Gregory Jay reviews the concept of engaged or community scholarship in relation to the humanities. He argues that if the humanities took up such practices, as well as integrated new media tools and techniques more fully, the discipline might gain relevance and public value in an era of funding cuts. Jay explains why engaged scholarship has not been as prominent in the humanities as it has in other disciplines: namely, for Jay, the humanities is based on extrapolative, written critique, and this does not translate well to project-based community engagement in the same way that initiatives in the social or medical sciences might, for instance. Regardless, Jay sees the rise of social media, digital humanities, and multimodal communication as a promising opportunity for the humanities to increase community engagement around the texts and topics traditionally at the heart of humanistic inquiry. Throughout, Jay is careful to underline the necessity of accountability when it comes to academic / community partnerships, and the importance of avoiding the “missionary” style of public engagement that university has often taken on.

 

Work cited

Jay, Gregory. 2012. “The Engaged Humanities: Principles and Practices for Public Scholarship and Teaching.” Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship 3 (1): n.p. http://jces.ua.edu/the-engaged-humanities-principles-and-practices-for-public-scholarship-and-teaching/