This essay considers how the nineteenth-century idea of the university as a refuge, constructed by thinkers like John Henry Newman, continues to shape contemporary universities and the field of public humanities. This vision of the university has lasting appeal for obvious reasons. In a culture predicated on speed, slowness is a political act. In a culture of hot takes, cold reasoning often provides necessary context, a wider view. And yet, as W. E. B. Du Bois warns, the “tenacious legend” of the Victorian university is dangerous because it separates the university from mass culture. Building on Du Bois’s thinking, the essay concludes that instead of seeking protection, enclosure, or recognition within university institutions, public humanities practitioners should seek refuge in the relationships of mutual responsibility they foster.

Should it feel good to get an award for scholar activism? As well-intentioned the recognition of my activism is, it misses the point of what activism is by singling out one person, especially a scholar. The danger with claiming scholar activism as heroic is twofold. First, it makes activists exceptional, implying that society may rely on exceptional individuals instead of valuing the collective work. Second, it glorifies the activism of scholars, as if it were more valuable than that of others while ignoring the hierarchies that empower and protect academia. Instead, we must normalize scholar activism, sharing the load and using our bodies as shields. We’ll join the work of activism in constellation and value the power of emotions, embodying our ideas as we grow into activist scholars.

Stuart Hall stated “the university is a critical institution or it is nothing.” When it comes to the historical study of sexual abuse in Canadian sport, until very recently, it has been very much the latter. Nothing. As part of a larger project on studies of sexual abuse in sport, we reviewed articles across the four leading sport history journals – Sport History Review, Sport in History, Journal of Sport History, and International Journal of the History of Sport – to consider what methods, sports, and demographics received the most analysis. Such an effort proved impossible. There was scholarly silence on the matter. But this raised another question. So what? Would publishing in pay-walled academic journals about so pressing a societal issue make any difference at all? Furthermore, can a PhD-touting academic – including the lead author of this paper – ever enact change via the field of history if their sole purpose is to churn out studies for the ivory tower? We think not. It requires boots on the ground. Engagement and collaboration with those Antonio Gramsci called “organic intellectuals,” so we can tend the flames of knowledge and fuel a movement. History can be the tool one wields. Public, digital history.

The Inclusuem is a collaborative project established in 2012 with international reach and global impact. The three co-directors, Aletheia Whitman, Dr. Rose Paquet, and Dr. Porchia Moore share a mission to “advance new ways of being a museum through dialogue, community building, and collaborative practice related to inclusive practice in museums.” We have provided a platform for over a decade which prompts arts and cultural heritage professionals to push the bounds of museum work to be as expansive and inclusive as possible while enacting structural change. In this piece, we focus on museums as sites where the humanities are made public. Our manifesto proposes a vision for the public humanities in a changing political landscape and will introduce new perspectives for both an emerging museum and an emergent new understanding for the public humanities within museums faced with an antagonistic intellectual and cultural ecosystem.

This essay examines the integration of accompaniment methodology with public humanities and policy work through case studies from activist research in New Orleans. The concept of accompaniment involves providing active, supportive engagement alongside marginalized communities to address systemic barriers and foster mutual understandings. This essay highlights how accompaniment can provide support in navigating bureaucratic challenges and inform immigration policy. It also explores how accompaniment can inform public humanities work, like the development of a digital timeline and physical exhibition documenting Black labor history in New Orleans. This approach underscores the transformative potential of combining accompaniment with public humanities to enhance community empowerment, inform policy, and challenge systemic inequities. By engaging with community experiences and integrating insights from both historical and contemporary struggles, this essay chronicles the development of accompaniment methodology and shows how this approach can enrich public humanities scholarship and policy work, creating more inclusive and responsive solutions to social challenges. Accompaniment serves as a vital tool for bridging academic inquiry with social justice, making public humanities research more relevant, ethical, equitable, and impactful.

Public Humanities projects notoriously begin with the bootstrapping commitment of one or two long-suffering and visionary individuals. If they can make it past the turbulent narrows of their beginnings, they often only endure through unrecognized and little-rewarded labor. Gatherings of public humanists can be exercises in commiseration. When you determine that you have enough funding to last one more year, celebration is in order. Such travails naturally lead to the question of how public humanities programs can move beyond being nice extras to become more central to the concerns of our home institutions. How, in short, can the work of public humanists be institutionalized and become part of the everyday humdrum of academic life rather than the desperate scrabbling of the righteous, committed, frantic, and overtired?

Who is the public? For a scholar, the public is anyone outside of one’s discipline. This is true within academia or without, but cross-disciplinarity as an individual means of academic scholarship tends not to be an explicit part of conversations about how to practice public humanities. This essay critically reflects on how we think about cross-disciplinary scholarship in relationship to public writing and centers mobility as a core tenet of both.

The humanities cannot go public without publishing. In this contribution to the Manifesto issue of Public Humanities, Daniel Fisher-Livne, Kath Burton, and Catherine Cocks highlight the radically inclusive publishing practices necessary to support the Public Humanities ecosystem. The authors explain how Publishing and the Publicly Engaged Humanities Working Group activities have prepared the ground for future growth, directing attention to the inherently collaborative, multimodal and values-based publishing practices of engaged scholars. This paper builds on the central thesis of the Working Group, calling for the implementation of a radically inclusive ecology of publishing practices that embody and nurture the unique facets, connections and aims of publicly engaged publications.

This manifesto addresses the global decline in humanities investment by way of one of its relatively novel but underfunded sectors: “immersive” or playable theatre. While traditional, proscenium-based theatre faces a cultural crisis, immersive experiences and playable theatre continue to suffer from a lack of legitimacy. The manifesto emphasizes how pivotal such productions are to re-kindling passion for drama and literature among a new generation of theatre-goers accustomed to playable media. The time for long-term institutional support for the large tent called “immersive” is now.

How do we kiss through a museum’s walls, roughly 8,000 miles away? This is a museum exhibit’s journey, from loneliness and longing to togetherness. An art museum, with its predisposition to distance and sterility, softens its stance and opens itself just a little; the exhibit about Long-Distance Love brings forward familiar, loving voices that are a reminder that we are not alone.

In this article, we reflect on our experiences co-producing a podcast about literary books mostly written by women of color. We describe how and why we started the podcast and how our podcast provides a model of skills that are key to doing humanities, and offer some practical advice about making podcasts.

This essay will discuss the issue of Native American history and periodization where we are not allowed “premodern” histories. History prior to European contact is relegated to terms like “Pre-Columbian” and consigned to the domain of archeologists. As a reclamation of Native sovereign ancestral presence, I am interested in public humanities as an interdisciplinary way to push against the myths and stereotypes that both confine Indigenous people to static pasts, either displacing ancestors into settler national memory or oblivion. My goals in public humanities are to work toward reclamations of ancient pasts in the so-called Americas from the limited imaginations of settler skull- and arrowhead-collectors toward reasserting the ongoing lived relationships that Natives have with spaces condemned as ruins and materials as relics. I briefly mention my own work in digital curation, Red Coral Stories, to provide counternarratives from European conquest toward expanding Native American presence across space and time.

This article explores the potential of public humanities to bridge the gap between academia and the public by performing the humanities in unconventional spaces. Through two case studies – adapting George Sand’s Indiana for a local theatre production and hosting an outreach booth at a football match for their Pride game – we demonstrate the value of engaging with the public, rather than presenting research to the public. By reflecting on these experiments, we discuss what it means to do the public humanities dialogically and what we learned from this process. Our experiments reveal that effective public humanities require collapsing the divide between academia and the public by meeting audiences where they are and fostering reciprocal learning. By integrating academic insights into popular contexts, we demonstrate how the humanities remain vital and relevant. These initiatives challenge traditional models of outreach, affirming the discipline’s role as a collaborative, dynamic field that thrives through active dialogue with diverse communities.

Navigating a career beyond the traditional academic path can be both exciting and daunting for humanities professionals, often leaving them eager to explore new opportunities but unsure where to start. This article addresses five common challenges faced by those venturing outside academia and offers practical strategies for overcoming these obstacles. By tackling key issues such as translating academic expertise into broader contexts, expanding skill perceptions, and building professional networks, it provides actionable advice to help humanities graduates thrive in diverse career environments. Whether you are struggling with imposter syndrome or looking to leverage your unique skills, this guide aims to empower you to unlock new career possibilities and achieve success beyond academia.

Public dissertations allow doctoral students to engage a broader audience that is often already having conversations about our research topics, whether explicitly or not. The traditional dissertation is usually read by the committee (if you are lucky) and the author. Public projects allow early-career scholars to expand their marketability, relate their abstract topics to concrete discussions, and adapt to the changing demands of the academic space. This article includes a brief case study of the author’s public dissertation to suggest possible avenues for current graduate students and faculty mentors, along with a frank discussion about the pros and cons of such a project. Six tips provide a frank discussion of the pros and cons of such a project and possibilities for graduate students interested in a public project to consider.

Dance creates change in underserved communities. It is not just performance art; instead, dance becomes ministry.1 In 2016, during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, I created my first site-specific dance film, Reverse,2 set in Watts and Compton, California, and featuring students from the University of Los Angeles, California (UCLA) and The Watts Willowbrook Boys & Girls Club (WBGC) culminating in a public performance at UCLA, and catching the eye of The New York Times.3 As this project shows, dance films educate audiences on social justice issues, and bridge the gap between communities, cultures, and academia through the principles of public humanities: cultural empowerment, social cohesion, inclusive representation, civic engagement, and public discourse.

Public humanities programs have the potential to engage diverse communities, while addressing the employability challenges faced by many humanities graduates. This article outlines how to build a humanities internship program that pays students to collaborate with local governments, museums, nonprofits, and healthcare organizations, on projects for public good. Through these mutually beneficial partnerships, students apply skills – such as writing, archival research, critical thinking, and data analysis – beyond the classroom, demonstrating the relevance of the humanities in real-world contexts. The article discusses key strategies for developing a sustainable program, including networking to build community partnerships, fundraising through small grants, and evaluating impact on all stakeholders. By reflecting on the successes and challenges of such a program, the article highlights the value of public humanities in preparing students for diverse careers while supporting community-driven projects.

In this article, I explore how public participation affects the research and production of history. As a way of making history more accessible, more participatory, and more connected to present-day public engagement with the past, public history fully belongs to the public humanities. In public participation as decentralization of the history-making process: the HistorEsch project in Luxembourg, I discuss the collaboration among historians, artists, and local residents to co-construct new public historical narratives of the town of Esch-sur-Alzette, in Luxembourg. As a paradigm, public history questions and reinvents the role of professional historians who share authority with other actors in the history-making process.

US authorities justified their invasion of Iraq, in part, by claiming to be liberating Iraqi women from patriarchal oppression. Helen Benedict’s Sand Queen challenges this assertion, exposing how the war embraced a colonial paradigm with which Iraq was long familiar. By documenting the gender-based violence a female American soldier faces from her own side, the book demonstrates contradictions in the liberation rhetoric of US authorities.

Dubbed “the world’s first and oldest academic social network” by a grant reviewer at the National Science Foundation, HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory or “Haystack”) built its first interactive website in 2002. Now, 22 years later, HASTAC has some 18,000 network members, over 400 institutional members, and a thriving graduate-student-led HASTAC Scholars program that selects 100 new student members each year. Co-Director Cathy N. Davidson co-founded HASTAC with David Theo Goldberg and numerous other scholars in the humanities and social sciences working in tandem with computer scientists and programmers. Before Wikipedia, Facebook, or Twitter (now X), HASTAC created an open-access, public network with the purpose of making full use of evolving affordances of technology while also critiquing and seeking to improve issues of access, ethics, gender and racial bias, and social and environmental impact. This essay details what it takes to lead and sustain a dues-free, participatory social network with community standards and collaborative decision-making, and where any network member is invited to blog, post, start dialogues, and lead research initiatives, across institutional and other boundaries.