New Perspectives on Humanistic Methods and Social Justice
14—17 June 2023, Colorado College
Conference registration NOW OPEN until June 11, 2023
Humanities for Our Times: From Epistemologies and Methodologies to Liberatory Creative Practices and Social Justice
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 that 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 such as symposia, workshops, round tables, film screenings, and/or performances in the afternoon and evening (the full conference schedule will be published soon). All events will focus on epistemologies and knowledge production, humanistic methodologies, liberatory creative practices, and social justice.
Participation in the conference is not limited to individuals appointed in Humanities divisions, and we welcome interdisciplinary and creative approaches.