Seventeenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

The Public Humanities have been a newly emerging research and practice area in US university in recent years. Although recognized by many as an important new effort to open up the narrowly conceived disciplinary work traditionally favored in Humanities departments, it is often not yet clear what kind of new forms of engagement, particularly in and with the communities that surround university campuses, Public Humanities work entails. Based on my own experience of co-directing an initiative on the public humanities at University of Illinois, USA, and my activist work in educational justice, through which I have taught advanced college level courses at Danville Correctional Center, this paper examines how the initiatives on the Public Humanities and the vital issue of mass incarceration and post-prison education can converge theoretically, institutionally, and – in praxis – as part of higher education for incarcerated and non-incarcerated people.