By Shiraz Noorani, Graduate Student Researcher, Center for the Humanities, UC Merced
This annotated bibliography is a compilation of guidelines and statements from various scholarly professional associations working in the field of Public Humanities. It was written with the aim to provide practitioners and scholars with a simple yet clear overview of how public humanities is practiced across disciplines. The sources annotated here delineate the ways that professional scholarly organizations engage communities through different initiatives. It also offers a foundation for understanding the role of public humanities in shaping more engaged, accessible, socially responsive academic work.
“About the Field.” National Council on Public History, https://ncph.org/what-is-public-history/about-the-field/. Accessed 31 Oct. 2024.
This webpage contains a comprehensive overview of public history, explains what public history is, and why it extends beyond academia. It explores how public history as a practice encompasses museums, archives, oral history, and historical consultancy. The source shows how public historians communicate with the public and share inclusive narratives. This is applicable to scholars who are involved in the process of outreach, collaboration, and public engagement in historical interpretation. More than that, this page indicates how public history can be part of community engagement and involvement; it introduces a set of guidance and training on how to be a Public Historian. The page also distinguishes between the understanding of public history and regular or traditional history and provides a robust definition of their distinctions.
Fisher, Daniel. “Goals of the Publicly Engaged Humanities.” Humanities for All. https://humanitiesforall.org/essays/goals-of-the-publicly-engaged-humanities. Accessed 17 Oct 2024.
This document thoroughly explores the involvement of the public in humanities projects by delving into four real-life examples that highlight the collaborations between universities and local communities. These case studies from the Humanities for All database illustrate the advantages that arise from partnerships between institutions and different partners like K-12 schools and community organizations. They showcase activities such as safeguarding history records and developing educational materials while also fostering community leadership initiatives. This material is also useful for grasping how the humanities can forge ties between academia and the public domain as well as appreciating the role of such alliances in preserving culture and driving educational advancements.
“For the Public.” Archaeological Institute of America, https://www.archaeological.org/programs/public/. Accessed 24 October 2024.
“For the Public,” an initiative by the Archaeological Institute of America, demonstrates how archaeology is shared with the public through engaging activities, an element of public humanities practice. Their programs feature events like International Archaeology Day to encourage participation in activities and Interactive Digs that provide online access to real-time excavations. Moreover, the Site Preservation Program aims to protect archeological sites around the world by raising awareness, education, and outreach. With these programs, the American Archeological Institute not only fosters a deeper understanding of safeguarding future archeological heritage but also makes the past accessible to the public.
“Guidelines for Broadening the Definition of Historical Scholarship.” American Historical Association, 5 Jan. 2023, https://www.historians.org/resource/guidelines-for-broadening-the-definition-of-historical-scholarship/. Accessed 17 Oct. 2024.
This American Historical Association document attempts to broaden the scope of scholarship, to include diverse forms other than books and articles, such as digital initiatives or a public history project, amongst others. It guides academics and organizations on how best to incorporate public humanities projects into their academic evaluations in the field of history. This page also offers a framework for reviewing traditional contributions by incorporating both examples of digital history and public history projects on different media platforms. It can thus be a helpful document for public historians and historians who are involved in public humanities projects in their attempts to correlate their work with established academic conventions.
“Guidelines for Evaluating Publicly Engaged Humanities Scholarship in Language and Literature Programs.” Modern Language Association, August 2022. https://www.mla.org/content/download/187094/file/Guidelines-Evaluating-Public-Humanities.pdf.
This document is a recommendation from the MLA’s Ad Hoc Committee for evaluating public humanities scholars in language and literature programs. The document emphasizes the ethical considerations in collaborating with communities, especially multilingual ones, and provides ways of evaluating projects that do not fit the conventional peer-review framework. The guidelines also explore the scope, impact, dissemination, collaboration, and deliverables of public humanities projects.
This document also stresses the development of a system for rewarding faculty members for their work in the public humanities. It focuses on the effects of the projects on communities, the growth of the humanities, and the right approach to collaboration. It will be a significant and useful tool for institutions and departments looking to revise their faculty evaluation processes outside of conventional peer-reviewed publications. The guidelines also signify the need for diverse outputs of public humanities: podcasts, blogs, community reading groups, or exhibitions. It raises questions of ethics when working on community-based projects and suggests that the approach should be collaborative and non-extractive.
Oliver, Younger. “Documenting the Impact of the Public Humanities in Higher Education: A Toolkit.” National Humanities Alliance, 2023. https://humanitiesforall.org/media/pages/resources/documenting-the-impact-of-the-public-humanities-in-higher-education-a-toolkit/58758ed5af-1689611837/impact-research-toolkit-final.pdf.
The toolkit offers a pathway to capturing the impacts of public humanities endeavors within higher education institutions. It describes helpful methods, including questionnaires, focus groups, and interviews, which can help practitioners understand the outcomes of their programs. In addition, it considers best practices in regard to ethics, inclusion, and the qualitative and quantitative data analysis that is critical for capturing program impacts related to public and community-based humanities work. The section on ethics and accessibility emphasizes the importance of protecting anonymity and advising on conducting research that respects participants’ backgrounds, as well as analyzing and using data one has collected to craft stories, showcasing the importance of public humanities work.
“Public Education Programs.” American Anthropological Association, 9 June 2023, https://americananthro.org/learn-teach/public-education-programs/. Accessed 29 Oct. 2024.
The American Anthropological Association’s webpage outlines its goals to promote public understanding of complex social issues through anthropological research. The webpage also emphasizes how these complex social issues are tackled through a multi-disciplinary approach, including science, history, and lived experience, in order to educate the public. Moreover, the AAA seeks to deal with social problems, including migration as well as racism, through projects like the RACE Project and World on the Move. These projects are funded by organizations like the Ford Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation. This webpage aims to link scholarship and the public in a way that fosters a more profound and inclusive understanding of contemporary social problems.
“Public Engagement Programs.” American Academy of Religion, https://aarweb.org/AARMBR/Who-We-Are-/Public-Engagement-Programs.aspx. Accessed 17 Oct 2024.
The webpage titled “Public Engagement Programs” outlines efforts by the American Academy of Religion to improve discussions about religion in the public sphere. The programs range from the American Lectures in the History of Religions, whose purpose is to stimulate scholarship in the history of religions, to the Public Scholars Project, which prepares scholars to be more effective public intellectuals in the study of religion. Other projects include the Religious Literacy Guidelines for College Graduates, which works to ensure religious literacy is integrated into undergraduate education, and the Guidelines for Teaching about Religions in K-12 Public Schools, which gives strategies for teaching religion in a constitutional and educationally sound way. The paper also acknowledges religious pluralism and public service by training chaplains through the Chaplaincy Program in order to accommodate religions in areas such as prisons and the military.
It also covers the efforts towards combating Islamophobia by using a three-year project that trains educators on how to handle this kind of bias within classrooms. AAR/Luce Fellowships in Religion and International Affairs bring into view how religious scholarship is put into practice within secular government agencies to develop policies related to public health, human rights, and foreign affairs. The Levantine Refugee Project offers AAR members an opportunity to serve displaced Syrian and Iraqi populations, thereby humanizing the refugee crisis in the U.S. and bringing attention to the religious dimensions of that crisis. These efforts aim to link knowledge with discussions and policy decisions in the realm of religious studies for the benefit of public engagement and education.
“Public Humanities Network.” Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes, https://chcinetwork.org/networks/public-humanities-network. Accessed 29 Oct. 2024.
This network intends to develop collaborations between academic institutions and civic communities. Topics they have included are defining “public humanities,” identifying the role of audiences, and establishing collaboration between academic institutions and the public. This network also shared its archive of recordings, which include videos like Conversation About the Black Studies Collaboratory; Public Humanities Mentoring Workshop; Public Humanities and Design Justice Workshop; Reckoning with Settler Colonialism and Imagining Just Futures Workshop; and How Do You Do Public Humanities? This network provides the necessary resources for both the scholar and the public to develop and implement robust and inclusive public humanities projects.
“Statement on Valuing Public Philosophy.” American Philosophical Association, https://www.apaonline.org/page/publicphilosophy. Accessed 14 Oct. 2024.
The American Philosophical Association, in this statement, explains its position on the value of philosophy and urges universities to acknowledge and appreciate philosophers who interact with non-academic people. The statement underscores the importance of philosophers getting involved in public discussions by linking ideas to real-world problems that may impact public policies. This statement emphasizes that public philosophy can take place in dialogue with other disciplines like humanities, arts, natural sciences, and social sciences. The APA also promotes the establishment of guidelines that acknowledge and adequately assess the impact of public philosophy on decisions regarding career advancement in academia.
Wagner, Laura. “Taking Linguistics to the Public: An Outreach Guide.” Linguistic Society of America. https://www.lsadc.org/rc_files/12/Taking%20Linguistics%20to%20the%20Public_0.pdf. Accessed 16 Oct. 2024.
The Linguistic Society of America has created a guide to assist linguists in participating in public outreach endeavors by recommending engaging approaches such as partnering to host events with public institutions. For instance, mentoring programs with local high schools, collaborating with universities to organize a linguistics summer boot camp or hosting a booth at a university festival to reach audiences. The guide is significant for its focus on involving the community in raising awareness of linguistics in society. This document also provides strategies for effective public outreach, such as creating an engaged and trust-based space while working within a team. It also emphasizes understanding the background knowledge of the intended audience for public-facing events when choosing the type of activities or topics.