Humanities Archive

News

The Character Project

July 19, 2010  |   Faculty, Humanities, President, Research, Scholars and Scientists

aBecause understanding character lies at the heart of human identity, philosophers, psychologists and theologians have long wrestled with how to define good character and how to improve character.

Wake Forest professors Christian Miller (philosophy), William F. Fleeson (psychology) and Michael R. Furr (psychology) have been awarded a $3.67 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation for The Character Project, an exploration of the nature of character.

News

ZSR Library receives three grants

July 6, 2010  |   Arts & Culture, Humanities, Research

The Z. Smith Reynolds Library received three grants recently to fund a symposium on the late poet A.R. Ammons (’49) and to digitize collections of material from North Carolina Baptist churches.

News

Understanding the Middle East

June 7, 2010  |   Humanities, International, Research, Wake Forest College

Michaelle Browers has spent half her academic career in the Middle East.

An associate professor in the political science department, she’s conducted research in Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Jordan and Morocco. She’s fluent in Arabic, yet one of the first things she does when she prepares for a trip is to hire a language tutor. The language is complex, but so is her area of expertise. And language is the vehicle that led to two decades of study in the politics and culture of the Middle East.

News

The French Wars on Religion

May 25, 2010  |   Humanities, International, Research, Wake Forest College

Romance languages professor Kendall Tarte has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to explore how the 16th-century French Wars of Religion affected the writers and literary and visual styles of the time.

News

Bill Leonard: The power of ‘un-naming’

May 16, 2010  |   Commencement, Community, Humanities, Provost, Student, Wake Forest College

Divinity school dean Bill Leonard, in his sermon to graduates at the Baccalaureate service in Wait Chapel May 16, encouraged them to “un-name” racism and evil and embrace “names like gentle, merciful, pure in heart and peacemaker.”

News

Teaching middle-schoolers to love cell science

May 11, 2010  |   Graduate School, Humanities, Research, Student

If the nation’s ability to remain an economic power rests in the hands of today’s middle-school students, then the future looks bright.

A new tool developed at Wake Forest — a video game called CellCraft — will be featured May 12 at the White House in the inaugural celebration of National Lab Day.

News

A passion for parks: History’s Emily Wakild receives NEH grant to study Mexican national parks

May 4, 2010  |   Humanities, International, Research, Sustainability

History professor Emily Wakild is passionate about Mexican parks.

She has spent more than a decade researching and writing about the legacy of the Mexican Revolution in the early- to late-1900s, a period in which government planners created a system of national parks to achieve both social goals and environmental conservation.

News

‘Why Do People Laugh?’

April 25, 2010  |   Humanities, Research, Student

Cindy Gendrich is one of those people who can’t stop herself from laughing, sometimes too loudly and at inappropriate times. A professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance, Gendrich has received a $24,800 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for her proposal, “Why do people laugh?”, to study the complexities of humor and to develop a first-year seminar.

News

Rediscovering an 18th-century poet

March 2, 2010  |   Arts & Culture, Humanities, Research

Anne Finch is considered the most important woman poet of the early 18th century. Her work, however, has never received its full critical due, largely because of the lack of a comprehensive scholarly study, says Claudia Kairoff, professor and chair of English. Kairoff is engaged […]

WFU students to work with children on Cheyenne River Reservation

May 3, 2002  |   Humanities, Student, University Announcement

Eleven Wake Forest University students will travel to the Cheyenne River Reservation in Eagle Butte, S.D., to work with the Cheyenne River Youth Project from May 12-25. Called “The Tie That Binds,” the Wake Forest program seeks to cross bridges of race, ethnicity and socioeconomic […]