July 2022 Public Humanities Newsletter
A monthly newsletter from Humanities for All, an initiative of the National Humanities Alliance.
In this newsletter:
If you haven’t already, please consider subscribing to our Substack (for free!) so that you receive the newsletter in your email inbox and don’t miss any news in the future. We also encourage you to submit items to share. If you have any questions or would like to connect about the newsletter please email Humanities for All project director Michelle May-Curry (mmaycurry@nhalliance.org).
Recently on the Humanities for All blog
The Humanities for All blog has recently featured posts on DePaul University’s new public humanities collaborative, HumanitiesX.
“Community Partners Weigh in at DePaul,” from HumanitiesX coordinator Deborah Siegel-Acevedo, highlights interviews with the program’s inaugural community fellows, who are external partners supported by the initiative’s funding from the Mellon Foundation.
“Student Fellows Share Learnings from DePaul’s HumanitiesX Collaborative,” from HumanitiesX student fellow Sergio Godinez, offers five ways for faculty and administrators to maximize the contributions of student fellows to public humanities initiatives like HumanitiesX.
Interested in contributing to the Humanities for All blog?
We are currently soliciting short posts that highlight public humanities initiatives and projects for publication in summer and fall 2022. Pitch a blog post to us here.
Calls for Proposals
National Council on Public History Annual Meeting
April 12–13, 2023 | Atlanta, Georgia
The abbreviation TBD—meaning “to be determined”—is a device that holds space for unknown futures. It indicates that the process of knowing and planning is still actively unfolding. But “to be determined” has other meanings, too, signaling resolve, commitment, and intention. The 2023 National Council on Public History Annual Meeting, as NCPH reconvenes in person for the first time in four years, will explore and embrace these dual ways to interpret and apply TBD. View the full CFP here. Conference proposals are due July 15, 2022.
Call for Submissions for Special Issue: ARTificial Intelligence and the Humanities: Facilitating Interdisciplinarity in Higher Ed
The International Journal of Emerging and Disruptive Innovation in Education (iJEDIE) invites submissions to a special issue investigating the interdisciplinary intersections of the arts and sciences. More specifically, how arts and humanities disciplines provide a critical perspective and skills development in postsecondary education that will prepare students for the future of work with AI and emerging technologies. Contact jhutson@lindenwood.edu for more information and learn more about iJEDIE here.
NEH Public Humanities Projects
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Division of Public Programs is accepting applications for the Public Humanities Projects program. The purpose of this program is to support projects that bring the ideas and insights of the humanities to life for general audiences through in-person, hybrid, or virtual programming outside of the classroom. The deadline to submit an optional draft is July 6, 2022, with final application due August 10, 2022.
American Girl Dolls and the Public Humanities
Holly Genevese seeks to develop a roundtable in partnership with the National Council on Pubic History to critically discuss American Girl Dolls as material culture, intellectual fodder, pop culture, and educational tools. Genevese is looking for scholars, journalists, public humanists, and others with an interest in the cultural relevance of American Girl Dolls to participate. Submit ideas, proposals and feedback here by July 7, 2022.
Upcoming events
Johns Hopkins University Humanities Blast Courses
Blast Courses in the Humanities is a summer program offered by Johns Hopkins University’s Alexander Grass Humanities Institute. Courses are free to all members of the public, taught online by up-and-coming Johns Hopkins experts. These five-week, online humanities classes offer entry-level explorations of topics ranging from “Medieval Irish Sagas” to radical movements to “Reading Poetry for Everyday Life.” Classes are intended to offer adult students with busy schedules a chance to learn something fun and interesting without homework or high-intensity classes. Summer 2022 courses start on Monday, July 11. Register by July 3, 2022 or email AGHI@jhu.edu for late registration. Click here for more info about the program and all 10 class offerings for Summer 2022.
Save the Date: National Humanities Conference
November 10–13, 2022 | Los Angeles, California
This year’s National Humanities Conference will take place in Los Angeles, California from November 10–13 in collaboration with California Humanities. Co-hosted by the National Humanities Alliance and the Federation of State Humanities Councils, the National Humanities Conference brings together representatives from colleges, universities, state humanities councils, cultural institutions, and other community-based organizations to explore approaches to deepening the public’s engagement with the humanities. Visit the event page to view the schedule at a glance. Registration will launch later this summer.
Publication and Project News
Public History for a Post-Truth Era: Fighting Denial through Memory Movements is a forthcoming work (July 25) by Liz Sevcenko, the founding director of the Humanities Action Lab, currently housed at Rutgers University-Newark. Public History for a Post-Truth Era shares on-the-ground stories of participatory public memory movements that brought people together to grapple with the deep roots and current truths of human rights abuses. Written in accessible, non-academic language, it will appeal to students, educators, or supportive citizens interested in public history, museums, or movement organizing. The book is available for pre-order from Routledge here.
In “Embracing the ‘Workshop of Filthy Creation’: Frankenstein, Failure, and the Public Humanities,” Elizabeth Effinger describes a creative public humanities project undertaken to mark the two hundredth anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein that transformed the entire novel into an erasure poem made by incarcerated and nonincarcerated participants. The article traces its genesis, outlines the pedagogies that informed it, and closely reads one image from the erasure poem as a touchstone for reflecting on the lessons learned from the project. It also addresses the absence of critical discussions of failure in the discourse of the public humanities.
As part of the proceedings of the 2022 International Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces, “Remembering the City: Stumbling Stones, Memory Sites and Augmented Reality,” by Fabio Pittarello, Alessandro Carrieri, Tommaso Pellegrini, and Alessandra Volo, describes the development of Remembering the City, a digital and public humanities project which uses augmented reality techniques to bring memories of Holocaust victims to the surface of the urban fabric. The project has been built in conjunction with the Stolpersteine (Stumbling Stones), the largest decentralized monument in Europe dedicated to the Holocaust, allowing for the first time a contextual access to information related to the stones.
The American Association for State and Local History has published a limited podcast series called Reframing History, which interviews 17 historians and educators about how to more effectively communicate historical processes and the value of nuanced inclusive history in a time where history is increasingly a political issue.
The American Association for State and Local History recently released the 2022 National Census of History Organizations, a first-of-its-kind effort to research the size and scope of the public history community in the United States. Funded through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and carried out by Carole Rosenstein (George Mason University) and Neville Vakharia (Drexel University), the “History Census” represents the first national effort to produce a high-quality, up-to-date, comprehensive list of the country’s thousands of history museums, historical societies, and related organizations. This initiative identified 21,588 history organizations in the United States, a number the team is confident represents a floor rather than a ceiling.
Partner Spotlight: Chicory Revitalization Project
Using the poetry of Baltimore’s young people from the 1960s-80s published in Chicory Magazine, the Chicory Revitalization Project is engaging high school and college students in conversations about the city of Baltimore and its history. With funding from the Whiting Foundation, Rutgers University history professor Mary Rizzo has leveraged collaborations with trusted community organizations to bring Chicory Magazine back into the public domain in creative and accessible ways. Read more about the Chicory Revitalization Project through our project profile on Humanities for All.
If you are in the Baltimore area, check out Chicory’s latest exhibit, “Soul of the Butterfly: Chicory Magazine and Baltimore’s Black Arts Activism,” on display at Baltimore's Central library (400 Cathedral St.) until July 11. Created through a collaboration between the Chicory Revitalization Project, Rutgers University-Newark, Dewmore Baltimore, Writers in Baltimore Schools (WBS), Bard High School Early College Baltimore, Enoch Pratt Free Library, and former editors of Chicory, the exhibit provides an opportunity for young Baltimore writers of color to explore the work of earlier generations of local artist-activists and Baltimore’s history. After July 11, Soul of the Butterfly will be displayed at Baltimore library branches over the next year. Click here to find out where Soul of the Butterfly is next, and click here to read Chicory online.
We have also partnered with Rizzo and the Chicory team on a student surveying effort of Rizzo’s courses that have worked on the Chicory project. Interested in learning more about our public humanities partnerships and our work to support higher ed-based public humanists? Email Michelle May-Curry at mmaycurry@nhalliance.org
Employment and Funding Opportunities
The University of California, Berkeley seeks a director of the Oral History Center (formerly Regional Oral History Office), a research unit of the Bancroft Library. The director will be an active scholar and experienced administrator that will lend intellectual vision, attract outside funding, and coordinate staff and budget resources to accomplish project goals of the Oral History Center. Applications will be accepted after July 1, 2022 if the position has not been filled.
New York University’s Digital Interests Lab is looking for a postdoctoral fellow in "Racial Equity," starting September 2022 with the opportunity for annual renewal through 2024. Based at New York University, the Digital Interests Lab is a research collaborative that fosters interdisciplinary scholarship on data governance and public accountability. This fellowship will emphasize public scholarship and communicating to policy audiences. Apply by July 8, 2022.
Historic New England, the oldest and largest regional heritage organization in the nation, is seeking applicants for a full-time Scholar-in-Residence to conduct academic research. The scholar will work independently to research a proposed topic related to the Eustis Estate or Gilded Age architecture, landscape, decorative arts, or social history, with the goal of completing an academic work. Ideal candidates are scholars who will use this opportunity to publish or otherwise disseminate their research and are interested in using their research to educate and engage the public. Apply by July 11, 2022.
The Alabama Department of Archives and History seeks a Curator of Digital History. This full time position will work on a wide range of exhibits as well as public programming and historical research for publications. The position will further support the department’s interpretive program by leading occasional museum tours and through outreach to historical, educational, and civic organizations. Apply by August 1, 2022.
The Shadows-on-the-Teche historic site is seeking a new Executive Director. Situated on the ancestral land of the Atakapan-Ishak and Chitimacha peoples, the Shadows-on-the-Teche is an antebellum home and former site of enslavement in New Iberia, Louisiana. Today, the property is open to the public, and the experiences of those who occupied the property in the 19th and 20th centuries, both free and enslaved, are shared through tours and public programming. The ED will develop ethical and equitable community partnerships and strategic institutional partnerships, including K-12 school partners, that will impact community-based programming.
The HistoryMakers, a national not-for-profit video oral history archive headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, seeks to hire an experienced, full-time oral historian with extensive knowledge of the African American life, history and culture to conduct 3–5 hour videotaped interviews of African Americans across a variety of disciplines (e.g., arts, law, business, law, religion, STEM, the military, sports, etc.) as part of The HistoryMakers’ national, interactive archive. Apply by August 29, 2022.
The Department of English at Coastal Carolina University invites applications for a Visiting Assistant Professor of Digital Culture and Design, to begin August 2022. This is a one-year appointment and the department seeks a teacher-scholar who has experience teaching undergraduate courses in the digital humanities. This position is open until filled.
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art seeks an Associate Director for Learning, Community Engagement, and Interpretation. The Associate Director is charged with creating an expanded roster of learning opportunities for all ages, onsite and online, that includes new voices and interprets the collection in meaningful ways.
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture seeks an experienced and driven digital curator who will be dedicated to developing, implementing, and coordinating processes around the Schomburg Center’s rich digital holdings and lay the foundation of the Center’s grant-funded digital curation initiative. The digital curator will create and execute strategies to enhance the Schomburg Center’s capability in digital curation across its divisions, with particular focus in visual research divisions, within the New York Public Library and similar institutions with African and African American archives.
Facing History and Ourselves seeks a Program Coordinator for Online Learning. Facing History is a global education non-profit organization that challenges teachers and students to use lessons of history to stand up to bigotry and hate. As a critical member of the Online Learning team, the Program Coordinator will be responsible for all aspects of administrative support and coordination for Facing History and Ourselves’ online professional learning offerings for educators.
State humanities councils around the country are hiring!
Maryland Humanities (MH) is seeking a Director of Programs to serve as the leader of MH’s programmatic efforts and as a key member of MH’s leadership team. This position will supervise the Program Officers who oversee and manage MH’s core programs. For best consideration, apply by July 8, 2022.
Illinois Humanities seeks a project site coordinator for the Odyssey Project, a free, college-credit earning humanities program for adults who might not otherwise have access to a college education. This position has a target start date of August 1, 2022 and will remain posted until filled.
Wisconsin Humanities is now seeking applicants for a new Director of Grants and Outreach. Applicant screening will begin immediately and be ongoing through Sunday, June 19, 2022. However, applications may be accepted until the position has been filled.
Humanities DC seeks to fill several positions including Director of Grants and Programs and Director of Programs. To learn more about their openings, check out their website.
As always, check out the latest postings on the job boards for the National Council on Public History and the American Association for State and Local History, which provide lists of opportunities that might be of interest to those trained in the public humanities.
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