Twenty-second International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

This paper focuses on two projects undertaken by the Center for Cultural Analysis (CCA), an interdisciplinary humanities center at Rutgers University. The first of these, “The Shelter Project,” came about during COVID, when the widespread direction to “shelter in place” left behind many of our most vulnerable citizens (those unhoused, addicted, or suffering from mental illness, for example). In response, the CCA partnered with a local theological seminary and a local nonprofit housing agency to provide housing, medical services, and job training during the worth months of the pandemic. Then, working with local artists, producers, and many of the clients themselves, the CCA produced a six-part podcast and sponsored numerous local art projects reflecting both the challenges and strengths of our “neighbors” during this critical time. The second project, “The Critical AI Initiative,” brings the interpretive and critical capacities of the humanities to bear on a topic, AI, that is mostly dominated by techno-boosterism or apocalyptic warnings. So far, this project has yielded several high-profile conferences and a new journal, Critical AI, published by Duke University Press. After briefly describing both of these projects, this study spends the bulk of its time reflecting on the methodological lessons of doing public-facing humanities work—in particular, the challenge and opportunity of understanding “the public” not as a thing to be studied but as a co-producer of knowledge.