In continuing with our Humanities Week theme, today the Jane and Harry Willson Center for Humanities and Arts at UGA launches its new Faculty Research Clusters initiative with a reception at 4 p.m. in the Russell Building Special Collections Libraries:

The program supports groups of University of Georgia faculty who are organized to address large-scale humanities and arts questions in partnership with colleagues from allied departments, colleges, centers, and institutes.

UGA President Jere Morehead and Vice President David Lee are scheduled to give remarks at the event. Willson Center Director Nicholas Allen, Franklin Professor of English in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, will introduce the directors of the six clusters.

"The arts and humanities are a vital component of a well-rounded education,” Morehead said. “The Willson Center and its new Research Clusters will play an important role in highlighting these disciplines on the UGA campus and in attracting research funding, a critical goal of my administration.”

The clusters will support work in the following areas:

• Athens Music Project (Susan Thomas, co-director, associate professor, Hugh Hodgson School of Music and Institute for Women's Studies; Jean Kidula, co-director, associate professor, Hugh Hodgson School of Music and African Studies Institute)
• Digital Humanities Lab (Stephen Berry, co-director, Amanda and Greg Gregory Professor in the Civil War Era, department of history; Bill Kretzschmar, co-director, Harry and Jane Willson Professor in Humanities, department of English; Claudio Saunt, co-director, Richard B. Russell Professor in American History, department of history)
• EcoFocus Film Initiative (Sara Beresford, Director)
• Ideas for Creative Exploration (ICE) (David Z. Saltz, executive director, associate professor and head, department of theatre and film studies; Mark Callahan, artistic director, senior academic professional, Lamar Dodd School of Art, and Willson Center associate academic director for innovation in the arts)
• International Modernism (Jed Rasula, director, Helen S. Lanier Distinguished Professor, Department of English)
• Neuroimaging, Movie Trailers, and Spectator Cognition (Tianming Liu, co-director; assistant professor, department of computer science; Richard Neupert, Wheatley Professor of the Arts and Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor of Theatre and Film Studies; L. Stephen Miller, co-director, professor, department of psychology)

Our thanks to President Morehead and Vice President for Research David Lee for supporting this important initiative.