public humanities and cultural heritage

About Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage

The John Nicholas Brown Center is Brown University’s Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage.

What do we mean by public humanities? We include the many ways that the university reaches out to the public to connect academic understandings to a broader audience. We also include the techniques of recording and presenting art, history, and culture, in museums and historic sites, documentaries, and other media. But public humanities entail more than outreach from the university. We move beyond publicly engaged humanistic scholarship to the study, promotion, and management of cultural heritage, work that is done not only by academics but by professionals in cultural institutions, and by individuals in communities as well. We’re interested not just in exploring culture, but are committed to working with students, professionals, and community members to preserve, understand, and make use of their cultural heritage, values, beliefs, knowledge, and traditions. Through promoting a shared examination of culture, art, and history, we aim to encourage civic engagement and contribute to public debates about American society.

Other University Centers

Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities, Ohio State University

Colorado Center for Public Humanities, University of Colorado at Denver

American Studies Program, Yale University

Public Humanities Initiative, University of California at Santa Barbara

Arts of Citizenship Program, University of Michigan

Center for the Study of Public Scholarship, Emory University

Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University

The Center of the American West, University of Colorado at Boulder

Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington

Department of Art and Public Policy, Tisch School for the Arts, New York University

Public Humanities Collaborative, Michigan State University