Under the directorship of Barbara Gold, Professor of Classics, faculty in several departments in the Humanities began to meet in Couper Hall in September of 2009 to discuss ways to create greater visibility for the central role of the Humanities in the College's educational mission. These meetings produced a series of speakers who addressed particular themes over two-year periods. The first series, The Secular Gaze, addressed the problem of secularism as a mode of thinking in the humanities. Craig Calhoun (then University Professor and Professor of Sociology, NYU and later Director of the London School of Economics) spoke on Rethinking Secularism, Jose Casanova (Professor of Sociology and Senior Fellow, Berkley Center for Religion) gave a talk titled, "Exploring the post-secular: three meanings of ‘the secular’ and their possible transcendence," Sally M. Promey (Professor of American Studies, Professor of Religion and Visual Culture, Yale University) presented her work, “Always a Golden Calf: Materialities and Sensational Religions in ‘Secular’ Modernity,” and Anthony Grafton (Henry Putnam University Professor of History and the Humanities, Princeton University) spoke on "The Fall and Rise of Sacred History in Early Modern Europe." Since then, the Humanities Forum has brought established scholars from other institutions to address other themes, such as Translation and Cultural Exchange and Memory and Identity; themes also addressed by members of Hamilton's faculty in parallel talks and brown bags. The Archive in the left column includes a complete list of the talks.