The Humanities for Our Times: New Perspectives on Humanistic Methods and Social Justice
June 14-17, 2023
Colorado College
How do the humanities contribute to anti-oppressive work, and how can humanities methods—from inquiry and critique to creative production and performance—dismantle systems of oppression, create and sustain community and solidarity, and advance liberation? How can we, as educators, empower and prepare students to embark effectively on social justice projects and enact social change? How can we harness the power and potential of the humanities to forge dynamic synergies between the classroom, the archive, and the streets?
The dominant claim in the mid-century American academy was that the humanities disciplines dealt with something called “the human condition,” a concept which has barely survived the critical scrutiny from scholars of postmodernism, Critical Race Theory, postcolonialism, and intersectionality. Where does the debris of an idea of a secular universal human being (gendered cis male and raced white) that emerged during the European Enlightenment era—uninflected by the particularities of history, identity, and culture—leave the humanities now? How do ahistorical ways of thinking about the humanities, which call for the nostalgic resurrection of universal and transcendent concepts, stand in tension with current analyses of systems and structures of injustices and oppression? And where might legitimate, rational critiques of methodologies like Critical Race Theory and intersectionality take the humanities in the future?
As a recipient of the Mellon Foundation’s Humanities For All Times Grant, Colorado College is hosting an academic conference with the goal of bringing together educators, artists, and activists to engage these questions and consider the relationship between humanities methods and social justice today. This conference will take a hybrid format with panel sessions in the morning followed by events including:
- Plenary roundtable discussion featuring Dylan Robinson, Associate Professor of Music at UBC and Dwanna McKay, Associate Professor of Race, Ethnicity and Migration Studies at CC (we are still awaiting confirmation from the third participant)
- Film screening of the Nashville Ballet’s performance of Lucy Negro Redux
- Artist talk by Caroline Randall Williams, whose book of poetry Lucy Negro, Redux: The Bard, a Book, and a Ballet is the basis for the ballet
- Keynote address (still awaiting confirmation from the speaker)
- CC Mobile Arts event
The conference will focus on epistemologies and knowledge production, humanistic methodologies, liberatory creative practices, and social justice. We are currently seeking papers on any of these topics. Participation in the conference is not limited to individuals appointed in Humanities divisions, and we welcome interdisciplinary and creative approaches, as well as papers describing social justice projects.
Please submit a 250-word abstract and short bio at www.HumanitiesForOurTimesCC.org by March 31, 2023. If you are interested in moderating a panel, acting as a respondent, or participating in this conference in some other way, please email clisiecki@coloradocollege.edu. Registration opens March 15.
