The University of Miami’s College of Arts and Sciences has announced the establishment of South Florida’s first Center for the Humanities, which is dedicated to supporting humanities, arts, and interpretive social science research and teaching, as well as presenting public programs to enrich Miami’s intellectual culture.

To celebrate the center’s opening, the public is invited to attend an inaugural lecture and reception on Wednesday, November 4 at 6 p.m. in the Storer Auditorium on the Coral Gables campus. The featured speaker will be Marjorie Garber, who is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English and of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University, where she is also chair of the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies and director of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts. She is the past president of the consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes.

Garber’s lecture, “Shakespeare, Humanities, and Modern Culture,” will answer the question, “How do the works of Shakespeare inform, and transform, our understanding of modern literature and modern life?” Seating is limited, so attendees should register for the event at www.humanities.miami.edu, or call 305-284-1580.

Two other public lectures by Garber will be presented as part of the center’s inaugural activities, which will include seminars for faculty and graduate students of area colleges and universities. A full schedule of the inaugural events may be found at www.humanities.miami.edu.

The center will host or co-host more than 25 events for academic year 2009-10, including two symposia in the spring semester: Atlantic Narratives in partnership with Florida International University and Trans Global/Global Trans. Featured speakers on the center’s calendar include scholars from universities across the nation, including Mark Bekoff, University of Colorado, speaking on “Animal Passions and Wild Justice: The Emotional Lives of Animals and Why They Matter”; Edward Friedman, University of Wisconsin, addressing “The Rise of a Superpower China”; and Yeidy Rivero, University of Michigan, discussing “All in the Cuban-American Sit/Com Family: ‘Que Pasa USA’ (1975-80).”

BookTalk presents UM humanities professors discussing their recently published books in a series of lectures at Books & Books. Insight Tracks, an online video series, provides commentary by humanities professors on upcoming theater productions, museum exhibits, and other arts events.

“The newly established College of Arts and Sciences Center for the Humanities affirms the importance of the humanities in academic life and furthers the vision of the university as a place of dialogue and collaborative inquiry,” says Mihoko Suzuki, professor of English, the center’s inaugural director. “One of our aims is to bring this dialogue and inquiry to the South Florida community, in order to enrich its public intellectual culture.”

Suzuki is the author or editor of 12 books. Her scholarship focuses on Renaissance and early modern literature and culture, English and European, with an emphasis on gender and authorship. Her latest work, The Rule of Women in Early Modern Europe, co-edited with Anne J. Cruz, professor of Spanish, has just been published by the University of Illinois Press.

To register for the inaugural events or to subscribe to the Center for the Humanities mailing list, visit www.humanities.miami.edu or call 305-284-1580.