About

The Tabb Center advances experimental and participatory research methods, public humanities scholarship, and collaborative approaches to knowledge creation that engage the distinctive collections and archives of the Sheridan Libraries & University Museums.

The center connects scholarly inquiry with public dialogue through interdisciplinary and community-engaged initiatives, bridging the intellectual and material resources of Johns Hopkins University with the broader Baltimore community. These efforts include opportunities for students to engage in experiential learning through academic courses, research fellowships, and extracurricular activities, blending classroom learning with community engagement.

We welcome partnerships and collaborations that align with our mission to bridge academic scholarship with community-engaged research. People from within and beyond academic spaces are encouraged to email us at tabbcenter@jhu.edu or submit a request for request co-sponsorship for initiatives and artistic projects that enrich the ways knowledge is produced in Baltimore.

The Tabb Center is based in the Sheridan Libraries, which houses a vast collection of rare books, oral histories, historic documents, and other materials.

Learn more about the Sheridan Libraries

Our initiatives take place throughout Johns Hopkins and in venues across Baltimore and online.

Current Areas of Focus

Public Humanities

We cultivate an exchange of knowledge between the university and broader Baltimore community by bringing people together as partners in research, education, and creative expression.

The Tabb Center contributes to the most recent “public turn” in the academy, which is renewing interest in participatory action research, community-based learning, and collaborative approaches to knowledge creation. Experiments with digital storytelling, virtual reality, and participatory archiving reflect a desire to rethink how and why we produce research, with whom, and for whom. We focus on collaborations focused on racial, gender, and sexual justice.

Support Our Work

Your generosity directly enhances the quality of our exhibitions, educational opportunities, and public programs.

Learn more about giving to the Tabb Center

Give Today

Fellowships

Tabb Center Public Humanities Fellows

Dean’s Undergraduate Research Awards

Special Collections First-Year Fellows

Research Fellowships

We provide opportunities to work closely with material culture and archives by offering fellowship programs that promote interdisciplinary research.

Our First-Year Fellows program and Dean’s Undergraduate Research Awards (DURA) support independent undergraduate research using primary sources. Public Humanities Fellowships support non-institutionally affiliated organizers, artists, and public historians to mobilize our collections and imaginatively interpret histories of racial, gender, and sexual justice.

Research Labs

We support collaboration between faculty, students, and community partners by co-sponsoring research labs.

The Tabb Center coordinates the Trans Histories Lab, which promotes non-extractive research on trans history and cultural production in Baltimore. Composed of grassroots organizers, artists, students, curators, and faculty, the Lab facilitates cross-pollination between courses, lectures, oral history research, and special collections acquisitions.

Research Labs

Trans-Histories Lab

Upcoming Events

View calendar

Performance and the Arts

We expand conventional understandings of “research” and “knowledge” by approaching the arts and performance as vital modes of learning, preserving, and transmitting knowledge.

The Tabb Center is committed to artistic experiments that reimagine knowledge production in critical dialogue with institutional norms by prioritizing practices rooted in minoritized publics, particularly storytelling and performance. Notable examples include the Peabody Ballroom Experience and Nicoletta Darita de la Brown’s Be(longing).

Established in 2012 by Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels and the board of trustees, the Tabb Center is named in honor of Winston Tabb for his enduring support of original scholarship. Tabb was Sheridan Dean of University Libraries, Archives, and Museums from 2002 to 2022 and enjoyed a distinguished career in libraries that spanned five decades.