Research Triangle Park, N.C.  As a part of its ongoing "Autonomy, Singularity, Creativity: The Human & The Humanities" project (ASC), the National Humanities Center has launched a new Web site dedicated to the initiative, which significantly expands the potential pool of humanists and scientists engaged in its exploration and examination of topics surrounding the question of human being.

In its first full year of seminars, conferences and other on-site activities, the ASC initiative has already involved researchers in fields as diverse as cybernetics, molecular anthropology, brain imaging, and primatology, as well as philosophers, historians, and literary scholars. The list of distinguished visitors and participants in the project to date includes: Sir Patrick Bateson, Cambridge University; Terrence Deacon, University of California, Berkeley; Peter Galison, Harvard University; Ian Hacking, University of Toronto; N. Katherine Hayles, University of California, Los Angeles; Timothy Lenoir, Duke University; Alan Liu, University of California, Santa Barbara; Willard McCarty, King's College London; Sir Paul Nurse, Rockefeller University; Robert Pippin, University of Chicago; Michael Pollan, University of California, Berkeley; Rita Raley, University of California, Santa Barbara; Connie Rosati, University of Arizona; Alexander Rosenberg, Duke University; Mark Stoneking, Max Planck Institute, Leipzig; Mark Turner, Case Western Reserve University; and C. Chris Wood, the Santa Fe Institute.

The new Web site, located at asc.nhc.rtp.nc.us will facilitate conversations among the growing list of project participants, archive video proceedings from conferences and seminars, and provide an opportunity for sharing and discussing current work in diverse fields that are challenging traditional notions of "the human." "Whereas, in the past, poets and philosophers asked what it means to be human, scientists today are asking what it is to be human," says Geoffrey Harpham, President and Director of the National Humanities Center. "One of the tasks of our project is to assemble a number of these people so we can begin to map this work, so that developments in different fields can be seen as parts of a wide-ranging movement with a single focal point."

In the coming months, the Center will welcome two new resident ASC Fellows, a slate of distinguished visitors, and host its second annual conference as part of the ongoing activities for the ASC initiative.

To learn more about the National Humanities Center, please contact Don Solomon (dsolomon@nationalhumanitiescenter.org) or visit the Center's Web site: nationalhumanitiescenter.org. For questions about the ASC initiative, please contact Phillip Barron (pbarron@nationalhumanitiescenter.org).

The National Humanities Center is the leading major independent institute for advanced study in all fields of the humanities. Privately incorporated and governed by a distinguished board of trustees from academic, professional, and public life, the Center provides a national focus for the best work in the liberal arts, drawing attention to the enduring value of ancient and modern history, language and literature, ethical and moral reflection, artistic and cultural traditions, and critical thought in every area of humanistic investigation. By encouraging excellence in scholarship, the Center seeks to insure the continuing strength of the liberal arts and to affirm the importance of the humanities in American life.