Public Humanities
Engaging the humanities with the offcampus Columbus community is an equally important mission of the Institute, and it is currently reflected in these projects:The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia
Encyclopedias synthesize expert knowledge for a general audience, and so are natural instruments of public education. The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia — a project supported with generous funding from the University and the National Endowment for the Humanities as well as by special state funding and private donations—is managed by an editorial staff housed at the Institute. Exploring a broad range of social, political, economic, and cultural phenomena relevant to the Midwest, the Encyclopedia will contain 1900 pages and 24 topical sections including overview essays and 1900 articles prepared by some 700 authorities and accompanied by 400 illustrations. It will assess images of the Midwest, its geography, people, language, folklore, literature, arts, cultural institutions, religion, education, sports and recreation, media and entertainment, rural life, small-town life, urban and suburban life, labor movements and working-class culture, transportation, science and technology, health and medicine, constitutional and legal culture, politics and civic culture, and military affairs. An eventual on-line edition will extend the educational value of the The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia through multimedia versions and customized instructional publications designed for a host of specific users and audiences. The print version of the The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia was published by Indiana University Press in February 2007. (Contact zacher.1@osu.edu).
http://icrph.osu.edu/encyclopedia/
the Midwest
Ohio Chautauqua
A chautauqua offers living history presented by scholar-actors who assume the role of historical characters. The Ohio Chautauqua troupe of re-enactors (some of them student performers from the OSU Department of Theatre) travels to five communities across Ohio each summer to give a series of evening performances under bigtop tents as well as workshops for both children and adults during the day.
Past Ohio Chautauqua themes have been American Humorists, Ohio 20th-Century Voices, Civil War Buckeyes, the Ohio Frontier, the Roaring Twenties, and War and Peace. The OSU Lima, Columbus, and Mansfield campuses have been hosts of the Chautauqua. World War II: 2007 featured characters Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Margaret Bourke-White, Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. and Pearl S. Buck and included a week’s appearance at OSU-Newark. The Institute contributes support to this program, which is sponsored by the Ohio Humanities Council.
http://www.ohiohumanities.org/chaut
Ohio Chautauqua 2006
The Big Picture
Since 2003, the Institute has partnered with the Columbus Museum of Art to present "The Big Picture," a series of lectures and panel discussions by scholars from OSU and elsewhere, held at the Museum in conjunction with its exhibitions. The talks are meant to illuminate the Museum's exhibitions by framing them in significant intellectual, social, and aesthetic contexts. Here is a list of this year's speakers.
2007-08 speakers and exhibitions
- Rochelle Schrock (Women’s Studies) "Stories From the Somali Diaspora: Photographs by Abdi Roble"
- Amy Shuman (English) "Along Water Street: New Work by Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson"
- Judith Sacks (affiliated scholar, American Studies, Kenyon College) "Edna Boies Hopkins"
- Birgitte Soland (History), "Great Expectations: Aristocratic Children in European Portraiture"
Building Public Space
An ongoing initiative to explore the uses and meanings of public space in Columbus, BPS this year features the Columbus Public Art Summit on Saturday, November 4, at the King Arts Complex, 867 Mount Vernon Avenue. Bringing together artists, activists, civic leaders and members of the architectural and development communities, the CPAS will offer an opportunity to exchange ideas and strategies for promoting public art in the city, keynoted by Phoenix-based artist Greg Esser, formerly head of the Public Art Network of Americans for the Arts. The continuing BPS series at the Columbus Metropolitan Club featured Joe Branin (OSU Libraries) and Patrick Losinski (Columbus Metropolitan Library) on September 8 and former FCC chair Reed Hundt on October 4. (Contact livingston.28@osu.edu)
Columbus Cultural Leaders
The Institute has begun inviting leaders of area cultural organizations to speak to the University audience about their organizations and agendas, an opportunity that allows them and members of campus to become more familiar with one another. Visitors to date have included Patrick Losinski, director of the Columbus Metropolitan Library; Nannette Maciejunes, executive director of the Columbus Museum of Art; and Bill Laidlaw, executive director of the Ohio Historical Society. (Contact zacher.1@osu.edu)
Imagining America
Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life is a national consortium of college and universities committed to public scholarship in the arts, humanities, and design. The Institute of Collaborative Research and Public Humanities is an active member of IA, and in October 2006 it hosted the annual meeting of the organization—held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Outreach Scholarship conference. The IA conference theme—"Engaging Through Place"—and Outreach Scholarship’s—"Engaging Through the Disciplines"—intentionally overlapped and the two conferences shared speakers and agendas. The Institute’s focus on public humanities matches aims of both organizations, in particular IA’s, which includes scholarly and creative work jointly planned and carried out by university and community partners; intellectual work that produces public good; artistic, critical, and historical work that contributes to public debates; and efforts to expand the place of public scholarship in higher education itself, including the development of new programs and research on the successes of such efforts.
