The Tanner Humanities Center honors Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner’s philanthropic legacy by hosting visiting scholars engaged in significant humanistic research. Fellows from institutions across the United States and abroad receive time, space, and institutional support for projects requiring sustained focus across fields including history, philosophy, literature, and media studies. Research conducted by the Tanner’s Visiting Fellows has resulted in publications with broad impact within their disciplines and beyond. The Center welcomes applications from scholars at all career stages whose work demonstrates excellence and originality.

(Image: Grace A. and Obert C. Tanner)

Aldrich (1903-1998) was born in Narsinghpur, India. He studied at Oxford College and the Sorbonne before receiving his doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley in 1931. Aldrich taught philosophy at Rice, Columbia, Kenyon College, and the UNC Chapel Hill. He was the director of the American Studies Institute in Kyoto, Japan, as well as president of the American Philosophical Association and the American Society for Aesthetics. In 1973, he moved to Salt Lake City and taught philosophy at the University of Utah, where the Department of Philosophy hosts the Virgil C. Aldrich Endowed Lectures. The fellowship in the Tanner named in his honor supports faculty across the humanities.

(Image: Aldrich, courtesy of Special Collections, Marriott Library. Detail from Oskar Kokoshka’s Augustusbrücke in Dresden, discussed in Aldrich’s widely-used textbook, Philosophy of Art.)

Humanities research fellowships for career-line faculty highlight the University’s commitment to academic excellence and to the Strategy 2030 goal of diversifying and expanding the institution’s research portfolio, as well as increasing creative scholarship, publications, and awards. Since 2024-2025, the Tanner Humanities Center has provided career-line faculty with dedicated time and resources to pursue research and creative projects in their disciplines. Career-line faculty’s research productivity enriches the University’s scholarly community and enhances its intellectual impact for students and the public.

(Image: Detail from Piet Mondrian, Broadway Boogie-Woogie, 1942.)

Our graduate student fellowships enhance and accelerate the research productivity of the University of Utah’s humanities graduate students. With dedicated office space in the Carolyn Tanner Irish Humanities Building and interdisciplinary participation in fellows’ work-in-progress talks and colloquia, these fellowships invite graduate students into a dynamic and supportive scholarly community.

(Image: 13th-century illustrated Quranic manuscript, Timbuktu)