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The Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities was established in 1997 to promote interdisciplinary study in the humanities, arts, and social sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The IPRH grants fellowships to UIUC faculty and graduate students, who work in yearlong symposia on thematic topics. The program coordinates and hosts an annual conference, typically during the spring, coordinated with the annual theme and featuring presentations by the IPRH Fellows and an invited keynote speaker. The IPRH also provides financial support to faculty and graduate student reading groups, coordinates numerous lectures and panel discussions, sponsors exhibitions by campus and visiting artists in it lecture hall, and hosts a yearlong film series coordinated with the annual theme. In addition to its own programming, the IPRH shares its resources with other university departments and programs, serving as a major co-sponsor of lectures, programs, and conferences on campus throughout the year and coordinating its activities with other units wherever possible.

The IPRH has been located at 805 West Pennsylvania Avenue since August 1998. The building includes offices for the permanent IPRH staff; offices for the Faculty and Graduate Student Fellows; a reception area and a lecture hall on the first floor of the building; and two seminar rooms. In addition to being used by the IPRH for the Fellows’ Seminar and public events, the lecture hall and seminar rooms are also used regularly for meetings and public programs by the IPRH Reading Groups, and by other campus units.


IPRH Staff

The IPRH has organized and administered its numerous programs since 1997 with a small but energetic staff; the current staff includes a half-time Director, a full-time Associate Director, a staff secretary, and a secretary; the Odyssey Project is administered by a zero-time Project Coordinator and a one-third-time graduate assistant.

Directors
Michael Bérubé (1997-2001)
Suvir Kaul (2001-2002)
Matti Bunzl (2003-2007)

Associate Director
Christine Catanzarite (1997-2007; Acting Director, 2008)

Additional Staff
Staff secretary Pam Hall joined the IPRH staff in 2000, and secretary Stephanie Uebelhoer followed in 2001. John Marsh served as assistant director from 2005 to 2007, and in fall 2007 becomes the Odyssey Project Coordinator; Kerry Pimblott is the Odyssey graduate assistant.



Annual Themes

The IPRH, like many of its counterpart programs at peer institutions across the country, uses an annual theme to organize and focus its fellowship program and other original programming each year. The annual theme – which is announced approximately 18 months prior to the start of the academic year for that theme – is selected with particular attention to its broad applicability to a wide variety of disciplines. Annual themes are chosen by the Director and Associate Director, with input from the Advisory Committee.

Fellowship applications are invited from faculty and graduate students whose work interprets and incorporates the annual theme; the annual conference in the spring is likewise coordinated with the theme, and features presentations by the IPRH Fellows as well as a keynote address by a distinguished visiting scholar whose work articulates with the annual theme. While the IPRH also coordinates many other activities that are unrelated to the theme throughout the year, occasional panel discussions, art exhibits, performances, and other events speak to an aspect of the annual theme. The IPRH Film Series uses the annual theme as an organizing principle, and screens between eight and ten films per year that are related to the topic.

Below is a list of all IPRH annual themes. Narrative descriptions of these themes can be found here.

Diaspora, Identity, and Expressive Culture (1998-1999)
Institutions of the Visual (1999-2000)
Cities (2000-2001)
The Means of Reproduction (2001-2002)
The South (2002-2003)
Violence (2003-2004)
Difference (2004-2005)
Belief (2005-2006)
Beauty (2006-2007)
Rupture (2007-2008)
Disciplinarity (2008-2009)


We are proud of the accomplishments of the IPRH since its establishment in 1997, and we invite you to follow the links below to find out more about our first decade.

ADVISORY COMMITTEE

FELLOWS

CONFERENCES

PANELS, SPEAKERS, AND OTHER EVENTS

FILM SERIES

ARTS INITIATIVES

READING GROUPS

CO-SPONSORSHIPS

THE ODYSSEY PROJECT