humanities Archive

The Character Project

July 19, 2010

Christian Miller is the lead investigator of a $3.67 million grant, the largest ever received for humanities research at Wake Forest, to study character.

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.

Categories: Research & Discovery, University Announcements

ZSR Library receives three grants

July 6, 2010

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.

Categories: Arts & Culture, Research & Discovery

Understanding the Middle East

June 7, 2010

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.

Categories: Global Wake Forest, Research & Discovery, University Announcements

The French Wars on Religion

May 25, 2010

Associate Professor of Romance Languages Kendall Tarte joined the faculty in 1996.

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.

Categories: Global Wake Forest, Research & Discovery, University Announcements

Bill Leonard: The power of ‘un-naming’

May 16, 2010

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."

Categories: Community Impact, Experiential Learning, Happening at Wake, Research & Discovery, University Announcements

Teaching middle-schoolers to love cell science

May 11, 2010

Students in Vicki Clankscales' eighth-grade science class at Hanes Middle School play CellCraft in the school's computer lab.

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.

Categories: Experiential Learning, Research & Discovery, University Announcements

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

May 4, 2010

Emily Wakild, who joined the history faculty in 2007, teaches her Latin American history class.

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.

Categories: Environment & Sustainability, Global Wake Forest, Research & Discovery

‘Why Do People Laugh?’

April 25, 2010

Cindy Gendrich will use a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to develop a first-year seminar on comedy and humor.

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.

Categories: Experiential Learning, Research & Discovery