February 2023 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. 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).
February Spotlight: New Report! Approaches to Training in the Public Humanities
The National Humanities Alliance is pleased to share our newest report, Approaches to Training in the Public Humanities. This resource, coauthored by Michelle May-Curry and Younger Oliver, is a product of our Humanities for All initiative. It draws on responses to our survey of 157 institutions and provides data and examples of higher ed campus-based efforts to train students and faculty in public humanities methodologies, including publicly engaged degree granting departments, majors, minors, certificates, course pathways, internships, and faculty training programs.
The resource is divided into three chapters: (1) Public Humanities Graduate Training, (2) Public Humanities Undergraduate Training, and (3) Public Humanities Faculty Training and Support. These chapters highlight the range of approaches within each category through project snapshots, impact research spotlights, and in-depth case studies. We encourage you to share the resource with your colleagues and take inspiration from the models presented to imagine what might be possible on your campus.
Over the coming months through workshops, presentations, and consultations, we will be working with individual colleges and universities to explore how these strategies might be applied on their campuses. If you are interested in learning more, please contact Humanities for All project director Michelle May-Curry at mmaycurry@nhalliance.org.
Calls for proposals
2024 Organization of American Historians Conference on American History
Proposals due March 1, 2023
The Organization of American Historians invites proposals for their 2024 Conference on American History. The 2024 theme is "Public Dialogue, Relevance, & Change: Being in Service to Communities and the Nation." There will be an in person conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, April 11–14, 2024 and a Virtual Conference Series, held in collaboration with the National Council on Public History, April 25–May 16, 2024. Learn more about the conference and submitting a proposal here.
2023 Association of African American Museums conference
Proposals due March 13, 2023
The theme for the 2023 Association of African American Museums (AAAM) conference, being held in Nashville, Tennessee, July 26–28, 2023, will be “Museums, Music & Movements.” This theme acknowledges the contributions of African and African American-focused museums and cultural institutions to the AAAM community throughout the diaspora through music and movements. Learn more about the conference and submitting a proposal here.
2023 National Humanities Conference
Proposals due April 3, 2023
The Federation of State Humanities Councils and the National Humanities Alliance are excited to announce the 2023 National Humanities Conference, which will be held in Indianapolis, Indiana, October 25–29, 2023. This annual 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. In keeping with the state motto of Indiana, “The Crossroads of America,” the 2023 conference theme is “Crossroads.” The deadline for proposal submission for offsite sessions, workshops, interviews, roundtables, panels, working groups, and individual presentations is April 3, 2023. Learn more about submitting a proposal here.
Upcoming Events
Public Humanities Workshop
February 1, 2023 | 1:00pm–2:00pm EST | Virtual
Join the Center for Literary and Comparative Studies at the University of Maryland and Sandy Spring Museum on Zoom for a Public Humanities Workshop. The workshop will feature Annemarie Mott Ewing, Yolanda Hester, Caleb Hurley, and Maria Vivar-Guzman as they discuss potential public humanities projects that could emerge from working with the Sandy Springs Museum archives. Learn more and register here.
Publishing in the Public Humanities
February 9, 2023 | 10:00am–12:30pm PST | Virtual
How do you publish on a co-creative community collaboration, a scholarly podcast, or a multimedia project that respects Indigenous protocols? How do you co-publish with a non-university community partner? What does peer review look like for publicly engaged scholarship? For this virtual panel and mini workshop event, the University of British Columbia has invited three editors representing different university presses in Canada and the U.S. to present on publication opportunities for publicly engaged work. Following the panel, editors will host individual breakout sessions with a smaller cohort of registrants for a more focused discussion session. Learn more and register here.
Reforming the Academic Reward System
February 13, 2023 | 3:00–4:30pm EST | Virtual
How can institutions of higher education reimagine their protocols for faculty advancement to account for the increasing importance of public engagement, collaborative research, and to recognize new interdisciplinary models of intellectual inquiry across humanities fields? Panelists will include Karida L. Brown (Professor of Sociology, Emory University), Jeffrey Cohen (Dean of Humanities, Arizona State University), and Elizabeth (Elee) Wood (Nadine and Robert A. Skotheim Director of Education and Public Programs, The Huntington Library). This event is part of Restoring Our Vitality, a series of events celebrating the ten-year anniversary of the landmark Heart of the Matter report and reflecting on the issues it raised about the state of the humanities and social sciences. Learn more and register for upcoming events here.
Item Not Found: Accounting for Loss in Libraries, Archives, and Other Heritage and Memory Organizations
March 8–9, 2023 | Virtual
This virtual conference considers the ongoing reassessment of memory and heritage work and heritage ownership, as it is understood by libraries, archives and related organizations, through an examination of the multiple meanings, complexities, and resonances of loss. Learn more and register here.
National Council on Public History Annual Meeting
April 12–15, 2023 | Atlanta, Georgia
General registration for the National Council on Public History’s Annual Meeting is now open! The theme for this year is “To Be Determined.” Browse the preliminary program and register by March 30, 2023 here.
Publication and Project News
Recently on the Humanities for All website:
This month on the Humanities for All blog, Emory University faculty member Rose Deighton-Mohammed and undergraduate students Layla Dhabaan and Paige Scanlon wrote about Muslim Women's Storytelling, an upper level public humanities course that explores how Muslim women negotiate their identities and experiences in multiple narrative mediums and the power of narrative storytelling to resist monolithic and reductionist representations of Muslim women’s lives.
The Shape of Us: Water Ways and Movements, Vol 7 Issue 1 is a new issue of PUBLIC, the journal publication by Imagining America (IA). It is guest edited by Ron Bechet and Mina Para Matlon. The artists, scholars, and organizers in this issue offer inspiration and examples of a reimagined world via the uses of water as context and concept, which was opened as a theme during IA’s 2021 virtual national gathering. At the end of 2022, PUBLIC’s contract with Syracuse University expired, marking the end of a 10-year partnership. Founded by then-IA Faculty Director Jan Cohen-Cruz and design faculty Kathleen Brandt and Brian Lonsway of Syracuse University, PUBLIC: A Journal of Imagining America was one of the first open access, multimedia, interdisciplinary arts, design, and humanities journals. PUBLIC will be on hiatus in 2023 as the IA team co-creates the future.
“Where Have All The Funders Gone? How Big Philanthropy Left The Humanities Behind” is a new piece by Leonard Cassuto and Robert Weisbuch in HistPhil, a web publication on the history of the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors, with a particular emphasis on how history can shed light on contemporary philanthropic issues and practice. The article discusses the decline of U.S. philanthropic foundation support for the humanities in higher education, based on the authors’ book The New PhD: How to Build a Better Graduate Education.
“The Charting a Pathway to Intellectual Leadership model: Valuing unseen gendered labor in annual and promotion review” is a new paper by Sonja Rae Fritzsche, available on Humanities Commons. The paper outlines the Charting a Pathway to Intellectual Leadership Initiative (CPIL) at Michigan State University, which operates under the assumption that practices of “epistemic exclusion” greatly limit the quality, application, and effectiveness of knowledge created. The CPIL model works to address invisible or unrewarded work by making it visible and developing ways to incentivize and reward it.
Check out episode two of Binghamton University’s new podcast Confluence: Humanities in the Public Sphere. In this episode, “Thinking Democracy Together: The Wisdom of the People,” the podcast hosts Coleen Watson, a PhD candidate in the philosophy department at Binghamton University. Along with her dissertation, Coleen is also working on a public humanities podcast project called “The Wisdom of the People.”
“Culturally Responsive Teaching, Innovation, and Public Humanities” is a new blog post from Oliver Rosales on the TALE (Teaching-and-Learning Exchange) Blog of the Kern Community College District. In the post, Rosales discusses his experiences connecting with the city of Delano, California, throughout his time working and studying in the area.
“Telling Stories in the Public Humanities Collaborative” is a new blog post by Trinity College student Reese San Diego highlighting the work of the Public Humanities Collaborative. At Trinity, five teams of students, faculty, and community partners across fields came together to tell stories in Hartford, Connecticut. Teams worked on projects on genealogy, Indigenous history, urban ecology, incarceration, neurodivergence, and more.
Employment and funding opportunities
The University of Virginia seeks an Associate Director of Institutional Relations to provide strategic leadership and management of all of Virginia Humanities’ advancement relationships with institutional funders, which includes corporations, foundations, and government agencies. This includes identifying local, regional, and national prospects; liaising with corporate and foundation contacts; writing proposals for funding; and coordinating cross-programmatic funding pursuits. Reporting to the Director of Advancement, the Associate Director of Institutional Relations proactively engages the Virginia Humanities board, program directors, and advancement/executive teams to identify opportunities for institutional support, matching strategic priorities with potential funders. This position works with colleagues to cultivate, coordinate, and request support from corporations and foundations, then stewards relationships by regularly reporting progress to investors. Review of applicants will begin mid January 2023. The position will remain open until filled.
Words Without Borders (WWB) seeks applicants for its digital humanities fellowship. The WWB Digital Humanities Fellowship Program is designed to provide training for individuals looking to build a career around the publication and promotion of international literature. The digital humanities fellow will primarily support the Digital Director in the continued migration of the publication’s archive and education materials to WWB’s new website, while also supporting several of the organization’s multimedia initiatives. The digital humanities fellow will work remotely and commit to working 20–30 hours per week for nine months, beginning in February 2023. Apply by February 3, 2023.
The San Diego State University (SDSU) Library invites applications and nominations for a Latin American and Indigenous Communities Archivist. This is a 12-month, tenure-track position to be appointed at the Senior Assistant or Associate Librarian level (depending on experience), with an anticipated start date on or before July 1, 2023. The Latin American and Indigenous Communities Archivist will provide expertise and leadership as part of the Special Collections and University Archives team to promote community partnerships and the shared stewardship of archival collections documenting Latin American and Indigenous communities on both sides of the U.S.–Mexico border. The successful candidate will partner with communities in San Diego and the Imperial Valley border region to identify, preserve, and provide access to archival collections documenting their histories, cultures, and experiences. This position will remain open until filled. Preference will be given to applications received by February 3, 2023.
Humanities Montana (HM) seeks an Executive Director to advocate and implement its mission, motivate and manage its staff, and work with its board of directors. Currently, the Executive Director leads a team of five staff members and manages an annual budget of approximately $1,000,000. The Executive Director is the principal statewide spokesperson and lead advocate for HM. The Executive Director also serves as HM’s representative to the NEH and other national humanities organizations. Apply by February 6, 2023; applications will be accepted until the position is filled.
The University of California Los Angeles Institute of American Cultures seeks an Oral Historian to manage and coordinate the Archiving in the Age of Mass Incarceration (AAMI) digital archive initiative. The initiative builds on the work of the award-winning UCLA-based Million Dollar Hoods research project and is funded through a multi-year grant by the Mellon Foundation. The AAMI project brings together expertise from the UCLA Institute of American Cultures' four ethnic studies centers and their established connections to local advocacy groups. The project includes the creation of a digital archive of thousands Los Angeles Police Department documents, and an oral history and carceral ephemera archive, under one shared digital infrastructure for the ethnic studies centers. Apply by February 6, 2023.
Kent State University seeks a Director of the May 4 Visitors Center. The Visitors Center contains a permanent exhibition of the student anti-war movement, historic artifacts, and film about the events of May 4, 1970 featuring interviews with some of the participants and students who were wounded on that day. As part of the Director’s core responsibilities, they will develop and execute outreach programming to a variety of communities, including KSU students, K–12 students and educators, local communities, and national and international audiences. Apply by February 7, 2023.
The New Jersey Historical Commission is hiring a Project Manager for its RevolutionNJ initiative. They are seeking a candidate with a strong project management mindset and toolkit, who has experience in history and public humanities and possesses the ability to work with various stakeholders to meet project deadlines. Apply by February 13, 2023.
The Jackman Humanities Institute (JHI) at the University of Toronto invites applications for a Visiting Public Humanities Faculty Fellowship (VPH) to be held in 2023–2024. The JHI VPH Faculty Fellowship is intended to foster knowledge exchange between the academy and the public. The JHI VPH will be a mid-career, tenured faculty member from another institution who has a demonstrated track record of bringing humanities research out of the classroom and university press and into the broader public realm for discussion, debate, and examination across multiple media platforms, and who is experienced in addressing audiences outside the academy. The JHI VPH Faculty Fellow will hold a six-month fellowship at the JHI (residence is required either September–December or January–April), where they will pursue research in their own discipline and engage in the public humanities and will continue to develop their public profile. Apply by February 15, 2023.
The Department of Social Justice Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto invites applications for a full-time tenure stream position at the rank of Assistant Professor of Indigenous Queer / Two Spirit Studies in Education. Applicants must demonstrate ongoing connections to and engagement with one or more specific Indigenous communities in relation to their academic work. The appointment will commence on July 1, 2023 or shortly thereafter. Apply by February 15, 2023.
The Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies at the University of Minnesota Libraries department of Archives and Special Collections seeks to hire an Oral Historian for a three-year grant-funded project designed to document local and national histories of community organizing, policy development, and political activism for transgender justice. The Oral Historian will also develop and implement a project to recruit volunteers to conduct oral histories for the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project.
California Humanities seeks a Chief Executive Officer with the curiosity, imagination, and energy to help define the organization’s next chapter and lead its work to greater impact. The CEO should bring a thoughtful willingness to: advance a humanities-driven approach to addressing a broad array of urgent societal issues, such as public health, social justice, civic engagement and climate change; explore how issues of power, equity and diversity overlap with California Humanities’ giving policies and practices; and see support of the humanities as essential to giving voice to the incredible communities and diverse cultural traditions in each distinct region across the entire state.
Maryland Humanities seeks a Program Officer of Partnerships. The program officer is tasked with the management and overall administration of the Museum on Main Street and other humanities-based exhibition programming, including budget and reporting; special initiative RFPs; and new initiatives. They will also lead Maryland Humanities’ Regional Humanities Networks statewide. They will create opportunities for local partners to increase network members’ engagement with each other and identify regional challenges and opportunities with Maryland Humanities’ programs and grants.
Minnesota Humanities Center (MHC) seeks a Humanities Officer. The Humanities Officer is responsible for: developing and executing humanities projects; providing project management and coordinating day-to-day logistics; facilitating and completing evaluation of humanities projects; cultivating and strengthening community partnerships; and participating in and supporting MHC hosted/sponsored/supported events.
The Newberry Library seeks a Program Assistant to assist in the administration of fellowships, scholarly seminars, and undergraduate programs. This position is limited to a term of one year. Work tasks will include coordinating the hosting of functions for Newberry seminars, colloquia, orientations, and other programs, both in-person and virtually. The Program Assistant will also communicate with program participants, including seminar speakers, participants, respondents, and coordinators; fellows and scholars-in-residence; and internal and external Newberry presenters.
The Department of Anthropology at the University of Connecticut seeks to hire an Assistant Professor of Ecological Stewardship and Community-Centered Indigenous Research whose teaching, advocacy, and community engagement/participatory research address topics related to Native American/Indigenous environmental health or science; knowledge systems/epistemologies (e.g., rematriation and futurisms); Indigenous rights; federal law and policy related to Native Americans/Indigenous people; territorial heritages (including land use, land and water rights) or sovereignty, in any time period(s); Indigenous environmental ethics, philosophies, and practices; spiritual ecology; revitalization and decolonization practices; as well as social, political, and environmental justice. Review of applications began on November 10, 2022 but will continue until the position is filled.
The Center for Environmental Futures at the University of Oregon seeks to hire a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Environmental Humanities and allied fields, beginning in Fall 2023. The University of Oregon has recently created the Just Futures Institute (JFI) with funding from The Mellon Foundation. The JFI seeks to foster a deeper understanding of the connections between environmental justice, climate change, and racial justice in the Pacific Northwest. Review of applications began December 1, 2022 but the position will remain open until filled.
The Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin seeks applications for a full-time, tenure-track Assistant Professor of Art History. This search—part of the Expanded Approaches to the Arts Initiative in the College of Fine Arts—seeks scholars whose research engages with underrepresented archives and repertoires in the arts and whose methodological or theoretical approaches expand traditional geographic and/or temporal articulations of artistic canons and/or traditions. The Expanding Approaches Initiative places high value on inter- and cross-disciplinary thinking, public humanities, and creative practice components of a scholar’s portfolio. This position will remain open until filled.
Hunter College seeks a Director for Arts and Culture for the Centro de Estudios Puertorriquenos/Center for Puerto Rican Studies. This position plays a key role in developing and fundraising for Arts & Culture Programming and launching the new Centro Cultural Research Hub. Through its programmatic initiatives, the Centro Cultural Research Hub seeks to historicize, contextualize, incentivize, and showcase the socio-cultural contributions of Puerto Rico and its diaspora, foster the research use of Centro's arts and culture collections, and strengthen connections with the Puerto Rican artistic community. This position will remain open until filled.
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.