The Kerouac Center at UMass Lowell is a collaborative, interdisciplinary engagement center broadly focused on the work of Lowell, Massachusetts native Jack Kerouac, as well as the cultural, political, and intellectual history shaping Kerouac during the post-World War II period. The Center was established through a gift to the University of Massachusetts Lowell honoring the globally celebrated author and his wife Stella. Jack and Stella were born and raised in the city of Lowell, and the city plays a central role in Jack’s writing (Kerouac published five novels during his life about Lowell) . The Kerouac Center seeks to utilize the university’s and the city’s connection to Kerouac’s life, art, and archives even as the Center reaches beyond Kerouac to investigate America in a global context during the years he wrote (1945-1969). As an engagement center, we seek to catalyze interdisciplinary discussions on post-war topics among faculty, graduate students, undergraduates, and the public with lectures, panels, readings, conferences, performances, workshops, digital humanities projects (archived on www.jackkerouac.org), and museum exhibits.