Public humanities

Public humanities is the work of engaging diverse publics in reflecting on heritage, traditions, and history, and the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of civic and cultural life. ^{[1] [2]} Public humanities is usually practiced within federal, state, nonprofit and community-based cultural organizations that engage people in conversations, facilitate and present lectures, exhibitions, performances and other programs for the general public on topics such as history, philosophy, popular culture and the arts. ^{[3] [4]} Public Humanities also exists within universities as a collaborative enterprise between communities and faculty, staff, and students. ^[5]

Definitions

Public humanities projects include exhibitions and programming related to historic preservation, oral history, archives, material culture, public art, cultural heritage, and cultural policy. ^{[6] [7] [8]} The National Endowment for the Humanities notes that public humanities projects it has supported in the past include "interpretation at historic sites, television and radio productions, museum exhibitions, podcasts, short videos, digital games, websites, mobile apps, and other digital media." ^[9] Many practitioners of public humanities are invested in ensuring the accessibility and relevance of the humanities to the general public or community groups. ^[10]

The American Council of Learned Societies' National Task Force on Scholarship and the Public Humanities suggests that the nature of public humanities work is to teach the public the findings of academic scholarship: it sees "scholarship and the public humanities not as two distinct spheres but as parts of a single process, the process of taking private insight, testing it, and turning it into public knowledge." ^[11] Others, such as former museum director Nina Simon and Harvard professor Doris Sommer, suggest a more balanced understanding of the ways in which history, heritage, and culture are shared between the academy and the public. ^{[12] [13]} These approaches draw on the notion of shared historical authority. ^[14]

Subfields of the public humanities include public history, public sociology, public folklore, public anthropology, public philosophy, historic preservation, museum studies, museum education, cultural heritage management, community archaeology, public art, collection management and public science. ^[15]

Programs

Several universities have established programs in the public humanities (or have otherwise expressed commitments to public humanities via the creation of centers, degrees, or certificate programs with investments in various forms of "public" work). ^[16] Programs include:

• Brown University's John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage (JNBC) supported public humanities programs and offered a stand-alone MA in Public Humanities, a Certificate in Public Humanities for PhD students, and a transitional MA in Public Humanities for PhD students in American Studies. ^[17] In December 2023, the JNBC announced that the center would be renamed the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Studies and the MA program in Public Humanities was put on hold. ^[18] In the wake of this announcement, Brown's Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice began offering an MA in Integrative Studies "with a focus in public humanities." ^[19] The new program started in Fall 2024.
• Carolina Public Humanities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill offers extensive public outreach programs, a dedicated K12 teacher training subsidiary (Carolina K12), and a state-outreach program in partnership with the state's community colleges.
• Georgetown University offers a stand-alone MA in the Engaged & Public Humanities as well as a Graduate Certificate program. ^[20]
• Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis is home to the Indianapolis Arts and Humanities Institute, which organizes public events and offers grant funding, artist residencies, and workshops, along with producing original research. ^[21] It is a founding institution for the Anthropocenes Network and the COVID-19 Oral History Project. ^{[22] [23]}
• The Institute for Women Surfers is a grassroots educational initiative in the Public Humanities that brings together women surfers, activists, artists, business owners, scientists and educators, to create spaces of peer teaching, learning, and mutual aid.
• Michigan State University was hosting a Public Humanities Collaborative as of 2007. ^[24]
• New York University offers a Certificate in Public Humanities through their Public Humanities Initiative in Graduate Education. ^[25]
• Oakland University in 2019 chartered a Center for Public Humanities. ^[26]
• Portland State University, whose Portland Center for Public Humanities provides a yearlong forum of talks, roundtables, and workshops. ^[27]
• Rutgers University–Newark, whose Public Humanities track in the American Studies MA program. ^{[28] [29]}
• University of Arizona established the Department of Public & Applied Humanities in 2017. As of 2024, their BA has eleven tracks: Business Administration; Consumer, Market & Retail Studies; Engineering Approaches; Environmental Systems; Fashion Studies; Game Studies; Medicine; Plant Studies; Public Health; Rural Leadership & Renewal; and Spatial Organization & Design Thinking. ^[30]
• University of Maryland, Baltimore County has a Minor in Public Humanities. The Department of American Studies (AMST) hosts and supervises the minor in AMST’s Orser Center for the Study of Place, Community, and Culture, in collaboration with the Dresher Center for the Humanities. ^[31]
• University of Michigan - Ann Arbor offers the Rackham Program in Public Scholarship. ^[32]
• University of Sheffield, which offers an MA in Public Humanities with pathways in digital humanities, public engagement and cultural heritage. ^[33]
• University of Western Ontario has a program called The Public Humanities at Western. ^[34]
• University of Wisconsin–Madison has a public scholarship program, Public Humanities Exchange that supports collaborative work between humanities grad students and the community. ^[35]
• The Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities at the University of Washington offers a Certificate in Public Scholarship. ^[36]
• Wheaton College (IL) offers a undergraduate fellowship in Public Humanities and Arts, as a part of their Aequitas Fellowship program ^[37]

• Yale University, whose MA program in Public Humanities is part of the American Studies Program at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. ^[38]

Publications

Public Humanities work can take the form of written communication in news magazines as well as in academic journals and books.

In 2024, Cambridge University Press launched an open-access international journal for the Public humanities which aims "to create a venue for sharing knowledge about the intersections of humanities scholarship and public life". ^[10]

References

1. "Goals of the Publicly Engaged Humanities". humanitiesforall.org. Retrieved 2020-10-17.
2. "Finding the roots of civic engagement in the public humanities | National Council on Public History". 21 July 2014. Retrieved 2022-12-07.
3. "Humanities Indicators Project Explores the Public Humanities". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. 10 February 2020. Retrieved 2020-10-17.
4. "Humanities Councils – The Inclusive Historian's Handbook". 23 May 2019. Retrieved 2022-12-07.
5. Julie Ellison, “The New Public Humanists,” PMLA 128, no. 2 (2013): 289–98.
6. Bridget Draxler and Danielle Spratt, Engaging the Age of Jane Austen: Public Humanities in Practice (Iowa City: University Of Iowa Press, 2019).
7. Ned Kaufman, Place, Race, and Story : Essays on the Past and Future of Historic Preservation (New York: Routledge, 2009).
8. Amy Lonetree, Decolonizing Museums : Representing Native America in National and Tribal Museums (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012).
9. "Division of Public Programs". National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Retrieved 2018-11-19.
10. "Public Humanities" . Retrieved 2024-05-09. Public Humanities, Cambridge University Press
11. Quay, James; Veninga, James (October 5–7, 1989). Making Connections: The Humanities, Culture and Community. National Task Force on Scholarship and the Public Humanities. Racine, Wisconsin: American Council of Learned Societies. Retrieved 25 Jan 2016. We think it more useful and more accurate to consider scholarship and the public humanities not as two distinct spheres but as parts of a single process, the process of taking private insight, testing it, and turning it into public knowledge.
12. Nina Simon, The Art of Relevance (Museum 2.0, 2016).
13. Doris Sommer, The Work of Art in the World: Civic Agency and Public Humanities (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014).
14. Bill Adair, Benjamin Filene, and Laura Koloski, eds., Letting Go? Sharing Historical Authority in a User-Generated World (Philadelphia: The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, 2011).
15. "National Council on Public History | About the Field" . Retrieved 2020-09-23.
16. Humanities Indicators, “Humanities in Our Lives: Public Humanities” American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Accessed 10/12/20. https://www.amacad.org/sites/default/files/media/document/2020-03/Public-Humanities.pdf.
17. "Graduate Program | Public Humanities | Brown University". www.brown.edu. Retrieved 2020-06-06.
18. "JNBC looks to future as Public Humanities Master's Program put "on hold" The new program started in Fall 2024". The Brown Daily Herald. Retrieved 2024-11-12.
19. "Public Humanities (Integrative Studies) | Graduate Programs | Brown University". graduateprograms.brown.edu. 2025-02-01. Retrieved 2024-11-12.
20. "Home Page". Master's Program in the Engaged & Public Humanities. Retrieved 2020-06-06.
21. "IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute" . Retrieved 2023-07-25.
22. "covid-19 oral history project". sites.google.com. Retrieved 2023-07-25.
23. "The Anthropocenes Network". The Anthropocenes Network. Retrieved 2023-07-25.
24. "Public Humanities Collaborative | College of Arts and Letters | Michigan State University". 2007-06-12. Archived from the original on 2007-06-12. Retrieved 2020-06-06.
25. "Public Humanities Initiative in Graduate Education". as.nyu.edu. Retrieved 2023-03-16.
26. https://www.oakland.edu/cas/humanities/index
27. "Portland State Portland Center for Public Humanities | Welcome". www.pdx.edu. Retrieved 2020-06-06.
28. "Public Humanities". publichumanities.camden.rutgers.edu. Retrieved 2020-09-27.
29. "American Studies, Public Humanities Track, M.A." Rutgers SASN. Retrieved 2020-09-27.
30. "Public & Applied Humanities | UArizona College of Humanities". pah.arizona.edu/. Retrieved 2022-04-03.
31. "Announcing the NEW minor in Public Humanities - American Studies - UMBC". amst.umbc.edu. Retrieved 2020-06-06.
32. "Rackham Program in Public Scholarship". Rackham Graduate School: University of Michigan. Retrieved 2020-06-06.
33. "MA Public Humanities - Postgraduate - Interdisciplinary study - Faculty of Arts and Humanities - Faculties - the University of Sheffield". Archived from the original on 2019-03-04. Retrieved 2020-06-06.
34. "Public Humanities at Western - Western University". www.uwo.ca. Retrieved 2020-06-06.
35. "Graduate Exchange | UW-Madison Center for the Humanities". humanities.wisc.edu. Retrieved 2020-06-06.
36. "Certificate in Public Scholarship | Simpson Center for the Humanities". simpsoncenter.org. Retrieved 2020-06-06.
37. "Fellowship in Public Humanities and Arts".
38. "Welcome | Public Humanities at Yale". ph.yale.edu. Retrieved 2020-09-27.