Our Goal

Humanities Writ Large aims to infuse the undergraduate experience with opportunities to conduct humanities research and thereby learn how humanities fields contribute valuable new knowledge through humanistic analysis, perspective and methods. This is a provocative challenge to the traditional paradigm that research needs to be restricted to faculty and graduate students experts, and also supports Duke’s broader goal of increasing undergraduate research in all fields. Our belief is that early exposure to humanistic research and analysis helps students become more thoughtful architects of their own education and more sophisticated consumers of the humanities throughout their lives.

Faculty Funding Paths for Undergraduate Research

Support for Departmental Undergraduate Research Showcases

The Humanities Writ Large initiative seeks to support innovations in mentored research for undergraduates specifically within the humanities and interpretive social sciences that lead to graduation with distinction projects. 

In addition to the funds available from Trinity College of Arts & Sciences for Graduation with Distinction Programs, Humanities Writ Large is interested in expanding the public presentation of undergraduate research projects in the humanities and interpretive social sciences.  Based on the model established by the Department of Romance Studies, we would like to support departments that put on extended research showcases where both distinction projects and earlier-stage research papers are presented to the broad membership of the department and other audiences, which might include faculty, other students, and families. Selected classes in the department that meet during the research showcase attend as both audience members and respondents.  If you are interested in pursuing this model, please reach out to us for further conversation.

New Configurations of Undergraduate Research

All faculty who teach undergraduate students are regularly invited to submit proposals to develop new spaces and innovative configurations for mentored undergraduate research within or connected to the humanities or interpretive social sciences. The next call for proposals will be posted about December 1, with proposals due February 20, 2015. 

The Humanities Writ Large Steering Committee is eager to support a wide range of research methods and possibilities for collaboration, innovation, and distinctive types of learning.  We encourage you to come up with intriguing proposals of “new configurations” that experiment with unexplored structures for undergraduate research:

• Could there be a small team summer project that could send 3-4 distinction students to an archive or a research site with the supervision of a faculty member or advanced graduate student?
• Is there a way of connecting Trinity humanities and interpretive social sciences distinction students with faculty and projects in other schools during the academic year?
• Are there innovative forms of showcasing the final product?
• Could you engage a small group of second-semester freshmen and / or sophomores in a research project that will set the stage for a graduation with distinction research project?
• Could you take on an unusual research assignment by partnering with other faculty within or across departments or schools who would bring students with different perspectives to work on the same topic?