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 often 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]
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, and public science. [15]
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:
Wheaton College (IL) offers a undergraduate fellowship in Public Humanities and Arts, as a part of their Aequitas Fellowship program [35]
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]
The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York is a public research institution and postgraduate university in New York City. Formed in 1961 as Division of Graduate Studies at City University of New York, it was renamed to Graduate School and University Center in 1969. Serving as the principal doctorate-granting institution of the City University of New York (CUNY) system, CUNY Graduate Center is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity".
The University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) is a public university in Anchorage, Alaska, United States. UAA also administers four community campuses spread across Southcentral Alaska: Kenai Peninsula College, Kodiak College, Matanuska–Susitna College, and Prince William Sound College. Between the community campuses and the main Anchorage campus, roughly 15,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students are currently enrolled at UAA. It is Alaska's largest institution of higher learning and the largest university in the University of Alaska System.
The Claremont Graduate University (CGU) is a private, all-graduate research university in Claremont, California. Founded in 1925, CGU is a member of the Claremont Colleges consortium which includes five undergraduate and two graduate institutions of higher education.
Jewish studies is an academic discipline centered on the study of Jews and Judaism. Jewish studies is interdisciplinary and combines aspects of history, Middle Eastern studies, Asian studies, Oriental studies, religious studies, archeology, sociology, languages, political science, area studies, women's studies, and ethnic studies. Jewish studies as a distinct field is mainly present at colleges and universities in North America.
Public folklore is the term for the work done by folklorists in public settings in the United States and Canada outside of universities and colleges, such as arts councils, museums, folklife festivals, radio stations, etc., as opposed to academic folklore, which is done within universities and colleges. The term is short for "public sector folklore" and was first used by members of the American Folklore Society in the early 1970s.
The Institute of Fine Arts (IFA) is a graduate school and research center of New York University dedicated to the study of the history of art, archaeology, and the conservation and technology of works of art. It offers Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Art History and Archeology, the Advanced Certificate in Conservation of Works of Art, and the Certificate in Curatorial Studies.
Simon J. Bronner is an American folklorist, ethnologist, historian, sociologist, educator, college dean, and author.
The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters is located in Boca Raton, Florida and is one of the ten academic colleges of Florida Atlantic University. The D.F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters is made up by several centers and schools focused on the humanities, social sciences, and liberal arts. It offers degrees at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Arts administration is a field in the arts sector that facilitates programming within cultural organizations. Arts administrators are responsible for facilitating the day-to-day operations of the organization as well as the long term goals by and fulfilling its vision, mission and mandate. Arts management became present in the arts and culture sector in the 1960s. Organizations include professional non-profit entities. For examples theaters, museums, symphony orchestras, concert bands, jazz organizations, opera houses, ballet companies and many smaller professional and non-professional for-profit arts-related organizations. The duties of an arts administrator can include staff management, marketing, budget management, public relations, fundraising, program development evaluation, community engagement, strategic planning, and board relations.
The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale, commonly known as the MacMillan Center, is a research and educational center for international affairs and area studies at Yale University. It is named after Whitney MacMillan and his wife Betty.
Richard Kurin, an American cultural anthropologist, museum official and author, is the Acting Provost and Under Secretary for Museums and Research at the Smithsonian Institution. He is a key member of the senior team managing the world's largest museum and research complex with 6,500 employees and a $1.4 billion annual budget, caring for more than 139 million specimens, artifacts and artworks, working in 145 countries around the globe, hosting some 30 million visitors a year, and reaching hundreds of millions online and through the Smithsonian's educational programs and media outreach. Kurin is particularly responsible for all of the national museums, scholarly and scientific research centers, and programs spanning science, history, art and culture.
The University of Chicago Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies is one of eight professionals schools of the University of Chicago. The Graham School's focus is on part-time and flexible programs of study.
College of the Pacific is the liberal arts college of the University of the Pacific, a private Methodist-affiliated university with its main campus in Stockton, California. The college offers degrees in the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, and the fine and performing arts. Pacific College houses 18 academic departments in addition to special programs such as gender studies, ethnic studies, and film studies. A total of 31 majors and 36 minors are offered, and students may self-design a major or minor. In all, over 80 undergraduate majors are available across the University of the Pacific's schools and colleges.
The University of Texas at Dallas is a public research university in the University of Texas System. The University of Texas at Dallas main campus is located in Richardson, Texas. The University of Texas at Dallas offers over 148 academic programs across its seven schools, including 57 baccalaureate programs, 59 masters programs and 32 doctoral programs, and hosts more than 40 research centers and institutes. The school also offers over 50 undergraduate and graduate certificates.
Museum anthropology is a domain of scholarship and professional practice in the discipline of anthropology.
The College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (CAHSS) has 22 departments, and offers 30 Bachelor's, 16 Master's, and 6 Ph.D. programs. The college also includes several scholarship programs; the Linehan Artist Scholars Program, the Humanities Scholars Program, and the Sondheim Public Affairs Scholars Program. The college oversees several centers; the Dresher Center for Humanities, the Imaging Research Center, and the Maryland Institute for Policy Analysis and Research.
The Association of North American Graduate Programs in the Conservation of Cultural Property, better known by its acronym ANAGPIC, is an annual student conference held by the North American conservation graduate programs. The conference sees students present lectures of the highest caliber, sharing their research, leadership, and training with peers and faculty.
The Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies is the international relations and public policy school of Boston University. It was officially established in 2014 by consolidating and renaming a number of long-established programs in international and regional studies at Boston University dating back to 1953. The current dean of the Pardee School is Scott D. Taylor, an American scholar of African politics and political economy, with a particular focus on business-state relations, private sector development, governance, and political and economic reform. The Pardee School has nearly 1,000 students, including about 800 undergraduate students. It offers six graduate degrees, two graduate certificates, five undergraduate majors, and seven undergraduate minors, and also brings together seven centers and programs of regional and thematic studies.
Susan Smulyan is professor of American Studies and former director of the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage at Brown University. A graduate of Yale University, Smulyan's research focuses on U.S. popular culture in the 20th century.
Deborah A. Thomas is an American anthropologist and filmmaker. She is the R. Jean Brownlee Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for Experimental Ethnography at the University of Pennsylvania. She has published books and articles on the history, culture, and politics of Jamaica; and on human rights, sexuality, and globalization in the Caribbean arena. She has co-produced and co-directed two experimental films, and has co-curated a multimedia exhibit at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. In 2016, she began a four-year term as editor-in-chief of the journal American Anthropologist. Before pursuing her career as an anthropologist, Thomas performed as a professional dancer with Urban Bush Women, a New York dance company that used art to promote social equity by illuminating the experiences of disenfranchised people.
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.