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Public Humanities

A guide to resources supporting research in the Public Humanities.

Welcome!

Welcome to the Public Humanities research guide. This guide is intended to highlight major resources that Georgetown provides to support research and teaching in the public humanities. Use the menu to the left to view specific types of resources.

If you have any questions or need assistance with your research, please e-mail the Public Humanities Librarian at melissa.jones@georgetown.edu.

What are Public Humanities?

The following books provide critical examinations of the role of the humanities in today's world.

Is it Public Humanities?

Public Humanities differs from strictly humanities academic research and from social justice work. Rather it exists at the intersection between the two. The following are distinctive types of Engaged & Public Humanities work: 

  1. Outreach: scholarly programming and media for a general audience;
  2. Engaged public programming: public programming in which the primary objective is not to transfer knowledge but to cultivate an exchange between facilitators and participants concerning matters of shared interest;
  3. Engaged research: research initiatives in which higher education faculty and students partner with community members in the creation of knowledge;
  4. Engaged teaching: higher education instruction involving engaged research, teaching, and public programming; and
  5. The infrastructure of engagement: research and institutional structures that support engaged scholarship.

Source: Fisher, Daniel. "A Typology of the Publicly Engaged Humanities." Humanities for All.

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