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The Divers by Fernand Léger
Image Caption
https://www.artic.edu/artworks/152727/the-divers
Journal Article
Why Public Humanities?
By
Susan Smulyan

I have been thinking of this essay as a road map to the ideas and practices of public humanities, a map that would help answer the title question, "why public humanities?" This essay will look at some beginning points for public humanities; work through definitions; talk about the stakes for faculty and students–and the universities and communities in which they work–and consider whether public humanities could be transformative rather than simply translational. No matter how you map public humanities, discussions of collaboration and social justice need to be at the center.

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Red light protrudes from gate
Image Caption
https://flic.kr/p/bC6MQP
Lecture
Humanities Futures
By
Jo Fox

Debates have raged over whether the latest crisis of the humanities is rhetoric or reality. In either case, perceptions matter, and such perceptions have real consequences. So what should be done?

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Image
A statue depicts the figure of Justice holding a sword and the scales.
Video
In Search of Epistemic Justice: Round Table
By
Emmalon Davis
Revathi Krishnaswamy
Marília Librandi-Rocha
Boaventura de Sousa Santos

This round table gathers scholars from across disciplines to discuss issues related to epistemic inequality and injustice. From their distinct disciplinary locations, participants address these issues as epistemic justice in the Anglo-American philosophy, as the geopolitics of knowledge and epistemicide in the social sciences, as decolonizing knowledge in Southern Theory, and as perspectivism and cognitive justice in World Literary Knowledges. 

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Graphic with shapes and lines.
Image Caption
Image by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Graphic design by Sheena Lai.
Intervention
Reflections on the Digital Humanities: A Conversation with Elaine Treharne
By
Elaine Treharne
Charlotte Lindemann

In a conversation with our editor, Elaine Treharne reflects on the synergy between Medieval studies and technological innovation, pathbreaking student research at CESTA, and the challenges digital humanists navigate at Stanford.

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A painting of palm trees in shades of purple and yellow.
Journal Article
Life, Labor, and a Coolie Picturesque in Jamaica
By
Jenny Sharpe

Jenny Sharpe considers the visual power of the imperial picturesque. Analyzing touristic photography of Indian field workers in the Caribbean, Sharpe argues that a “coolie picturesque” simultaneously reveals and conceals the permanent settlement of Indians and their racial mixing with Afro-Jamaicans.

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Image
The electric chair mentioned in the title of the piece. Slightly to the left of the frame, with green hues across the entire frame. Slight bar coming down from the top.
Journal Article
On Andy Warhol's Electric Chair
By
Bennett Capers

In June 2003, the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh mounted an exhibition of Warhol's iconic Electric Chair print series—ten large-scale prints along with several smaller prints and paintings—as a catalyst to generate discourse on the issue of capital punishment. The project, Andy Warhol's Electric Chairs: Reflecting on Capital Punishment in America, which came two years after the execution of Timothy McVeigh and shortly after the decision by Illinois Governor George Ryan to commute all death sentences in that state, raised significant questions about the social utility and morality of the death penalty.

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An abstract painting shows multiple, intersecting, circular shapes.
Essay
Response: Data and Danger
By
Alex Sherman

What do we make of the quantifying impulse in response to danger? What of the affective affordances of putting danger in the form of numbers or visualizations? How do divides in data literacy set up stark material divides when data represents life-threatening dangers? 

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Image
An abstract artwork shows white lines across blue squares on an offwhite background.
Seminar
Ancient Data and Its Divisions
By
Chiara Palladino
Chris Johanson
Eric Harvey

On May 30th, 2024, as part of the Mellon-Sawyer Seminar Series, "The Data that Divides Us: Recalibrating Data Methods for New Knowledge Frameworks Across the Humanities", at the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA) at Stanford University, Chiara Palladino from Furman University, Chris Johanson from University of California, Los Angeles, and Eric Harvey from Stanford University talked about the ways they envision 'Ancient Data' and the challenges they face working with it. 

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image of a few sculptures submerged in a pool of water
Image Caption
Sculpture under water, Copenhagen. Graphic design by Sheena Lai.
Intervention
We Can Be Freer Than This: A Review of Timothy Snyder’s On Freedom
By
Rupert Sparling

Rupert Sparling reviews Timothy Snyder's latest book, On Freedom. How does Snyder conceptualize freedom, and is his framework useful for understanding our contemporary lives and societies? Sparling evaluates Snyder's take on the concept. 

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