Platypus

This post originally appeared on Christopher P. Long’s blog, and  is cross-posted from there.

As we navigate the intense period of transformation in human communication through which we are living, identifying ways to nurture sustainable communities through which scholarship can be shared, discovered, and enhanced gains urgency. So many of the platforms through which we might cultivate scholarly lives together — Facebook, Twitter, Google, Academia.edu — are compromised by business models designed to maximize profit rather than advance scholarship. Continue reading “Humanities Commons and the Cultivation of Sustainable Communities”

This is a guest post by Brett Bobley, the Chief Information Officer for the National Endowment for the Humanities, and is cross-posted from the blog of the NEH’s Office of Digital Humanities.

“It’s like arXiv, but for the humanities.”

What? Say that again?

“It’s like arXiv, but for the humanities.”

So my memory isn’t perfect, but I’m pretty sure it was late 2011, riding on a shuttle bus to the Berlin 9 conference, when Kathleen Fitzpatrick made that pitch to me.

Continue reading “Happy Birthday Humanities Commons”

What does it mean for the humanities to be invisible in the digital age? We often bemoan the fact that our disciplines are under-valued, under-funded, and downtrodden. Yet do we not, as academics, ourselves hold some responsibility for this situation? Continue reading “Why I Share My Work in CORE”

What is the relationship between the humanities in the university and the “public” in the public square? This is a question we tackle daily as art historians. Scholars who deal in visual culture-related subjects are often looked to to define, and even to model, public engagement in reconciling the arts. Seemingly the environments that art historians normally concern themselves with – museums, galleries, print and digital media – mesh more easily with public concerns than STEM. In the competition academic art history demands, we are exhorted to link humanities work with participation in vigorous public dialogue. Continue reading “Between Disciplines on the Commons”

It’s been a year.

I find myself saying that a lot lately, for reasons that you can probably imagine. Much about the last year has been disheartening, infuriating, anxiety-producing.

But a few good things stand out, and one of them has been the extraordinary first year of Humanities Commons. Continue reading “This Year”