Public humanities is the work of engaging diverse publics in reflecting on heritage, traditions, and history, and the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of civic and cultural life. Public humanities is often practiced within federal, state, nonprofit and community-based cultural organizations that engage people in conversations, facilitate and present lectures, exhibitions, performances and other programs for the general public on topics such as history, philosophy, popular culture and the arts. Workers within the public humanities endeavor to create physical and virtual spaces where the public can engage in conversation, learning and reflection about issues and ideas. Public humanities projects include exhibitions and programming related to historic preservation, oral history, archives, material culture, public art, cultural heritage, and cultural policy. The National Endowment for the Humanities notes that public humanities projects it has supported in the past include "interpretation at historic sites, television and radio productions, museum exhibitions, podcasts, short videos, digital games, websites, mobile apps, and other digital media." Many practitioners of public humanities are invested in ensuring the accessibility and relevance of the humanities to the general public or community groups. The American Council of Learned Societies' National Task Force on Scholarship and the Public Humanities suggests that the nature of public humanities work is to teach the public the findings of academic scholarship: it sees "scholarship and the public humanities not as two distinct spheres but as parts of a single process, the process of taking private insight, testing it, and turning it into public knowledge." Others suggest a more balanced understanding of the ways in which history, heritage and culture are shared between the academy and the public, drawing on the notion of shared historical authority. Subfields of the public humanities include public history, public sociology, public folklore, public anthropology, public philosophy, historic preservation, museum studies, museum education, cultural heritage management, community archaeology, public art, and public science.
Matthew Wickman's Research
Matthew Wickman, who is an English Professor and founder of The BYU humanities center. In Wickman's research, he constructed a survey to identify the future role of "public humanities" at institutions. Wickman had planned to identify on what"public Humanities" truly means. He also tried to address the methods that would account as public humanities. The survey was sent to humanities centre and institute's around the entire world. Thr Survey had brought a wide range of answers, as some people replied with mentioning " that organizing a public festival qualifies as public humanities"From the research, it's clear that there is ongoing contradictory on the methods of "public humanities". Whether publication on venues are considered a method as well. "Seventy-five per cent of respondents report that engaging members of the community has either a moderate or major impact on their institution". At the end of the research, Wickman addresses how the concept of "public humanities" is portrayed differently.‘‘What are the public humanities?’’ – we might pose a rather different one: ‘‘Where are they?’’ Are they found in old-fashioned outreach, or in newer models of engagement? In research or teaching? Within universities or alongside them?". Wickman believed using data to formulate an answer to his question was very effective, hoping to help scholars in humanities to get the public relevance they want.
Michigan State University was hosting a Public Humanities Collaborative as of 2007.
New York University, whose Center for Experimental Humanities offers an MA program in Interdisciplinary Studies.
Portland State University, whose Portland Center for Public Humanities provides a yearlong forum of talks, roundtables, and workshops.
Rutgers University-Newark, whose Public Humanities track in the American Studies MA program.
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor offers the Rackham Program in Public Scholarship.
University of Sheffield, which offers an MA in Public Humanities with pathways in digital humanities, public engagement and cultural heritage.
University of Western Ontario has a new program called The Public Humanities @ Western.
University of Wisconsin–Madison has a public scholarship program, Public Humanities Exchange that supports collaborative work between humanities grad students and the community.
