Our Founding Fathers believed in the importance and power of the humanities to change people's lives. Indeed, our nation’s history has been a great adventure in ideas. Humanities North Dakota was created to continue this proud tradition. Our mission is to provide people opportunities to engage with and debate critical ideas, because democracy demands wisdom and vision in its citizens.
Formally, the humanities are the disciplines of history, religion, philosophy, literature, anthropology, law,and ethics. Taken as a whole they seek to understand what it means to be human. For individuals they are the tools used to explore the meaning and purpose of life. For societies they help define how we want to be governed and the values we want enshrined in civic life.
Humanities North Dakota is an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to providing lifelong learning opportunities to the citizens of North Dakota. Established in 1974 as a partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities, we are not a state agency and do not receive state funding.
How do we want to be governed and live in community?