Public humanities of the future: Museums, archives, universities and beyond

Contributors to this volume explore some of the purposes, responsibilities and joys of the humanities in 2024 and beyond.They consider what the humanities of the future might hold and examine collateral questions about how public institutions and academic disciplines may engage ethically and meaningfully with challenges.Whether undertaken in collections or galleries, or in libraries, archives and museums or elsewhere, the humanities are critically important to our individual lives and communities.Humanities research confronts global challenges from environmental sustainability to human health, wellbeing and social justice, to the very survival of the planet.The discussions and projects represented in this volume are, at their heart, public humanities projects.They address public institutions and experiences as a gateway for humans-as individuals, collectives and larger publics-to reflect on the places they occupy in the world, and to describe the difficult processes of navigating institutional cultures and conventions.Contributors engage with museums and universities as subjects of analysis as much as sites of research.Rejecting the mischaracterisation of humanities research as detached from everyday experience and lacking practical application, contributors address diverse and, in some cases, new paradigms and understandings about the social contracts that exist between people and institutions.In doing these things, the case studies and analyses represented in this volume confirm the findings of the 2023 World Humanities Report, which says: 'Public humanities' is a term that describes research that seeks to address the kinds of questions that people in the 'real' world ask. 2 It aims to benefit the universe of scholarly knowledge within and about the public sphere by promoting research practices undertaken in and with civic spaces and everyday cultures.It is an approach that seeks to promote 1 Consortium of Humanities Institutes and Centers, 'World Humanities Report', June 2023, worldhumanitiesreport.org. 2 In addition, 'regardless of how a member of the public might pour meaning into the term when they hear the word humanities, they are likely to engage with some humanities content and humanistic practices on a regular basis'.