On being at the National Humanities Center
Gaurav Desai, Tulane University
June 1st, 2002
Sometime next week, I will bring myself to returning my set of office keys to the staff of the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. As several of my colleagues would attest, I will do so wistfully, longing for a little more of what I have been fortunate to have for the past year. As a matter of fact, I shouldn’t really complain, since I have already indulged the kindness of the staff who let four or five of us from last year’s class stay on for an extra month past the duration of the fellowship.
What then, has this year all been about? And what is this Humanities Center in the first place? The National Humanities Center was founded in 1976 in a remarkable alliance between leaders of higher education, corporations and the public world at large and it first opened its doors to an incoming class of fellows in 1978. Since then, the Center’s official literature tells us, it has sponsored 849 scholars in residence, with a good mix of junior and senior fellows from across forty-four scholarly fields, and from 180 institutions across the United States. The center has also attracted international scholars which at last tally were 138 scholars from 99 institutions in 33 countries.
While the numbers themselves are impressive, with the center taking credit in some form or another for nurturing the research and writing of over 750 scholarly books over the years, the true test of this almost unique academic space is in the personal experiences and intellectual growth that scholars themselves undergo in their year of residence in this beautifully designed structure in the middle of the forest. I can admit that my own romance with the center began a long time ago, when as a second year graduate student at nearby Duke University, I was first introduced to the place. Since each year the center sponsored about forty residential fellows, it was an immediate and annually replenishing source of intellectual talent in the area. Even before my own stay here this past year, I grew to admire the place almost as a living library -- many of the scholars whose works I was reading in graduate school passed through the Center’s doors, and I have to say, in the brashness of my youth, I had no hesitation in pressing myself upon them, subtly soliciting for myself an invitation to a free lunch! Some of the most memorable twists and turns in my own ideas, particularly those associated with my dissertation, were the result of lunch conversations with the fellows at 7, Alexander Drive.
Now that the tables have turned for me, and I have found myself in the company of the likes of those who bought me many a free lunch, I feel even more fortunate. Walk down these halls and you can feel the sense of history. Glance at the photographs of each year’s class by the desk of the elegant and always helpful receptionist, Bernice, and you will see that the strong traditions of scholarship in the humanities live on. Study the photographs closely and you will not fail to notice that over time there are more women, that the average age of scholars seems to have gotten younger and that they are, on the whole a more racially, culturally and ethnically diverse group. You will also notice, I believe, that while coming from an elite home institution might seem to help stack your cards right, a number of fellows come from institutional contexts that are not at all elite or cushy.
When trying to explain to non-academic friends what this year has all been about, I have had to choose my words carefully. ‘You mean you had a whole year off, without any teaching, to just read, think and write? And you were paid for it?’ Well, yes. That’s right -- and I admit it’s a privilege. But it’s a privilege that also bears a great responsibility -- of taking on oneself the discipline to do the work that you believe will be of some interest and importance not only to fellow scholars, but also to your students who will have every right to see you return as a refreshed, re-energized, ready-to-go classroom personality. That’s what sabbaticals are all about, or at least are supposed to be about, and having one at a place where everyone around you is in exactly the same mode as you is sheer delight. I can honestly say that I have never worked as hard in my life as I did this year at the Center. And at the same time, with the possible exception of the sheer thrill of teaching, I have never enjoyed hard work as much!
Now I wouldn’t have you think that my fellow scholars last year were just a bunch of boring nerds. Between the long hours at the computer, many of my colleagues took breaks to enjoy jogs in the forest, to try out area restaurants and museums, to sponsor occasional happy hours, and some even arranged to put together a yoga class for interested fellows. In my own spare time, I took advantage of the areas lakes to go fishing and on occasion, boating. Of course, every time one of the fellows from a previous year showed up at the Center (as they often do when passing through town -- just to get a glimpse of their one-time office) they would make it a point to tell us how their class was so much more fun, so much more outrageous and adventurous than ours (all the details will of course, have to remain unmentioned!) But these gestures of competition themselves spoke to a sense of identity that we see all too often in our students but rarely experience ourselves. All of a sudden, being in a new place, coming in all together as a class, knowing that there have been other "classes" before and that there will, alas, be another one coming in next year whose sole purpose, or so it will seem to you, will be to oust your own -- all these feelings lead to a bond between folks who might otherwise, in a university setting, not be natural allies. It is this bonding and trust that for me were the defining moments of the year -- when you have shared meals with someone every day, when you have shared stories of all kinds -- about your childhood, about your home institutions, about current events, about the role of the humanities, about disciplinary barriers and connections, about public life in general, you begin to open up and are willing to trust your most tentative ideas with them. You learn that you don’t have to re-cite the orthodoxies of the day, whether in your own field or in public opinion as a whole, just in order to be read as "a-okay." You learn, or at least I learnt, that intellectual intimacy is not found in agreement on issues as much as it is on the willingness of individuals to bring out on occasion, their own deepest doubts.
You also learn a few more mundane things about working conditions -- that, for instance, having a library staff who will track almost anything down and hand deliver it to you within a few days is an academic’s version of paradise; having a research assistant who will do your photocopying for you will radically cut down on the amount of time you spend gathering, rather than reading and digesting your materials (Deans please note). And finally, having a person in-house who will copy-edit your manuscript at short notice will help you avoid the pitfalls of the comma splice.
Those who have been fellows of the center in years past will, I suspect, know how it feels to return the keys. To those who haven’t, I have a simple suggestion -- go ahead and apply! I’d love to see you at the Center the next time I pass through wistfully longing for yet one more year.