Humanities at Stanford

Not Just for Professors

Many people who study the humanities are professors at colleges or universities, but they are also comprised of students, independent scholars, authors and artists. At Stanford, there are over 200 professors working in the 15 departments of the humanities cluster, and many more working in other departments on humanistically-oriented projects.

Many of the Stanford humanities faculty are of national and international renown, and include Pulitzer Prize Winners, MacArthur Fellows, and numerous members of national scholarly academies.

Humanities Research - Raising Questions

Professors in the humanities are often associated with their teaching, which is an important part of their work; but they also conduct research and publish their findings in academic journals and books.

Whether written for a small academic community or for a broad public audience, humanities research maintains the common purpose of contributing to an on-going dialogue in an area of study. Unlike scientists, humanists are interested in raising questions, rather then providing absolute answers.

Find out more about Stanford's Humanities Faculty on the Experts Bureau

Featured Professor:

Gordon Chang is a professor of American history whose research focuses on the history of United States-East Asia relations and on Asian American history.  He is particularly interested in the historical connections between race and ethnicity in America and foreign relations.  Professor Chang is the senior editor of Asian American Art: A History, 1850-1970, a new publication from Stanford University Press that is the first comprehensive survey of artists of Asian ancestry who lived and worked in the USA in the 20th century.  The publication has been in development for more than a decade and is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Stanford University, and the Getty Foundation.