Black Mountain Institute is an international literary center dedicated to promoting discourse on today‘s most pressing issues. UNLV President Emerita Carol C. Harter leads the institute, which provides an environment where thinkers and writers from all segments of global society can fight against entrenched perspectives, whatever their political or cultural source.

Black Mountain works to exert national, and ultimately global, influence by supporting a host of mutually reinforcing literary endeavors. These activities include readings, lectures, and debates by public intellectuals whose work embodies BMI‘s mission; the administration of a fellowship program that supports the creation of internationally focused writing for an educated lay audience; the administration of a safe haven for writers of conscience from countries in which such freedoms are curtailed or endangered; the publication of a nationally recognized literary journal; and the translation into English of major literary works from traditionally under-translated languages. For information on all these endeavors, see the programs section of our web site.

Black Mountain also actively seeks partnerships and co-sponsorship opportunities with other centers and programs at UNLV and in the community at large, thereby multiplying the number of resources available to and audiences touched by its activities. For more information on these relationships, see the partners section of our web site.