The Future of the Humanities-In the Present & in Public

Book_Winter2009:Book Winter 2007.qxd 12/15/2008 9:55 AM Page 110 Kathleen Woodward The future of the humanities– in the present & in public Since the mid-twentieth century, the ty and society,” as the historian Thomas professionalization of our disciplines Bender points out in his invaluable essay has been a hallmark of higher education on the American university from 1945 to in general and the research university 1995.2 If some twenty years ago it could in particular. Despite the repeated calls be asserted in the Report from the National over the past twenty-½ve years for a re- Task Force on Scholarship and the Public Hu- newal of the civic mission of higher edu- manities that the humanities “are valu- cation,1 professionalization continues able for their own sake and the nation to hold tenacious sway and is largely un- must support and sustain scholarship derstood to contradict the purposes and because that enriches the common fund practices of public scholarship, which, of knowledge,”3 today the notion of the in turn, is dismissed under the demoral- izing rubric of service or the paternalis- tic rubric of outreach. It is only too clear 1 See, for example, the important work of Campus Compact, founded in 1985 to press that “there has been a weakening of the for the intertwined values of service learning informal compact between the universi- and the responsibilities of citizenship; Ernest Boyer’s influential writing from the 1990s on the scholarship of engagement; and leap Kathleen Woodward is professor of English at the (Liberal Education and America’s Promise), the decade-long initiative, begun in 2005, of University of Washington, where she has served the American Association of Colleges and Uni- as director of the Simpson Center for the Human- versities to underscore the importance of a ities since 2000. Her books include “Statistical liberal education, a primary value of which is Panic: Cultural Politics and Poetics of the Emo- civic knowledge and engagement. In 2006 the tions” (forthcoming) and “Aging and Its Discon- Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching announced a new classi½cation that tents: Freud and Other Fictions” (1991). From institutions of higher education could elect to 2000–2005 she was chair of the National Ad- adopt: community engagement. visory Board of Imagining America, and from 1995–2001 she was president of the Consortium 2 Thomas Bender, “Politics, Intellect, and the of Humanities Centers and Institutes. She serves American University, 1945–1995,” Dædalus 126 (1) (Winter 1997): 3. on the board of directors of the National Human- ities Alliance in Washington, D.C. 3 James Quay and James Veninga, “Making Connections: The Humanities, Culture and the © 2009 by Kathleen Woodward Community,” National Task Force on Scholarship 110 Dædalus Winter 2009 Book_Winter2009:Book Winter 2007.qxd 12/15/2008 9:55 AM Page 111 intrinsic good of the humanities is de½- yields artifacts of public and intellectu- The future nitely not a part of what is generally re- al value.”5 As the report notes, public of the humanities ferred to as “making the case” for the scholarship exists on a continuum with –in the humanities. traditional scholarship and often takes present & What is public scholarship? In sug- the form of projects that combine re- in public gesting an answer to this question, I search, teaching, and creative activity turn to the influential work of Imagin- as well as publication. Recommended ing America: Artists and Scholars in is the use of a portfolio in the tenure Public Life, a national consortium es- dossier that might include writing for a tablished at the University of Michigan non-academic audience, policy reports, in 2001 that numbers over eighty insti- and oral histories. Not all work in the tutions across the United States repre- public humanities would be considered senting the full spectrum of higher edu- public humanities scholarship. cation, from community colleges and At a meeting held in June 2008 at Syr- colleges of arts and design to research acuse University’s Lubin House in New universities and liberal arts colleges.4 York City to consider the report, discus- Now based at Syracuse University, Imag- sion swirled around this de½nition of ining America is devoted to expanding public scholarship, with a focus on what the place of public scholarship in the hu- was understood by “scholarship” itself manities, arts, and design in higher edu- and with special pressure placed on the cation in the conviction that it serves a keywords community and public (about democratic purpose. Scholarship in Public, which more later). Discussion also cen- its groundbreaking report on the impor- tered on the questions that might guide tance of including public scholarship in the evaluation of public scholarship, considerations of promotion and tenure, with suggestions including: What con- was released in May 2008. Authored by stituencies are served? What new in- Julie Ellison and Timothy K. Eatman, terdisciplinary connections have been the report offers a de½nition–necessar- formed? Is the “translation” of scholar- ily abstract and general–of what is re- ship to larger audiences effective? Is the ferred to as publicly engaged academic project innovative? Signi½cantly, how- work. Public scholarship, the report ar- ever, the report begins not with a de½ni- gues, is integral to the academic area of tion of public scholarship in the human- a faculty member’s research or creative ities, arts, and design or with prescrip- activity. It includes “different forms of tions for evaluation, but rather with a making knowledge ‘about, for, and with’ multitude of compelling examples from diverse publics and communities,” and across the United States, most of which “it contributes to the public good and take the form of collaborative projects between faculty in higher education and community groups and institutions and the Public Humanities (New York: Ameri- can Council of Learned Societies, 1990), 2. 5 Julie Ellison and Timothy K. Eatman, Schol- 4 Imagining America: Artists and Scholars arship in Public: Knowledge Creation and Tenure in Public Life, http://www.imaginingamerica Policy in the Engaged University, A Resource on .org/. Julie Ellison was the founding director Promotion and Tenure in the Arts, Humanities, of Imagining America; Jan Cohen-Cruz is cur- and Design (Syracuse, N.Y.: Imagining Ameri- rently the director. ca: Artists and Scholars in Public Life, 2008), 1. Dædalus Winter 2009 111 Book_Winter2009:Book Winter 2007.qxd 12/15/2008 9:55 AM Page 112 Kathleen (among them, K–12 teachers, ethnic Center for the Humanities at the Univer- Woodward and race-based local groups, and muse- sity of Washington launched a weeklong on the humanities ums). Among the examples are histori- Institute on the Public Humanities for an and architect Dolores Hayden’s Pow- Doctoral Students. To my knowledge er of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public His- the ½rst of its kind in the country, the tory and the “Great Wall of Los Angeles” Institute included twenty-½ve doctoral mural in the Tujunga Wash Flood Con- students and featured presentations by trol Channel, a project of the Social and national leaders who have done remark- Public Art Resource Center founded by able work in the public humanities, artist Judy Baca.6 readings and discussion, project-based Scholarship in Public is animated by a work, and site visits. That inaugural year sense of vibrancy and possibility. “The speakers from across the country includ- report was inspired,” we read, “by fac- ed Robert Weisbuch, then president of ulty members who want to do publicly the Woodrow Wilson National Fellow- engaged academic work and live to tell ship Foundation; Julia Reinhard Lupton, the tale.” Few of our graduate students, founding director of Humanities Out however–the very people who will be- There at the University of California, Ir- come our future faculty–arrive at gradu- vine, a program that links university stu- ate school with a sense that public schol- dents with students in the largely Latino arship in the humanities is a possible school district in nearby Santa Ana; and path for them. It is in research univer- David Scobey, then director of the Arts sities in particular where requirements of Citizenship program at the Universi- for the publication of research in order ty of Michigan. We read and discussed to gain tenure have increased, and where work by Dolores Hayden, Edward Said, “the words ‘public’ and ‘scholarship’ Robin Kelley, Harry Boyte and Nancy continue to live on different planets.”7 Kari, Michael Bérubé, Gail Dubrow, This is one of the reasons why, in 2003, and Tony Bennett, among others. We in tandem with the Woodrow Wilson also read and discussed reports (yes, re- National Fellowship Foundation’s Re- ports; I have grown fond of reports over sponsive Ph.D. initiative, the Simpson the past few years and think they should be read and discussed) from the Ameri- can Council of Learned Societies and the 6 See Dolores Hayden, Power of Place: Ur- American Association of Higher Educa- ban Landscapes as Public History (Cambridge, tion. We visited Bellevue Community Mass.: mit Press, 1995). College, the Seattle Art Museum, and 7 Ellison and Eatman, Scholarship in Public, downtown Seattle’s historic Panama Ho- vii, xii. In “The Associate Professor Project tel, built in 1910 in the International Dis- Survey,” a presentation on a project of the trict to house Japanese laborers, which Modern Language Association, David Lau- today is a tea house and modest

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