
Promoting the Humanities throughout Campus and the Commonwealth

Our Year on Origins
Coinciding with the United States’ quarter millennial, the Gaines theme for 2025-2026 explores the meaning of origins through the prism of disciplinary viewpoints offered by the humanities, the arts, and the sciences. The Gaines Fellows seminar highlights the multiplicity of beginnings not only for Lexington and the United States but also for current technologies, social institutions, political movements, the planet, humans, and other species as the city and nation commemorate—and reckon with—our 250th anniversaries