dear friends, What a strange year. At the Institute for the Humanities, we’ve been grateful for institutional security, but we’ve missed the vibrancy of our busy office, the presence of our fellows in their office and in our halls, and the in-person programs that draw people into our space.
LETTER
from the director
The Institute’s 2020-21 programs and exhibitions were organized under the rubric of “Shelter.” We wanted to explore the security of taking shelter and the precarity of losing it, recognizing that not all shelters are safe, and that the places that shelter us have complex histories. Our Gallery featured artists’ visions of structures, rooms, and shelters, and all of our exhibitions were either outside, like the stunning installation by Ibrahim Mahama on the exterior of the U-M Museum of Art, or visible from the sidewalk. Artist talks were virtual, and we created video introductions to the artists and their works that allowed classes to engage with the exhibitions from a distance. You can read more about the year’s exhibitions in the pages that follow. We normally begin each academic year by welcoming the Institute’s new cohort of faculty and graduate student fellows. This year we were all working remotely, of course, and our welcome was virtual. We all missed the informal interactions that enliven the fellowship year, but our weekly seminar was no less vibrant and engaging than in the past. Our eight faculty and eight graduate student fellows created a virtual space of exchange that was both rigorous and supportive, and they brought a wide range of research interests to our conversations. The 2020-21 fellowship group was highly interdisciplinary and included creative writers along with scholars from literature, history, anthropology, philosophy, architecture,
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