Seventeenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

With one click of a button your voice can be heard. You post, you tweet, you share. The modern age of technology has allowed us to easily disseminate our thoughts and ideas, aiding us as global citizens and helping us to become informed members of our communities. But, many think that our ability to share through technology stops with 140 characters. Thanks to today’s access to self-publishing platforms, students from Union College in Schenectady, NY were able to combine the values espoused in the humanities with the ease and speed afforded by technology. In an unusual course called “Millennials and Social Change,” not only did these students publish a 200-page book, but access to Amazon’s Createspace platform allowed them to do so in ten weeks, sell dozens of copies, and donate the proceeds, thus turning themselves into public humanists who were making social change. In this colloquium, one professor and five students will share their experiences creating and taking the course—exploring the challenges, the transformation, the book production, the generational impact, and their hope for the future. In essence, they will present how to bring together the humanities and technology through any and all disciplines and fields of interest, from education to psychology, gender to political science and beyond. If successful, not only can great social change happen through this vision and practice, but the humanities can also enter a renewed, dynamic, and highly impactful phase in its history. We call it “Humanities Rising.”