Robert D. Newman is the president and director of the National Humanities Center in North Carolina, the only independent institute for advanced study in the world dedicated exclusively to the humanities. He was previously Dean of the College of Humanities, Professor of English, and Associate Vice President for Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Utah where he was widely recognized for dramatically increasing support for the college, expanding its programs, and broadening campus diversity. In addition to establishing a new Humanities building on campus, he led the creation of the Taft/Nicholson Center for Environmental Humanities in Centennial Valley, Montana. He also has held faculty appointments at the University of South Carolina where he was Department Chair, Texas A&M University, and the College of William and Mary.
Dr. Newman was trained as a literary scholar, receiving his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his scholarship has focused on twentieth-century English literature and culture, and narrative theory. He has published six books and numerous articles, and has received awards not only for his scholarship but also for his institutional leadership and teaching. For the past eighteen years, he has been General Editor of the “Cultural Frames, Framing Culture” series published by University of Virginia Press. Since assuming leadership of the National Humanities Center in 2015, Dr. Newman has been dedicated to broadening the Center’s scholarly mission and educational outreach as well as to encouraging public engagement with, and national advocacy for, the humanities.
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