Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences

Visiting Humanists

Since the humanities faculty is small, visitors have proven particularly important for bringing new perspectives on research to Caltech. We have been fortunate in having been able to offer a number of attractive visiting positions through our Fairchild Visiting Scholars program, funded by the Fairchild Foundation, and our new Moore Distinguished Scholars program, funded by Gordon and Betty Moore. These programs have allowed us to bring numerous distinguished scholars to campus for periods ranging from a few weeks up to an academic year.

While usually working most closely with individuals in their fields, these scholars have also presented their work to the humanities faculty as a whole, to the enrichment of all. In addition, many visitors teach classes in their specialty, enabling us to offer undergraduates an even wider range of courses at the cutting edge of Humanities scholarship. Visitors have included Marilyn Butler (Romantic British literature, Oxford), Anthony Grafton (Renaissance European intellectual history, Princeton), Adolf Grünbaum (philosophy of science, Pittsburg), Stephen Haber (quantitative history of Latin America, Stanford), Evelyn Fox Keller (history of science, MIT), and John Sutherland (19th- and 20th-century fiction, University College, London).