Benjamin D. Sommer Selected for Prestigious National Humanities Center Fellowship

April 29, 2025

Congratulations to Professor Benjamin D. Sommer, Professor of Bible and Ancient Semitic Languages, who was one of 32 fellows selected by the National Humanities Center for the 2025–26 academic year. Professor Sommer will be spending the coming school year at the Center, working on his individual research project, Psalms as Ritual, Psalms as Torah: Religious Experience and the Psalter, and will have the opportunity to share ideas in seminars, lectures, and conferences. He is the first faculty member from JTS to be selected for an NHC fellowship.

Chosen from 588 applicants, Professor Sommer and the other newly appointed Fellows will constitute the forty-eighth class of resident scholars to be admitted since the Center opened in 1978. “We are so thrilled to support the exciting and important work of these scholars,” said Martha Kelly, vice president for scholarly programs of the National Humanities Center.“ They were selected from a large and highly competitive group of applicants from around the globe and across the disciplines comprising the humanities. We eagerly anticipate their arrival in the fall as they each contribute to our robust intellectual community and highlight the value of academic freedom, especially at this moment in time.” The National Humanities Center will award over $1,570,000 in fellowship grants to enable the selected scholars to take leave from their normal academic duties and pursue research at the Center. 

The National Humanities Center is the world’s only independent institute dedicated exclusively to advanced study in all areas of the humanities. Through its residential fellowship program, the Center provides scholars with the resources necessary to generate new knowledge and to further understanding of all forms of cultural expression, social interaction, and human thought. Through its education programs, the Center strengthens teaching on the collegiate and pre-collegiate levels. Through public engagement intimately linked to its scholarly and educational programs, the Center promotes understanding of the humanities and advocates for their foundational role in a democratic society.

Learn more here.