Thank You for 25 Years of Support 

Dear Friends,
 
This has been an extraordinary year at The Humanities Institute as we marked 25 years and celebrated the power of the humanities to help us reexamine the status quo, reconfigure the way we see things, and imagine new possibilities. As Professor Cathy Thomas urged us last Thursday at Amending Worlds, our final event of the academic year: “Ask questions of your questions.” That’s the work we support at THI — thinkers and creators who push us to challenge our assumptions, expand the way we see the world, and build a more just future.
 
This year, the thinkers we have brought to campus included one of the nation’s most influential and recognizable advocates for trans rights, Jenny Boylan (THI’s 2025 Scholar-in-Residence), MacArthur “Genius” Fellow Fred Moten, and one of the foremost theorists of race and racism, Paul Gilroy, amongst others. Meanwhile, we continue to support scholars here at UC Santa Cruz — faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students — to pursue bold, original research that changes the way we understand the world.
 
Humanities Dean Jasmine Alinder often reminds us that cultivating the humanistic toolkit — deep reading, critical thinking, historical awareness, and cultural competence — is essential for an engaged democracy. THI was built on the ideal that this work is best done together, and we have been so gratified at the community that has grown up with us. More than 11,000 of you joined us for this year’s Deep Read featuring James, by Percival Everett. “Reading is the most subversive thing we can do right now,” Everett told our crowd gathered at the Quarry Amphitheater. He continued: “the second most subversive thing to do…is being part of a book club because you are really keeping art alive and talking about ideas.”
 
Research, boundary-crossing collaboration, and conversations have been at the heart of THI for the past 25 years. And, just as conversations require us to continually attend to each other, the work we do requires ongoing commitment.
 
If you attended one of our 100+ public events this year, or were inspired by the conversations we’ve sparked, please consider supporting us. Our events are free and open to the public precisely so that anyone in Santa Cruz and around the world can join our community and so that we can engage in the critical work of the humanities together.
 
At this year’s Peggy Downes Baskin Ethics Lecture, Jenny Boylan reminded us “that’s really kind of all we have, the love that we have for each other.” In that spirit, we want to thank all of you — for your presence, your questions, and your belief in what we do.
 
With gratitude and love,
 
Pranav Anand, THI Faculty Director
Irena Polić, THI Managing Director