The Humanities Council and the Program in Humanistic Studies are delighted to welcome Katie Chenoweth as a new Behrman Professor. Chenoweth, who is an Associate Professor in the Department of French and Italian, will begin her three-year term in the academic year 2022-2023. The appointment recognizes distinguished humanities scholars and dedicated teachers from within the University community. Behrman Professors lead the Interdisciplinary Approaches to Western Culture (HUM 216-219) and play a leading role in building community among students in the interdisciplinary humanities certificate program.
“I am absolutely thrilled to be returning to Interdisciplinary Approaches to Western Culture as a Behrman Professor,” said Chenoweth. “As counterintuitive as it may seem, I think the HUM 216-219 sequence has never been more relevant than it is today. How do we make the humanities more inclusive? What should the place of the Western canon be at Princeton today? How can we read the texts of this tradition closely but also critically? How might they meaningfully inform our most urgent contemporary conversations about social justice, the environment, and other questions? I think the HUM 216-219 sequence lets us ask these questions in a really unique way.”
To students who may be daunted by the volume of reading, Chenoweth assures them that the fellowship of the students and the support from faculty make this course a truly special experience at Princeton. “We approach the Western humanistic tradition in a mode that is rigorous and, yes, notoriously demanding, but it is also designed to be collaborative and invite a multiplicity of perspectives and interpretations. It creates a community of students and faculty committed not only to reading a particular body of texts together but, above all, to listening and engaging with each other. I’m so excited to be part of the sequence again and to help lead crucial conversations about what the Western humanistic tradition means to us today.”
Chenoweth will begin teaching for the Program in Humanistic Studies with Behrman Professor Yair Mintzker (History) in the academic year 2022-23 and will lead the faculty team in the academic year 2023-2024.
