FHI 25 — A Yearlong Celebration of the Institute's 25th Anniversary Coinciding with the Duke Centennial — Kicks Off With Humanities Speaker Series

2024 marks the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke University. This year also coincides with the 100th anniversary of Duke.

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To mark these dovetailing anniversaries, FHI is launching a yearlong celebration — FHI 25 — that will include public talks, archival engagements, and social gatherings contextualizing FHI's 25-year history within the broader legacy of Duke's commitment to, and advancements in, the humanities writ large.

This spring, FHI 25 kicks off with a series of conversations engaging some of the most significant humanities scholars of our time — all formerly or currently affiliated with Duke — to historicize the University's significant investment in the humanities in the 1980s, reflect on what such investment made possible alongside national and international developments in the field, and propose future directions of humanities scholarship and teaching within and beyond Duke.

The first installment in the series — FHI at 25: Origins and Reflections on Friday, February 16, 2024 — brings together FHI's joint founders, Cathy N. Davidson (Distinguished Professor of English, CUNY Graduate Center; Ruth F. DeVarney Professor Emerita of Interdisciplinary Studies, Duke) and Karla F. C. Holloway (James B. Duke Professor Emerita of English, Duke), respectively Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies and Dean of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the time of FHI's establishment in 1999.

Stay tuned to our website and newsletter for further details about upcoming speaker series and other FHI 25 events. We hope you can join us!