Each year the Humanities Center invites everyone on campus to think about a concept collectively. In 2026-2027, we explore the notion of silence/noise. 

Turn on the news, open a social media app, and listen to administrators and it is plain to see that there is a fixation on our attention span, the way we listen, what we hear, and the privatization of those experiences. How we engage with sonic landscapes has changed as earbuds become ubiquitous and noise ordinances proliferate. When we talk to historians, silences indicate not a literal lack of sound, but a(n often purposeful) lack of archival materials, a silencing of minoritized voices. And further still, when we think about the chilling of free speech, to make noise—and where it can be made—has another valence as well. 

We invite our campus and especially our humanities researchers to reflect with us on questions that interpret the theme of "silence/noise" in a capacious and expansive sense, regardless of discipline, field, or craft across the University. 

Humanities research has distinctive methods, theoretical frameworks, and nodes of inquiry that push us to seek answers about the ways silence and noise, as a twinned pair, operate, show up, go unnoticed, and are necessarily linked.  

In AY 2026-2027, the Humanities Center invites questions, curiosity, and engagement about silence/noise, and will prioritize funding across all grants and programming that highlights our theme. When applying for any award for this academic year, please indicate if and how your project, event, or research needs fit into justice/injustice, broadly imagined. 

If you have any questions, please be in touch with the Humanities Center Director, Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst or Assistant Director Ande Tagliamonte via humanities.center@uvm.edu.