Past Projects

Imagining Robert

In 2001 and 2002, the Imagining Robert film and dialogue series was a collaboration of The Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities and Florentine Films/Hott Productions. The film, based on the book by Jay Neugeboren, tells the story of two brothers, Jay, a prize-winning writer and former UMass writing professor and his brother, Robert, who has been in and out of mental institutions for 38 years. It was the centerpiece of a series of public screenings meant to foster dialogue about mental illness and its impact on families. Each public screening was designed to bring people from different backgrounds – patients, families, police, social workers, lawyers, health-care providers – together in a non-crisis situation.

The dawn of the third millennium presented a rare opportunity to take the long view and assess both how far we have come and how far we have yet to go to fully realize our potential as thinking, feeling and valuing human beings with some measure of control over our own destiny.

From 2000 through 2002, the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities wished to encourage people throughout our state to take stock of the human achievement and to share their thoughts and feelings and aspirations with one another, at home, in the workplace, and in their communities. This reading and discussion program included five books, all published in the final decade of the twentieth century, were widely reviewed and provoked considerable controversy at the time.

From 2002 - 2003, Understanding Islam was a reading and discussion program which offered the general reader an opportunity to explore the roots of Islam and some of the most important issues facing Muslims today. Through four meetings devoted to a range of topics, the program presented a picture of the Muslim world and its intellectual, cultural and religious dimensions.

The series began where the tradition itself does, with the career of Muhammad and the revelation of the Qur'an. The themes discussed in this first session echo throughout the remainder of the meetings. The model of the Prophet and the monotheist values which he taught informed discussions of literature (Session 2), the place of women in the household and in society at large (Session 3), and politics and society (Session 4).

Through readings, lectures, and discussions, Understanding Islam provided a sympathetic yet critical understanding of some of the crucial challenges facing the Muslim world in the 21st century.

Understanding the Modern Middle East, developed as a sequel to the very successful Understanding Islam* reading and discussion program. This program ran from 2004-2006 in various libraries across the state. It used a single text as background for a series of lectures and discussions examining these issues. In BETWEEN MEMORY AND DESIRE: The Middle East in a Troubled Age, R. Stephen Humphreys integrates the medieval and modern history of the Middle East to show how the sacred and secular are tightly interwoven in its political and intellectual life. The book is available from our resource library for use in a library reading and discussion program.

Each year beginning in 2004 and ending in 2007, in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth (MassINC), a widely respected non-partisan think tank and publisher of CommonWealth magazine, the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities recognized a humanities scholar or writer for his or her contributions to public understanding of contemporary issues or civic affairs in Massachusetts.

The scholar selected for this honor delivered an original and substantive address at a public event at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington. The lectureship carried a $5000 award.

For more information, visit the project's web page

From 2000-2002, the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities co-sponsored Commonwealth Journal an award-winning weekly, half-hour radio program hosted by Barbara Neely featuring interviews with writers, scholars, cultural workers and public officials examining current topics and issues of particular interest to Massachusetts listeners.

For more information, visit the project's web page

Commonwealth Forums

The Commonwealth Forums are a series of public events based on the reporting in MassINC's quarterly magazine, CommonWealth. The Forums were a joint project from 1999 through 2002 of The Massachusetts Institute for a new Commonwealth (MassINC), an independent, nonpartisan think tank, and the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities.

For more information, visit the project's web page