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               Tanner Humanities Center
               University of Utah
               Carolyn Tanner Irish Humanities Building
               215 S. Central Campus Dr., Room 110
               Salt Lake City, UT 84112

Tanner Center Mission

The Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center fosters innovative humanistic inquiry and scholarship. The Center's public programs create opportunity for lively dialogue among scholars, students, and citizens on issues (from ancient to contemporary) pertaining to the human condition.

The Tanner Humanities Center...

—sponsors lectures, conferences, workshops, panel discussions, exhibits, performances, screenings, and literary readings;

—enhances critical thinking and inquiry, and humanities participation in the daily life of the community;

—offers annual, competitive research fellowships for University of Utah faculty, visiting scholars, and graduate students;

—publishes and disseminates new humanities research through its books, monographs, videotapes, and audiotapes;

—nurtures a vigorous cross-disciplinary intellectual and creative environment at the University of Utah;

—stimulates fresh thinking in humanities secondary education.

The Humanities at Utah

The humanities include literature; philosophy; history; the study of languages; cultural and ethnic studies; linguistics; religion; ethics; jurisprudence; archaeology; history, theory, and criticism of the arts; and historical or interpretive aspects of the social and natural sciences and the professions.

The Tanner Center's Funding

Numerous individuals, corporations, and foundations have helped the Center become established since its founding in 1987. Research fellowships are paid for by the Center's endowment, and not by state funds. The Center receives staff and modest operating support from the College of Humanities.

The Tanner Center's Future

The Tanner Center needs your help to finish the visionary plan proposed by the late Lowell M. Durham Jr. during his tenure as director (1991-1997). That plan will establish a $5 million endowment to provide stability and independence for the Center for years to come. Financial independence for the Tanner Center will expand its state and national preeminence as a center for important humanities research and public outreach. With your help, we can complete the Center's endowment. Your annual gift, whether distributed at once or as an installment pledge, will make an enormous difference. The Center's top priorities are listed in the next column. You may designate a gift or pledge to a single project, or a combination. Through this gift, you will show your commitment to the intellectual and cultural life of Utah.

"This, then, is my case for the life of reason, the case for my suggestion that you think your way through life. First, that thereby you will likely be more successful. Second, that you may achieve a better-balanced life. And third, that you may even go so far as to touch the fringes of wisdom."
Obert C. Tanner

"I think of the humanities as including much of the creative effort in our intellectual life, as well as the pursuit of philosophical insight, and the more humane inquiries of the social sciences. And, I value the Tanner Humanities Center because it makes humanistic scholarship accessible to the public and helps to build bridges between those of us who work in the hard sciences and people who need and want to understand what we do."
Jay Jacobson, M.D.

Tanner Center Programs

Public Outreach

The Sterling M. McMurrin Lecture on Religion and Culture, founded in 1992, brings leading scholars, writers, and thinkers from across the disciplines to speak on religion and its interplay with culture from ancient to contemporary times. These lectures are in honor of a beloved philosophy professor, Sterling M. McMurrin (1914-1996) who presented the first six lectures.

Summer Teacher Workshops provide Utah high school teachers with free, practical new tools for examining the humanities with their students. Curriculum ranges from world history to Native American literatures. The Center presents two workshops each summer.

Throughout the year, our ongoing free public lectures and conferences give the community a close look at a wide range of topics by national and international leaders in the humanities. The Center also sponsors performances, exhibits, screenings, and literary readings.

Faculty Support and Development

The Center offers an annual competitive program of research fellowships for University of Utah faculty, Ph.D. students, and visiting scholars. Time devoted to research leads to enhancement of the University's teaching mission through revitalized intellectual vigor, scope, and depth which are brought to fruition in the curriculum, keeping learning alive and engaging for the students of today and tomorrow.

Weekly Tanner Work-in-Progress Talks feature fellow and faculty work-in-progress talks that foster collegiality, cross-disciplinary dialogue and collaboration through fresh approaches to old problems.

Research interest groups stimulate and support humanities research by providing time, place, and annual funding to interdisciplinary working groups on subjects including landscape and culture, literature and medicine, history and gender, and ethics in the professions.