The Marcus Orr Center for the Humanities (MOCH) is the nodal point within the University of Memphis for bringing together all those interested in having a richer and deeper conversation about the issues that matter to us all.

We live in a world increasingly fragmented into enclaves with people exposed to ideas in the media that only reinforce their own perspective within an often-limited framework. Much of what we are exposed to is people yelling at one another from soapboxes in sound bites and stereotypes.

At MOCH, we seek to create an institutional space where the original mandate of the humanities can thrive. The humanities concern all areas of human inquiry that speak to the human condition in its intellectual, emotional, physical and spiritual dimensions.

Today, the disciplinary divides in the university and the cleavages between the sciences and the liberal arts can sometimes reinforce rather than repair the divisions within the social body. Drawing from scholarly work that is analytic, critical, or speculative, MOCH aims to cut across these divides to provide programming that challenges us to re-imagine our world, that offers us ways to re-think our set conventions, and that lays out the possibility of new solutions.

After all, our motto at the University is that we are "Dreamers, Thinkers, and Doers." MOCH is one of the institutional spaces oncampus for making this vision a reality by creating conversations on the basis of shared reading and dialogue between faculty, graduates, undergraduates and other interested Memphians. We hope you will join us for our events and reading groups over the course of the year.

Jonathan Judaken
Former Director