Dick Wolf

A gift from Noelle and Dick Wolf has provided a permanent endowment for Penn’s Wolf Humanities Center, which will establish itself in a newly renovated wing of Williams Hall by early November. Dick Wolf, C’69, PAR’15, is a Penn alumnus best known as the multiple Emmy-winning creator of the Law & Order and Chicago branded series. 

Jim English, director of the Wolf Humanities Center, said, “We are thrilled to receive this gift from Noelle and Dick Wolf. It is a strong endorsement of our interdisciplinary and public-oriented approach to the humanities, and will enable us to do a number of things that we’ve simply not had the means to pursue before now. Over the next couple of years, I expect us to be expanding our Humanities At Large program, sponsoring more events off campus and more events in the performing arts, undertaking ambitious collaborations with the programs in Digital Humanities and Environmental Humanities, and providing new fellowship opportunities to support faculty projects in key areas of humanities research.

“For the past 18 years, the Penn Humanities Forum (PHF) has been supporting innovative scholarship and promoting conversation between scholars, students and an ever larger and more diverse array of non-academic constituencies. Hundreds of scholars have received fellowships, and our public events draw thousands of people every year from throughout the Philadelphia area. The Wolf gift stands as a recognition of the Forum’s achievements and an endorsement of the Center’s ambition to make Penn a major hub for regional, national and global humanities research,” he added.

The humanities are more than ever in need of resources such as the Wolf gift. The humanities are expanding, becoming ever more vital participants in many fields, from sustainability and climate studies to disability and health sciences. The Wolf Humanities Center will continue the proud tradition of the PHF, supporting humanists in their wider ambitions and ensuring that their voices are heard.

Led by topic director Emily Wilson, professor of classical studies, the Wolf Humanities Center’s 2017-2018 Forum on Afterlives opens September 27 with Ghosts, Zombies and the Afterlives of Slavery, a public conversation between Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead and Salamishah Tillet, associate professor of English and Africana studies. The Dr. S.T. Lee Distinguished Lecture in the Humanities will be in the Harrison Auditorium, at the Penn Museum, from 5-6:30 p.m.

The new home of the Wolf Humanities Center will also be the home of the Price Lab for the Digital Humanities (Almanac February 10, 2015) on the 6th floor of Williams Hall where there will be a conference room, collaborative work space, a lounge, space for postdocs and shared administrative space.