The Routledge Companion to Public Humanities Scholarship

Across humanities disciplines, public scholarship brings academics and community members and organizations together in mutually-beneficial partnership for research, teaching, and programming. While the field of publicly engaged humanities scholarship has been growing for some time, there are few volumes that have attempted to define and represent its scope. The Routledge Companion to Public Humanities Scholarship brings together wide-ranging case studies sharing perspectives on this work, grounded in its practice in the United States.

The collection begins with chapters reflecting on theories and practices of public humanities scholarship. The case studies that follow are organized around six areas of particular impact in public humanities scholarship: Informing contemporary debates; amplifying community voices and histories; helping individuals and communities navigate difficult experiences; preserving culture in times of crisis and change; expanding educational access; and building and supporting public scholarship. The Companion concludes with a glossary, introducing select concepts. Taken together, these resources offer an overview for students and practitioners of public humanities scholarship, creating an accessible vocabulary rooted in the practices that have so advanced academic and community life.

Although drawing on case studies from within the US, these examples offer perspectives and insights relevant to public humanities around the world. This book will be of interest to anyone working within the public humanities or wanting to make their work public and engage with wider communities.

Daniel Fisher-Livne is Assistant Professor of Bible at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, OH and Research Affiliate at the National Humanities Alliance in Washington, DC.
Michelle May-Curry is the project director of Humanities for All, an initiative of the National Humanities Alliance that showcases publicly engaged humanities work at colleges and universities across the United States, including a wide range of humanities projects that collaborate with diverse publics as audiences and as partners.