doctoral students at any stage of their pursuit of the doctoral certificate in collaborative humanities.
Doctoral students hold the fellowship in the third, fourth, or fifth year of their Ph.D. program and at any stage of their pursuit of the doctoral certificate.