As we train the next generation of scholar-teacher-leaders within and beyond the academy, we seek to make the humanities more fully integral to tackling the complex challenges facing an interconnected yet divided world.
Humanities Engage supports public-facing humanistic scholarship, public engagement, collaboration, and the communication of research to non-specialist audiences. We encourage experimentation and engagement with new media and modes of scholarly production.
As part of our grant, we will develop a new graduate certificate in the public and engaged arts and humanities. We understand “engaged scholarship” as academically rigorous, cross- and interdisciplinary scholarship that addresses social, civic, and ethical problems and involves partnerships with community-based organizations. [1]
[1] Tufts University and Campus Compact, ”New Times Demand New Scholarship I: Research Universities and Civic Engagement: A Leadership Agenda,” Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 16/4 (2012), 235–69. Dorothy Holland, Dana E. Powell, Eugenia Eng, Georgina Drew, “Models of Engaged Scholarship: An Interdisciplinary Discussion,” Collaborative Anthropologies, 3 (2010), 1–36.
Here are some further background readings:
- Banac, Ivo, Jean Beethke Elshtain, & Robert Weisbuch, “The Humanities and Its Publics,” American Council of Learned Societies Occasional Paper, 61 (2006).
- Cialdella, Joseph Stanhope “Connecting Public Scholarship and Professional Development,” Inside HigherEd, 2018: Four strategies for expanding how to think about public scholarship in ways that help build skills and knowledge that are relevant for diverse career paths.
- Ellison, Julie, “The New Public Humanists,” PMLA 128 (2013): 289-298
- Humanities for All showcases over 1,800 examples of publicly engaged humanities work at colleges and universities across the United States.
- Jay, Gregory, “The Engaged Humanities: Principles and Practices for Public Scholarship and Teaching,” Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship, 3.1 (2010): 51-63.
- Kubis, Dan, "Teaching Public Humanities at Pitt," Humanities for All (2020)
- MLA "Guidelines for Evaluating Publicly Engaged Humanities Scholarship in Language and Literature Programs"
- Wickman, Matthew, “What are the Public Humanities? No, Really, What Are They?,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 85 (2016): 6-11.
- A.W. Mellon Foundation, Humanities Without Walls: Scholars in the Midwest Partner to Solve Today’s Challenges (May 2019)
Pitt has a variety of innovative scholarship and teaching resources.
Funding opportunities exist for humanities PhD students, graduate faculty, and PhD programs to explore public humanities projects and curricular innovations.