Start Exploring the Publicly Engaged Humanities
What are the public and engaged humanities? How do humanities professionals apply the knowledge and skills they gain from their training in meaningful work experiences in different fields and to address the most pressing issues facing society right now? The following blog entries are great starting points to learn about the possibilities Georgetown’s MA in the Public and Engaged Humanities opens for its graduate students.
Humanities for All
Humanities for All is an initiative of the National Humanities Alliance Foundation that showcases higher ed-based publicly engaged humanities initiatives, which range from humanities research, teaching, preservation, and a wide variety of public programming. It presents a cross-section of over 2,000 undertaken over the past decade from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. This collection includes a wide range of humanities projects that engage with diverse publics as audiences and as partners.
Daniel Fisher-Livne, Research Affiliate at the National Humanities Alliance, wrote these three introductory essays, that delve into the different types of engagement of public humanities projects (Outreach, Engaged public programming, Engaged research, Engaged teaching, and the Infrastructure of engagement); the overarching goals toward which nearly all public humanities projects work (Informing contemporary debates; Amplifying community voices and histories; Helping individuals and communities navigate difficult experiences; Expanding educational access; and Preserving culture in times of crisis and change); and the importance of collaboration and partnerships to create truly engaged humanities projects.
- A Typology of the Publicly Engaged Humanities.
- Goals of the Publicly Engaged Humanities.
- Partnership and Publicly Engaged Humanities Work.
MLA Connected Academics Blog
The entries of the MLA Connected Academics blog present reflections and lessons learned from participants of the activities of the Connected Academics project, from exploring broad career paths, identifying transferable skills and considering diverse experiences as résumé-worthy, to reaching out to others for processional advice, conducting informational interviews and building community ties.
- Candace Cunard, “Build Your Own Professional Utopia”.
- Matthew John Phillips, “Toward a More Generous Future”.
- Molly D. Appel, “Lessons from the MLA Career Development Boot Camp: ‘Alt-Ac’ is not so ‘Alt’ After All”.
- Carolyn Ureña, “What Counts as Experience? Diversity as an Asset”.
- Beth Seltzer, “MLA Career Exploration Activity Packet: Skills Self-Assessment, Job Ad Analysis, and Next Steps”.
- Sarah Goldberg, “Preparing for Life Outside the Academy: A Primer and Resource Guide”.
- Parfait Kouacou, “Reimagining Graduate Scholarship: The Emergence of Paid Internships”.
- Maria Seger, “Information Exchange: Thinking of Networking as Learning Symbiosis”.
- Molly Mann, “Instead of ‘Networking,’ the Art of Asking”.
Georgetown, MLA and Connected Academics’ Reinvent PhD Project Blog (2015-2018)
Connected Academics is a national-scale project led by the Modern Language Association and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, aimed at preparing doctoral students of language and literature to be influential in a diversity of academic and non-academic careers. Georgetown’s Reinvent PhD project focused on exploring ways to combine the strengths of scholarly training in the humanities with the experience of applying scholarly training in work environments beyond the university, expanding intellectual discourse beyond the university, by cultivating dialogues with public intellectuals and specialists in non-academic areas.
The entries of the Reinvent PhD blog exemplify these dialogues, covering broader ways of understanding humanities value in public life, the attitudes and skills cultivated in graduate education in the humanities, expanding pathways—personal and professional—for thinking about career options, advice for humanities professionals to master their job searches, and making public humanities work more inclusive of other cultural traditions.
- Lauren Frey, “Embracing the ‘Engaged and Public Humanities’ and Abandoning ‘Alt-Ac’”.
- John Heins, “Cultivating Productive Attitudes in Graduate Humanities Education”.
- Joseph Fruscione, “Want Another Way to Help Your Graduate Students? Start By Talking About Careers”.
- Chiara Girardi, “How to Master the Humanities Job Search: Lessons from the PhD Career Day”.
- Said Salih Kaymakci, “Reclaiming the Gems of Ottoman History for an Inclusive Public Humanities”.
Dispatches: the Publicly Engaged Humanities Respond to COVID
In this series of blog entries, written between March and May, 2020, the founding director and staff of the MAEPH Program provide insights on the value of the humanities in public life, particularly, how they can help us understand and address some of the experiences at the center of the COVID-19 pandemic: fear, isolation, lethargy, uncertainty… Click below to read the thoughts of founding director Kathryn Temple, program director Christine Tolentino, and project manager Justin Perry, and consider the value of the humanities in times of crisis.