The Hawai‛i Council for the Humanities (HCH) encourages public dialogue that explores human values, interprets human experience, promotes cross-cultural understanding, strengthens our community and connects us to the wider world. 

HCH seeks to improve the quality of life in Hawai‛i through public programs and grant opportunities which apply the humanities to our everyday lives.

What are the humanities?

The humanities study and reveal the many aspects of culture, which consists not only of sights and sounds, but also of ideas.  Humanities areas of study examine:

• Ideas about how we should live and conduct ourselves (philosophy, ethics and comparative religion);
  
  
• Ideas about who we are as a people and how we have changed over time (history, archaeology and anthropology); and
  
  
• Ideas about other lives and thoughts and their expression in different cultures (literature, languages, art history)

The humanities and the humanities scholars who study these ideas do not settle for simple answers to the complexities of the human condition. Understanding ourselves and others is vital for everyone and is a lifelong pursuit that provides exciting encounters with new ways of viewing the world, rewarding insights and empathy for the myriad ways of human existence. Such understanding is critical to how we live as families, work and do business, govern ourselves and participate in the global community.