{"id":1446,"date":"2025-11-07T14:06:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T18:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vahumanitiesconference.org\/?p=1446"},"modified":"2026-01-13T13:25:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T17:25:37","slug":"virginia-humanities-conference-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vahumanitiesconference.org\/?p=1446","title":{"rendered":"Virginia Humanities Conference 2026!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Humanities for a Public Purpose<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Friday March 20 & Saturday March 21, 2026<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Christopher Newport University<\/strong><\/h2>\n

DOWNLOADABLE CALL FOR PAPERS<\/a><\/p>\n

Public humanities provide a way for us to make our scholarship accessible to a wider public audience, to demonstrate the relevance and importance of the humanities to the community and to decision-makers who have an impact on what we do. Public humanities also provide a way to mentor our students, and collaborate with them, on projects that reinforce practical career competencies, thereby helping our students articulate why the liberal arts matter.<\/p>\n

During a moment characterized by fierce competition among educational institutions, budget pressures, and a changing student body, this conference proffers possible answers as to the centrality of the humanities in our colleges and universities. Artificial Intelligence offers both new solutions and novel difficulties in terms of enriching the life of the mind. Even as society leans into answers buttressed solely by STEM know-how paired with economic objectives, the humanities remind us of our own frailties, our voices, and our own strengths as a community. As stewards of the humanities, we must evince the public face of the humanities to show how artistic beauty, lively debate, and the nourishment of the human spirit can yet transform society for the better. Rather than accept the notion that \u201cknowledge\u201d is a collection of discrete \u201cfacts,\u201d the public humanities attest to the fundamentally shared and engaged nature of knowing rooted in the lived experience of individuals and communities. By focusing on various truths anchored in specific places, stories, practices and artifacts, the public humanities draw attention to the many ways humanity creates the worlds of meaning that we inhabit daily. As such, work in the public humanities resists the dominance of contemporary techno-consumerist culture.<\/p>\n

Examples of public humanities in teaching and scholarship <\/strong>(student projects as well as new outlets for faculty scholarship)<\/p>\n