Research Committee

We take as our structural model for the Humanities Center the highly regarded Shelby Cullom Davis Center at Princeton University and the Davis Center for Russian Studies at Harvard University. An Executive Committee composed of the Director of the center and representatives of the various disciplines whose research interests relate to the history, culture, institutions, art and literature, economics, or ecology of the region, would be responsible for the general direction of the center.

University Faculty Associates drawn from across disciplines would hold three-year non-stipendiary appointments. Their responsibility would be to present their research findings to the seminar and to serve as consultants to schools and humanities institutions within the region. Visiting Scholars representing the Humanities and Social Sciences would be selected for a stipend affiliation with the center on the basis of an international competition. Awards would be for one semester or a year. Community Affiliates would hold non-stipendiary appointments for a three-year term. They would be selected from area universities, museums, libraries, and institutions involved in developing cultural tourism in the region. Graduate Student Fellows from various fields of scholarship whose research encompasses the research interests of the Center would hold non-stipendiary appointments.

A series of weekly seminars would serve as springboards for discussion of issues that pertain to the history, culture, politics, physical, and natural life of the region. The seminars will be organized on a one or two-year basis, depending on how broadly the theme is defined. The organizing theme for each seminar will be determined by the Center Affiliates. Participation will be open to all Center Affiliates, including University Faculty Associates, Visiting Scholars, Community Affiliates, and Graduate Student Fellows. The weekly seminars would be the primary vehicle both for new micro studies and for broader historical generalization. The Center itself will function as an informational clearinghouse, affording humanities disciplines, representatives of humanities institutions, schools and universities a regular forum to trade ideas.

         The Research Committee is currently coordinating three major conferences to be held at the Center and made available outside the New Orleans area through distance learning technology.  These include:

• UNESCO Slave Roots Project Meeting
  
  

• Tulane/Cambridge Conference on Civil Rights
  
  

• Institute for Early American History and Culture Conference on the Bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase.

The research committee is welcoming four international visiting scholars to the Deep South Regional Humanities Center in the fall of 2000.  These researchers will spend nine months in the United States using Tulane as their home base for research around the South.  These scholars are:

• Marjorie Bourdelais, Ecole des Hautes-Etudes, France

• Madina Tlostanova, University of Gorky, Russia

• Michele Gally, ENS Fontenay-Saint-Cloud, France

• Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec, Emmanuel College, Cambridge