Sponsors
The John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute affirms the importance of scholarship that is both situated specifically (focused on specific historical, geographical, cultural contexts) and that has a global reach. Our work — which takes place through Humanities Labs, speaker series, workshops and conferences, book manuscript workshops, working groups, and other collective forms, and through affiliate programs such as the Duke Human Rights Center and the Forum for Scholars and Publics — attends to cultural paradoxes and elements of change and continuity, recognizing the significant, dynamic impact of cultural production on the development of political spaces and academic disciplines.
Duke's Literature Program seeks to rethink what comparison might mean in a world rapidly being altered by complex forces of economic and technological integration. Although a focus on language, literature, and aesthetics continues to ground our work, we have pioneered by drawing together philosophical and theoretical reflections on the status of “literature” and “culture” with work in history, political economy, the sociology of culture, anthropology, visual culture, and cinema studies, all of which seeks to make sense of the complex factors affecting the historically changing nature of the relationship between society and culture.
The Holberg Prize is one of the world’s largest research prizes in the humanities, social sciences, law and theology, established and funded by the Norwegian Government and administered by the University of Bergen. The Prize is awarded annually and is worth NOK 6,000,000 (approximately USD 620,000).
Fredric R. Jameson was awarded the Holberg Prize in 2008, and the conference features two Holberg Laureates: 2024 Laureate Achille Mbembe and 2025 Laureate Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.
Anyone holding an academic position at a university, academy or other research institution may nominate candidates for the Holberg Prize. The deadline is June 15 each year. See holbergprize.org for more information.
Our three academic divisions – the Arts & Humanities, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences – offer a robust and contemporary liberal arts education in a world-class research environment. That setting enables us to provide a transformational experience for every student, and offers a stimulating and rewarding community for faculty and staff.
We support the “meta-theoretical” study of connections between cultural, historical, aesthetic, and social research, with a focus on the foundations of the theoretical paradigms that most prominently circulate throughout the humanities and social sciences today—including, but hardly limited to, social and political theory, cultural analysis, aesthetic theory, studies on colonialism and neocolonialism, critical theories of race, the analysis of discourses and ideologies, and the study of intellectual movements and schools of thought. Through lectures, conferences, curricular support, co-sponsorships, and graduate student funding, the Jameson Institute provides the institutional support necessary for faculty and graduate students to, as Professor Jameson put it, “[deepen] our understanding of the conceptual dimensions of work done throughout the university.”
Many thanks also to
The Departments of English Department, Romance Studies, German Studies, Slavic and Eurasian Studies, Music, History, African and African American Studies, Gender Sexuality and Feminist Studies, Philosophy, Art and Art History, Classical Studies, Religious Studies, International Cultural Studies, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, and Cultural Anthropology.