Dear Students, Faculty, Staff, and Friends,

Welcome, or welcome back, as we start a new academic year!

As the world faces challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence (AI), political polarization, and global conflict, Humanities and the Arts at City College is growing precisely because the values and capacities that we foster in students are precisely what individuals and the world need in order to navigate changing and challenging times. Last year we saw an increase of 9.7% in the number of students majoring in Humanities and Arts programs, bringing the number of undergraduates in H&A to over 2,300, in addition to 350 graduate students. This semester, we welcome 533 new undergraduate matriculants to H&A. Our approach to Humanities and Arts education at City College is notable, and it explains why so many students choose to major in our nine departments (English, History, Art, Music, Black Studies, Classical and Modern Languages and Literatures, Philosophy, Media and Communication Arts, and Theatre and Speech).

We foreground and prioritize joy. We cultivate habits of observation, analysis, and historical awareness that enrich our experiences of daily life, we celebrate the pleasures provided by various art forms, we support the satisfactions of creativity, and we foster communication and understanding across cultural differences. We emphasize the importance of using college as a time to expand horizons through exploring new subjects and disciplines, and our new student course, “Introduction to Global Humanities and Arts,” provides a great opportunity to do just this.

We also provide an exploration-oriented bridge to careers. Our Humanities Internships program, supported with a $5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation, is our core program for providing students with funded opportunities to try on various jobs and workplaces in non-profit, cultural, and service organizations. Other career support includes our collaboration with the Career and Professional Development Institute and adding the Braven Career Accelerator to our course offerings.

This semester a faculty committee is engaging in detailed discussions about what AI means for how we teach our disciplines and prepare students for today’s brave new world. AI may be able to draft convincing documents of various sorts. It may be able to sift through large bodies of information to answer queries efficiently. It may be able to predict, based on algorithms and patterns, how you would enjoy spending your next vacation. But AI cannot cultivate a deep sensibility about others, derived from the intersection of expressive art forms and first-hand lived interactions and experiences. It cannot communicate that sensibility as empathy and effectively lead a team of people. It cannot create a work of art that is meaningfully unique in the context of a cultural heritage. These are the things in which Humanities and Arts students excel.

Curiosity. Exploration. Success. It all starts in Humanities and Arts.

Sincerely,

Renata Kobetts Miller, Dean

The Division of Humanities and the Arts

What's happening in Humanities and the Arts?

Read the latest issue of our newsletter:

News from the Division of Humanities & the Arts

New to the Division?

Welcome! If you’re curious about exploring and improving your talents, let us connect you with others who share your creative and scholarly interests. Join our division as we create the next generation of writers, artists, filmmakers, musicians, actors, educators, and scholars.

Check out our new page listing student workshops:

Humanities & the Arts Workshops

2026 David Dortort Lecture in the Dramatic Arts

Looking at History Through Film by Stanley Nelson Jr.

Stanley Earl Nelson Jr. (BFA 1976) is an American documentary filmmaker and a MacArthur Fellow as well as a director, writer, and producer of documentaries examining African-American history and experiences. He is a recipient of the 2013 National Humanities Medal from President Obama, and he has won three Primetime Emmy Awards.

His 2021 film ATTICA was nominated for the Academy Award and was selected be The Directors Guild for Outstanding Achievement in Documentary Film.

He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2002, as well as fellowships at The American Film Institute, The New York Foundation for the Arts, and Columbia University.

Nelson is Executive Director and co-founder of Firelight Media with his wife, writer and producer Marcia Smith, a nonprofit that provides technical education and professional support to emerging documentarians.

The Dortort Lecture in the Dramatic Arts was endowed in 2004 by David Dortort (1916-2010), Hollywood screenwriter, executive producer, and 1936 CCNY alumnus. The annual lectures aim to provide thought-provoking insights on the media, the creative process and artistic and political issues. Dortort was the creator, writer and executive producer of “Bonanza,” one of the longest-running primetime dramatic series in television history. He received the Motion Picture and Television Foundation’s Golden Boot Award for Distinguished Work in Western Films and Television in 1999.

Shepard Hall - Room 350
Monday, October 19  •  4:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Advance Registration Required. Register here: https://dortortlecture2026.eventbrite.com/

The Stuart Z. Katz Professorship in the Humanities & the Arts at The City College of New York

"Philosophers Going Non-Native" presented by CCNY Philosophy Professor, Nickolas Pappas

Monday, October 26, 2026

4:40 pm - Shepard Hall, Room 305

About Professor Nickolas Pappas

Nickolas Pappas has taught at CUNY since 1993. He is Professor of Philosophy at City College, and belongs to the doctoral faculty in Classics at the CUNY Graduate Center. He has served as department chair at both institutions.

Pappas received his PhD in Philosophy at Harvard University in 1987. Since that time his research has focused on the fields of aesthetics and ancient philosophy, with special attention to the intersection between the two. His books include the Routledge Philosophical Guidebook to Plato’s Republic (third edition 2013), which has been translated into Chinese, Greek, Persian, and Portuguese; and The Philosopher’s New Clothes: The Theaetetus, the Academy, and Philosophy’s Turn against Fashion (Routledge 2016). He wrote and regularly updates the entry “Plato’s Aesthetics” for the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

He is now at work on a book Strangers in the House of Philosophy: Plato’s City, its Unity, the Foreigners, and their Knowledge. Together with Phillip Mitsis of NYU, he is working on new translations and commentaries on Plutarch’s essays “Talkativeness” and “Busybodies.”

About the Stuart Z. Katz Professorship

The Stuart Z. Katz Professorship in the Humanities & the Arts at The City College of New York was established in 2017 by a generous gift from Mr. Stuart Z. Katz, a 1964 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of CCNY. The endowment supports one outstanding professorial faculty member in the Division of Humanities & the Arts for an academic year, providing the professor up to two months of summer salary plus $10,000 to support research and creative activity.

Mr. Katz, a retired attorney, established the gift for the importance of the study of humanities and the arts for a thorough education and life.

Register here by October 19: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2026-2027-stuart-z-katz-professorship-installation-tickets-1996991033940?aff=oddtdtcreator

Professor Nickolas Pappas is named the 2026-27 Stuart Z. Katz Professor

About Profesor Nickolas Pappas

Professor Pappas's research concentrates on ancient philosophy and aesthetics. In the past decade, he has developed an interest in how the thinkers of the ancient world, particularly Plato, perceived foreigners, immigrants, and others who were either ethnically or linguistically different.

“There were many, often surprising categories for understanding different types of strangers,” he said. “What is striking to me is that those categories for faraway people informed even how people saw their nearest neighbors.”

To deepen his understanding of categories for strangers, Pappas will travel to Greece this summer to visit lesser-known, small museums that hold relics from civilizations, such as Egypt and Syria. He expects that examining these artifacts will yield insights into Plato’s stereotypes about foreigners that appear in his political writings.

These explorations will inform Pappas’s upcoming book, “Strangers in the House of Philosophy,” the subject of his Stuart Z. Katz Lecture to be delivered at his formal installation on Monday, October 26.

About the Stuart Z. Katz Professorship

The Stuart Z. Katz Professorship in the Humanities & the Arts at The City College of New York established in 2017 by a generous gift from Mr. Stuart Z. Katz, a 1964 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of CCNY supports the research and creative activity of one outstanding professorial faculty member in the Division of Humanities & the Arts for an academic year.

Two H&A faculty earn CUNY Distinguished Professorships for excellence

Conferred by the City University of New York (CUNY) Board of Trustees, Distinguished Professorships are reserved for faculty with records of exceptional performance by national and international standards of excellence in their profession.

The title is the highest academic honor that CUNY can offer its faculty. The Division of Humanities and Arts is proud to introduce its two newest Distinguished Professors: Andreas Killen (History) and Jennifer Roberts (Classical & Modern Languages & Literatures). Read more here.

Theatre and Speech Alum, Victor Almanzar Accepts the Townsend Harris Award and Shares His Journey from the Military to the Stage

Victor Almanzar is a New York-based actor who immigrated from the Dominican Republic at an early age. Before pursuing acting, Victor served in the United States Marine Corps, completing tours in Kosovo and Iraq. His journey into acting began at City College of New York, where discovering the Theater and Speech program rekindled his passion for the performing arts. At City College, he earned recognition, awards, and encouragement from professors who inspired him to consider acting as a serious career. Since then, he has performed on the New York stage, in regional theaters, and in London. He appeared as Oswaldo in the Pulitzer Prize-winning production of Between Riverside and Crazy at The Atlantic Theater and Second Stage Theater (NYC) and the Steppenwolf Theater (Chicago). He was nominated for the Lucille Lortel Award for his role in Between Riverside and Crazy and is a proud lifetime member of The Actors Studio.

Link: Bio — Victor Almanzar

CCNY Film Professor Antonio Tibaldi is 2025 Guggenheim Fellow

CCNY Film Professor Antonio Tibaldi has been named a Guggenheim Fellow for 2025.

Full story here

Renata Kobetts Miller named Dean

of the Division of Humanities & the Arts

Author and Professor Renata Kobetts Miller has been appointed dean of the Division of Humanities and the Arts at

The City College of New York.

Full story here.

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New Sonic Arts Center Website