The Public Humanities Turn: The University as an Instrument of Cultural Transformation

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Philip Lewis (Professor Emeritus, Cornell University)

The Public Humanities Turn

The University as an Instrument of Cultural Transformation

Philip Lewis (Professor Emeritus, Cornell University)

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Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Johns Hopkins University Press
11 June 2024

Educational strategies & policy; Curriculum planning & development; Higher & further education, tertiary education; Global warming

Humanities have the potential to transform human culture—and an obligation to preserve it.

In The Public Humanities Turn, Philip Lewis argues that universities are uniquely equipped to act as catalysts for cultural change in the face of the climate crisis. In closely linked essays that explore the evolution of the academic humanities in the era of climate change, he foregrounds the rise of the public humanities, a movement that has been gaining momentum over the past two decades.

Surveying a variety of approaches to the public humanities, Lewis relates their emergence to the evolution of higher education and its achievements, problems, and goals. Current academic efforts to engage with the public at large, led by scholars with interdisciplinary commitments, are significant yet far from sufficient. Situating the university as a global institution, Lewis contends that it faces an urgent imperative to collaboratively address common needs and looming crises in a public-facing initiative that integrates the arts, humanities, and social sciences and draws them into a future-oriented dialogue with earth systems science.

Advocating for the urgent educational mission of safeguarding humanity's survival on a habitable earth, Lewis proposes a sharpened focus for the public humanities that would position universities as active agents of cultural transformation. The Public Humanities Turn is a clarion call for institutional and cultural change and a must-read for anyone interested in the humanities, climate change, activism, organizational reform, and the future of higher education.

By: Philip Lewis (Professor Emeritus Cornell University)
Imprint: Johns Hopkins University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 140mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 431g
ISBN: 9781421448725
ISBN 10: 1421448726
Pages: 280
Publication Date: 11 June 2024
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Philip Lewis is professor emeritus of French literature at Cornell University, the former editor of the journal Diacritics, and the former dean of the Cornell College of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of Seeing Through the Mother Goose Tales: Visual Turns in the Writings of Charles Perrault.