The Center for the Humanities at Tufts has named Heather D. Curtis the next Director of CHAT. Professor Curtis is the Warren S. Woodbridge Professor in the Department of Religion, and was previously Interim Chair of the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora.
Read a welcome letter from our new director below.
Welcome from the next director
It is an honor to join the Center for the Humanities at Tufts as Director. I am grateful to my predecessors in this role – founding director Jonathan Wilson (2008-2016), Lisa Lowe (2016-2018), and most recently Kamran Rastegar (2018-2022) – for their leadership in establishing CHAT as a vibrant and supportive space for innovative, interdisciplinary, collaborative scholarly engagement. I have benefited from the many conversations, events, and conferences convened at CHAT during their tenure, and I look forward to building on the solid foundations they have put in place. I am especially excited to continue partnering with the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy (CSRD), which is co-located with CHAT, with CHAT’s faculty advisory board, with CHAT program administrator Courtney McDermott, as well as with colleagues across and beyond the university, as we advocate for the humanities at this critical juncture. I welcome ideas from faculty and students for ways that CHAT can support your research and teaching, and advance the profile of creative and humanistic scholarship at Tufts. It is a great privilege to welcome a wonderful cohort of faculty, postdoctoral, and dissertation fellows this year. We are also fortunate to have several visiting scholars and affiliates joining our community. We’ll have a very full house this fall at the Center with many excellent events and opportunities for connection. Please keep an eye out for announcements and mark your calendars to join us. We look forward to seeing you soon!
With gratitude,
Heather
