The Center for the Humanities at the University of Missouri-St. Louis was the first center of its kind in the bistate region and in the state of Missouri. The Center for the Humanities has two central objectives:
- to provide visibility and focus for humanities activities at UM-St. Louis, and
- to attract and channel resources for the support of interdisciplinary humanistic inquiry.
To this end the Center has sponsored a variety of conferences, symposiums, and lectures. Over the last several years, the Center has sponsored a conference entitled "What is a City?", which examines the structure and social environment of cities and their effects on social and cultural diversity.
The Center for the Humanities also coordinates:
- Monday Noon Cultural Series, featuring a variety of performances and lectures in the arts and humanities on Mondays at 12:15 p.m. during the academic year
- Poetry & Reading Series, presenting fiction writers and poets reading and discussing their works
The University of Missouri-St. Louis, along with Webster University and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, support Theory and Society, a refereed, interdisciplinary journal of social theory and practices, housed in The Center for the Humanities.