Public Humanities refers to humanistic scholarship that is co-created with or oriented toward communities beyond the academy. It is a field dedicated to bridging the gap between the academy and broader publics by sharing, applying, and co-creating knowledge through publicly engaged work. The Public Humanities Cluster provides formal training for graduate students seeking to pursue Public Humanities work as part of their academic training and future careers. It also aims to create an intellectual community for the many students and scholars at Northwestern already doing publicly engaged work.

Undertaking publicly engaged work equips graduate students with skills, experiences, and ways of thinking that will serve them in their academic work and in careers both in and beyond the academy. The coursework and experiential learning opportunities available through the Cluster will ask students to consider the stakes of their work and its potential “real world” impact. These opportunities can further help students to clarify or redefine their research questions and process, provide an additional sense of motivation, and foster research with meaningful public impacts. Moreover, the ability to understand these stakes, and communicate them to a broader audience, gives students a significant advantage when applying for opportunities such as fellowships and jobs that involve working and communicating with multiple partners and audiences.

The Cluster brings together the faculty, staff, and resources of the Kaplan Institute for the Humanities, Center for Civic Engagement, and numerous humanities and social sciences departments across the university. Students will receive a firm grounding in the theory and practice of publicly engaged work so that they are well equipped to carry out such work in a thoughtful and ethical way. Moreover, students will benefit from Northwestern’s close proximity to and relationship with Chicago. As a collaborative hub bringing together institutional partners and practitioners with students and faculty, the Public Humanities Cluster will create new opportunities for research and artistic collaborations, community partnerships, joint programming, and internships and career development.

See Public Humanities Cluster Requirements for specific courses and procedures needed to complete this program.

Programs and Events

The Public Humanities Cluster organizes a range of events, including: talks and panels, informal community-building and networking events, and humanities careers excursions in the Evanston and Chicago area, oftentimes in partnership with the Kaplan Institute for the Humanities and the Center for Civic Engagement.  

How to Apply

Prospective PhD students interested in participating in this Cluster should indicate their interest when they apply to their respective graduate programs. Current students interested in participating in this Cluster should contact the Cluster director.

Who to Contact

Please contact the Public Humanities Cluster director, listed below, with questions about this program.

Elizabeth Son
Associate Professor
Department of Theatre
Email: elizabeth.son@northwestern.edu

 

The following requirements are in addition to, or further elaborate upon, those requirements outlined in The Graduate School Policy Guide.

Students participating in the Cluster will be required to take our core course, HUM 4XX: Foundations of Public Humanities Work. This is an interdisciplinary course which will be housed in the Kaplan Institute and will be taught by Cluster-affiliated faculty—primarily the Cluster director and the Kaplan Institute’s Public Humanities Teaching Fellow.

Students must also complete a practice-based learning experience as part of the Cluster. This latter requirement can be satisfied by participating in the Center for Civic Engagement’s Chicago Humanities Initiative or GEO Community Practicum programs (both listed as CFS 495), by completing the Kaplan Institute’s Public Humanities Graduate Practicum, or by participating in a publicly engaged GA-ship such as the Black Metropolis Graduate Assistantship.

The remaining course can be chosen from a list of electives to be approved each year by the Cluster director. Currently available courses include:

• ART_HIST 460-0 Studies in 20th & 21st-Century Art: Black Art and Archives in Chicago
• CFS 495-0 Civic Engagement and Graduate Education
• ENGLISH 371-0 American Novel: Indigenous Archives and Public Humanities
• HISTORY 405-0 Seminar in Historical Analysis: Public History
• LRN_SCI 451-0 Topics in Learning Sciences: Academic Writing and the Study of Learning
• MTS 525-0 Special Topics Research Seminar: Creative and Participatory Research Methods
• POLI_SCI 490-0 Special Topics in Political Science: Religion and Politics: Global Perspectives
• TH&DRAMA 503-0 Interdisciplinary Studies in Theatre and Performance: Public Humanities in Practice
• TH&DRAMA 503-0 Interdisciplinary Studies in Theatre and Performance: Public Practices with Oral History