When an astronaut stopped Dr. Jim Ellis, to ask for his autograph, it felt like a small victory for the humanities.
Jim Ellis by the Bow River in Calgary.
The moment came at the Jasper Dark Sky Festival in October 2025, right after Ellis, PhD, and his colleagues had wrapped up a public talk on the mythologies of outer space.
Earlier in the program, scientists and engineers had unpacked the technical side of space exploration. Ellis, a professor of English at the University of Calgary and director of its Calgary Institute for the Humanities (CIH), took a different approach. He and his colleagues talked about what outer space means to people.
"We ask the why' questions," Ellis says. "Scientists ask how we can go to Mars. We ask whether we should go, and what it would mean if we did."
As UCalgary marks its 60th anniversary in 2026, CIH is celebrating its own 50-year milestone of asking those kinds of questions about space, climate, Reconciliation, death, artificial intelligence and more.
Building a home for humanist research
CIH was founded a decade after the young university gained independence from the University of Alberta in 1966. It began with a straightforward idea: even in a STEM-heavy city, a research university needs a place where people can come together to think deeply about what it means to be human.
Its early leaders philosopher Dr. Terry Penelhum, PhD, Hon. LLD'91, and historian Dr. Egmont Lee, PhD also believed a strong humanities hub was essential for a serious research institution.
From Day 1, the Institute took on three central roles: providing scholars with time and space for major research, fostering interdisciplinary work, and building connections between the university and the rest of the city.
What that mandate looks like in practice is collaboration that reaches well beyond any single department. Scholars from engineering, health research and other areas join colleagues from the Faculty of Arts on working groups and in Institute programs.
Ellis says the real spark comes when you put people together who don't normally share a table.
"People arrive thinking, We have nothing in common,'" he says. "But, when you put an analytic philosopher and a feminist religious-studies scholar in conversation, you realize they have all kinds of things to say to each other."
One of the most visible examples of collaboration is the long-running community seminar series, which brings together scholars, artists and the public to explore a single topic. Over nearly five decades, seminar themes have included everything from Reconciliation to the ethics of space exploration.
Those seminars have inspired a wide range of books from Calgary: City of Animals to Intertwined Histories and Water Rites. The 2022 seminar on outer space sparked the book, Mythologies of Outer Space, which led to invitations for Ellis and his colleagues to present at public astronomy events including the Dark Sky Festival, where Ellis found himself signing his first autograph for an astronaut.
For Ellis, that one moment captured the heart of the CIH.
"The humanities are what help us ask why," he says. "They help us think through the ethical implications of what we can do, and what it does to us."
How Ellis found the humanities
Ellis didn't set out to become a Renaissance scholar or lead the country's oldest humanities institute.
He began his studies at the University of New Brunswick (UNB), trying out science, business and computer science before a course on the literature of fear and suspense sparked something new. English felt like home.
After graduate work at UNB and York University, he taught in Toronto until a position at UCalgary brought him west in 1997. What he found was a campus open to fresh ideas.
"As a younger university, it wasn't as fixed in its ways," Ellis says. "I had the freedom to teach in the areas that interested me from Renaissance literature to film studies.
"That openness has really been a defining feature of my experience here."
Strengthening the CIH for the future
As Ellis moved into leadership, supporters were exploring ways to deepen the CIH's impact beyond the university. In 2013, its advisory board, a group of dedicated community volunteers, encouraged that outward focus and helped spark a new wave of philanthropic support.
What began as an effort to fund one fellowship for emerging scholars soon expanded into a transformational period of giving, driven by community members who believed deeply in the institute's work.
"They saw that, in a STEM-focused university and city, the humanities still have something crucial to offer," Ellis says. "They expressed that confidence by investing in us."
The result is a renewed "golden era" that continues today. The number of faculty fellows has returned to the Institute's original model of five, alongside two graduate fellows and a rotating group of artists-in-residence.
Together, the Institute's endowments now total nearly $4 million. These funds support fellowships, working groups, public-humanities placements and a wide range of community events, making it possible to sustain long-term research while launching new, experimental collaborations across campus and throughout Calgary.
The Calgary Atlas Project remains a signature example. The project's maps highlight Calgary's "alternative and forgotten histories" from Forest Lawn's foodways to queer spaces to Stampede Wrestling created through partnerships between historians, artists and community members. New maps are planned for release throughout UCalgary and CIH's dual-anniversary year.
These projects thrive, Ellis says, because Calgarians believe in the value of the humanities.
"Community members stepped up and said, We want this. We value this. We're going to invest in it,'" he says. "That's a powerful vote of confidence."
Stepping into the next 50 years
The institute's 50th-anniversary year will feature two flagship events. First is the exhibition of Atlas Project maps and artwork at Lougheed House, opening April 3, 2026, and running through May 17.
Then, on May 8, the CIH will host a full-day community seminar on "AI and the Future of the Humanities" at the Confluence Historic Site & Parkland. The event will feature leading thinkers on how artificial intelligence is reshaping research, creativity and democratic life.
Fifty years ago, the Institute's founders might not have considered generative AI or space rockets funded by billionaires, but they understood something deeper: that a healthy democracy needs more than technical know-how.
Ellis believes that case is even stronger today.
"One of the things that imperils democracy is a lack of what the humanities teach: empathy, critical thinking, global understanding, historical context," he says. "These are what help us live together."
When Ellis thinks about the Institute's future, he often returns to an image of Egmont Lee, an Estonian refugee and Renaissance scholar, who looked at Calgary and saw a city of newcomers who needed ways to understand one another's stories. He helped create a space for that conversation.
Decades later, Ellis walks into the same institute and finds inspiration in the mix of disciplines, cultures and ideas.
"I know what this place has given me," he says. "I want it to be here for the next generation and the one after that as a place where we can keep asking the human questions."
In just six decades, the University of Calgary has grown into one of Canada's top research universities a community defined by bold ambition, entrepreneurial spirit and global impact. As we celebrate our 60th anniversary, we're honouring the people and stories that have shaped our past while looking ahead to an even more innovative future. UCalgary60 is about celebrating momentum, strengthening connections with our community and building excitement for what's next.
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