Bruce Cole, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, will speak about "The State of the Humanities" at Vanderbilt University, on Friday, Sept. 5, at Ingram Hall at the Blair School of Music.
The event will begin at 6 p.m., preceded by a complimentary reception at 5 p.m. in Ingram Hall at the Blair School of Music. The event is free and open to the public. Reservations are not required, but seating is limited and available on a first-come, first-seated basis. Parking will be available in South Garage at 24th Avenue South and Children’s Way.
As chairman of the NEH, Cole has launched two important programs: The Digital Humanities Initiative, which is spearheading the application of digital technology to the humanities, and We the People.
We the People is an initiative to encourage the teaching, study and understanding of American history and culture. The project includes summer seminars at the nation’s historic landmarks to enhance teachers’ knowledge of American history and a program to distribute classic children’s books to libraries and schools across the country.
We the People has also begun a partnership with the Library of Congress to catalog and digitize the story of the nation’s past as told in America’s historic newspapers. When the National Digital Newspaper Program is complete, Americans will be able to search 30 million pages via the Internet.
Cole came to the NEH in December 2001 from Indiana University in Bloomington, where he was Distinguished Professor of Art History and professor of comparative literature. Appointed by President George W. Bush, Cole was chosen for a second term in 2005, a reappointment unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate.
Cole first became involved with the NEH when he received an NEH fellowship to research early Florentine painting. He subsequently served as a panelist in NEH’s peer review system, and then as a member for seven years of the National Council on the Humanities, a presidentially appointed 26-member advisory board to NEH.
Cole has written 14 books, many of them about the Renaissance. They include The Renaissance Artist at Work; Sienese Painting in the Age of the Renaissance; Italian Art, 1250-1550: The Relation of Art to Life and Society; Titian and Venetian Art, 1450-1590; and Art of the Western World: From Ancient Greece to Post-Modernism. His most recent book is The Informed Eye: Understanding Masterpieces of Western Art.
A Web cast of Cole’s address will be available after the event on VUCast, Vanderbilt’s news network, www.vanderbilt.edu/news.
Cole’s appearance is part of a series of special events titled "A Place for the Humanities" in celebration of Vanderbilt University’s Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities 20th anniversary. The center promotes interdisciplinary research and study in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Because cooperative study in higher education is crucial to the modern university and the society it influences, the center is designed to intensify and increase interdisciplinary discussion of academic, social and cultural issues.
The speech is also part of the Chancellor’s Lecture Series, which serves to bring to Vanderbilt and the wider Nashville community intellectuals who are shaping the world today. For more information about the Chancellor’s Lecture Series, visit www.vanderbilt.edu/chancellor/cls.
Media Contact: Missy Pankake, (615) 322-NEWS
missy.pankake@vanderbilt.edu