Dear Mostafa,
To use public humanities as tool to enhance social justice is a noble goal; platforming beliefs from an academic level may be difficult. In describing your target audience. Those who are shown content from the civility project may reject the imposition and dig their heels ideologically. While it may sway some who engage with it, it…[Read more]

Hello Xinyu,
Your proposition for an environmentally-minded public humanities project is admirable; for what is more public than the environment we live in? Giving people knowledge of their own impact on the environment would definitely change the perspectives and behaviors of those who engaged with it. Having the option to choose topics would…[Read more]

Hello Brittany,
The integration of public humanities and public health is a great and relevant topic to pick. Since podcasts have recently become popular in the last few years, outreach via podcasting is another great way to disseminate information about various health topics. The integration of medicine and the humanities makes for a more well…[Read more]

Hello April,
It is interesting to engage with historical events like this on a digital platform. Having known about the murder of Emmett Till from reading text, a digital map of the locations adds something brand new to the discourse. One could think about Chicago or rural Mississippi and wonder what it was like in 1955, but the visual map brings…[Read more]

Hello Chris,
How interesting this world would be right now without the internet, the landscape of information would be completely different. If the internet was not largely free; if corporations owned the majority of the ‘free web’ (they actually do in most instances, they decide how our data is used) we would have a more monetized environment.…[Read more]

Hello Brittany,
I really enjoyed this project you covered, as I have also read Frankenstein multiple times for multiple different classes (its like I can’t escape it or something). This project mapping out the locations of the novel gives an interesting angle as it is brought into a new discourse. While I don’t think this project would suffice…[Read more]

Hello Professor,
Considering the implications of different mediums in discourse, there is an obvious shift in experience. The way social media sites like twitter prompt every user with the ability to retort creates a hyper-discursive environment; in which the digital landscape is shifting along with human contingency. When social media is used…[Read more]

Dear Shannon,
The issue of ableism in society is overwhelmingly systematic, and I cannot see academic institutions solving the issue entirely. While I also understand that is not the goal of public humanities, as the realistic task is making progress. So many PH projects bring the societal inequalities to the forefront, its no different to…[Read more]

Dear Cesar,
I believe art is an amazing way to share knowledge, and has a place in the public humanities. There are so many forward-thinking art projects that spread information that are helpful to the public. One of the most effective ways to spread a message with with art, its memetics at its finest. There have been plenty of artistic projects…[Read more]

Dear Faith,
I don’t think its right to gatekeep scholarly articles from public access. I can’t see the point of working on a complex academic journal only for the ones in charge to put it behind a paywall so that only a handful of posh academics can look at it. While Sci-Hub *is* in fact a illegal website, I think its the saving grace of…[Read more]

Hello Professor,
In thinking about the ‘public’ and ‘audiences’, I’ll argue that these are separate categories entirely. In this notion of audience we are engaging with segmented groups of which most/all of our effort goes into holding on to. To me both audiences and the public are connected by commerciality rather than accessibility. To answer…[Read more]

For public Humanities (PH), I think it falls under a miscellaneous umbrella of fields that could be described as semi-institutional academia. there is academic work done outside of academic institutions, and PH bridges the gap between those two circuits. In having a field that addresses the public in a field that usually walls itself off is tough…[Read more]

In regards to spreading information on social media, the memetic structure of such is often a battle of ideology. Its never that we worry solely about the information itself, but the source of said information is the greatest worry. Some communities form to spread info, some communities spread other communities. Each of these communities carries…[Read more]

I’m finding that the largest wedge between academics and the public is their class status. The public separates from academia as the majority of these scholars are overeducated so of course they would get labeled as in an ‘ivory tower’. The imposition that humanities work is considered ‘private’ is grounded in the fact that the actual public would…[Read more]

I find a hard time distinguishing digital humanities from public humanities as the majority of DH projects I have engaged with have made open ‘public’ access their main aspect. In regards to Strommel’s distinction between availability and accessibility, I don’t agree with this differentiation. In the discourse to bring knowledge to the public…[Read more]