Associate Professor of Classical Studies Zsuzsanna Várhelyi will serve as the next National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Teaching Professor in the College of Arts & Sciences.
As an NEH Distinguished Teaching Professor, Várhelyi will teach in the Core Curriculum and develop a set of new initiatives focusing on how humanistic engagement may guide us in addressing our individual and societal challenges today. Through a wide range of activities, including events, curriculua, research, and internships, “Our Common Humanity” will connect our students to an understanding of how appreciation of the humanities can make a difference in their own lives and the lives of those around them.
“As a scholar of Roman history and culture, I have long been committed to making the humanities visible to our undergraduate and graduate students,” says Várhelyi, an expert on the social, political, cultural and religious history of the ancient Mediterranean. “As an NEH Distinguished Teaching Professor, I have proposed to develop a set of new initiatives focusing on Our Common Humanity to highlight the humanities’ enduring import, especially at a time when so many areas of our lives seem to be in continuous crises.”
The National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Teaching Professor title is a three-and-a-half-year appointment. The appointment enables each faculty member who holds the position to launch a new humanities educational initiative in the College of Arts & Sciences and the Core Curriculum. Past initiatives have included a summer study program in Athens, Greece; a program of informal study of world languages for the BU community called “Globally Speaking”; and most recently the BU Health Humanities Project, spearheaded by outgoing National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Teaching Professor Anthony Petro, associate professor in the Department of Religion and in the Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program.
“Whether one may or may not agree with the quote attributed to Socrates that the unexamined life is not worth living, it is imperative to present the potential of humanistic approaches to our older and newly emerging questions to our students to allow them to create a new mental framework to think about their own lives and those in their immediate communities and beyond,” Várhelyi says. “Along with so many other schools of higher education currently investing in programs for civic engagement, we here at BU need to make sure that we do not miss out on a vital opportunity to instill in all of our students how an appreciation of humanities can make a difference in their own lives and the lives of those around them.”
Várhelyi will serve a three-and-a-half year term from January 1, 2024 to June 30, 2027.
Associate Professor of Religion Anthony Petro, who is the incumbent NEH Distinguished Teaching Professor, concludes his service in June after three years.