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PHC Programs

Graduate Seminar (Spring, 2008)

This high-level graduate seminar/colloquy was sponsored by the PHC and led by David Cooper (PHC Director), Paul Thompson (Professor of Philosophy) and Eileen Roraback (PHC Associate Director). The seminar focused on critical practices and the theory of public work in the humanities. Students also had an opportunity to interact with public scholars at MSU. At the end of the seminar, students invited all the participants to write personal reflections about the seminar, and prepared a report about their conversations with visiting faculty:

Cynthia Taggart is currently the Chair of Music Education at MSU’s College of Music. She is also highly involved in the university’s Community Music School.

What are the Differences Between “Engagement” and “Outreach?” Dr. Taggart believes that there is a persistent confusion between “engagement” and “outreach.” She regards outreach more as a one-way contribution to public humanities, while she sees engagement rather as an opportunity for information to flow among all participants involved, both from the community and from academia. Dr. Taggart also indicated the fundamental role of self-reflection in engagement.

Experiences Working w/ the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Dr. Taggart elaborated on helping the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra make inroads into their surrounding community. Today, the orchestra continues to participate in the community, having since hired a full-time manager for engagement activities. Dr. Taggart also explained that musical performance can be considered engagement as long as there is “a meaningful and helpful exchange” in both directions.

How Does Funding Restrict Engagement Work? While funding often does restrict engagement work, Dr. Taggart cited lack of time as a bigger constraint. She explained that there is often a shortage of appropriately-trained workers and volunteers, resulting in these individuals becoming overworked  and burnt out. There are regular opportunities for funding through the pursuit of grants, yet finding passionate people with the right skills is frequently frustrating.

Leonard Fleck is a University Distinguished Faculty member at Michigan State University, in the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences.

What His Public Scholarship Work “Looks Like” Dr. Fleck describes his work as looking for the roots of philosophical questions in conflicts, and using that as a starting point for engaging publics. Through a series of questions designed to disentangle participants from their ideological perspectives, Dr. Fleck hopes to achieve truly meaningful dialogue about modern health-related issues.

Career Issues in Public Scholarship Work Dr. Fleck noted that public scholarship faculty may face institutional obstacles, such as problems with tenure, because of the time it takes to get this work done well. Further, some individual departments may look down upon public scholarship. Still, he has prevailed by striving to find a comfortable space between departmental constraints and personal academic curiosity.

Role of Advocacy Advocacy was a recurrent theme in the seminar, and Dr. Fleck brought a new perspective: advocacy may not always be obvious. His perspective is that although we cannot eliminate bias completely, it is important to minimize it. In his work, there are multiple opportunities to introduce bias and push one’s own agenda, and as researchers we must find our own philosophy and attend to every detail to remain true to it.

Kurt Dewhurst is Director of the MSU Museum, Professor of English, and MSU Outreach and Engagement Senior Fellow. Marsha MacDowell is a Curator of Folk Arts at the MSU Museum and Professor of Art and Art History.

Working With People, Not For Them Dr. Dewhurst discussed the work he did on developing a cultural heritage training initiative with South African Cultural Heritage Sector.  He began with the premise of working with the South Africans he met with, not for them, which is what ultimately allowed the project to succeed.  From working on this project, Dewhurst helped create a list of Principles of Partnership, which he will include in an article his is writing about the project.

The Intersection of Culture and Scholarship Dr. MacDowell discussed her experience with the Great Lakes Folk Festival (www.greatlakesfolkfestival.net).  This summer festival in Lansing is a powerful way for culture-bearers from all over the world to communicate ideas and teach about their art assisted by academically trained scholars and community members who serve as interpreters of culture.

Communication and Engaged Scholarship Dr. Dewhurst emphasized that a public scholar should have strategies to insure open communication between himself/herself and the community members they are working with. He said that by listening to what community members had to say, he has learned as much as he has taught. Dr. MacDowell agreed that communication with community members was vitally important in her work, as well.

Howard Bossen is a Professor in the School of Journalism at Michigan State University, in addition to his role as Adjunct Curator at MSU’s Kresge Art Museum. Jeff Grabill is a Professor of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures at Michigan State University, and he is the Co-Director of WIDE (Writing in Digital Environments) Research Center. Jim Detjen is a Professor at the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism (housed within MSU’s School of Journalism), and he also serves as the Director of the Knight Center.

Intersection of Public Scholarship and Interdisciplinary Training The class engaged in a discussion about our backgrounds – including those of the visitors – and determined that there is a connection between interdisciplinary environments and a propensity to do public scholarship. In addition the students’ experiences, Dr. Grabill and Professor Detjen work in interdisciplinary centers, and Dr. Bossen spans both the Kresge Art Museum and MSU’s School of Journalism.

Possible Paths of Public Work Over the course of the semester, the class has discussed several possible paths of public scholarship – what this work looks like. Two paths discussed with our visitors during this session included: the co-creation of knowledge with the public(s); and the translation of sometimes complex academic work into more useful and understandable information for use by the public(s).

Advocacy and Public Awareness A final theme of the evening touched on both awareness and engagement. As scholars, we noted, we should strive for an awareness component of our work. That work will no doubt be more “useful” if the public(s) is meaningfully engaged. Yet, again, we wrestled with the notion of advocacy, and again reached no firm conclusions – only that the line between advocacy and engagement is a very thin one.

Ellen Cushman has worked at MSU since 2001, and had a productive and multi-faceted career. She has written Literacy: A Critical Sourcebook and The Struggle and the Tools: Oral and Literate Strategies in an Inner City Community, taught courses such as Community Literacy, Multimedia Writing, and Reading Theory, and has led several community literacy initiatives, including the Cherokee Nation Collaborative and the People’s Writing Workshop. Estrella Torrez is a doctoral candidate and visiting lecturer at MSU whose work centers on language politics and migrant farm worker education. Estrella has worked as a migrant educator and as an activist for and within the migrant and Latina/o communities.

Why does public scholarship have trouble taking hold on an individual or institutional level? Cushman referenced her article “Toward a Praxis of New Media: The Allotment Period in Cherokee History,” in which she examines the “institutional and intellectual resources necessary to develop, revise, and sustain an outreach initiative involving new media composing with community organizations.” She stressed the necessity and the difficulty of aligning curricular, departmental, and administrative initiatives and emphasized the importance of cross-disciplinary communication in accomplishing personal or publicly-minded initiatives. Cushman cited her early involvement with D.U.S.T.Y, spoke briefly about her outreach projects with the Cherokee Nation, and noted her anxieties about how to set a sustainable agenda when relying on a transient student population. We all discussed how to skillfully work with (vs. on behalf of) the community.

What is a “public intellectual”? We discussed difficulties of approaching this designation, referenced other definitions of an intellectual (Gramsci and Lippman vs. Dewey), and talked about the notion of an intellectual as a mediator vs. the idea of an intellectual as a participant in community-based initiatives. Cushman referenced her essay, “The Public Intellectual: Service Learning and Activist Research”, recently republished in Ama tai Etzioni and Alyssa Bowditch’s Public Intellectuals: An Endangered Species?

Identity and public scholarship Torrez spoke of her personal connection to her research/work with the migrant or Chicana/o community and her “non-traditional” entrance into the world of academia, in that she worked first as a community activist. We stressed the plural nature of public(s) and the fluidity of personal identity/ies.

How to avoid abusing our roles as “experts” in a community? Torrez recounted the history behind her question, “Grandma when did we stop speaking Spanish?” She told of how a teacher, an “expert”, told the family to stop speaking Spanish, and they listened. Torrez cited Paulo Freire’s Mentoring the Mentor, in which he argues for the need to develop structures so that community members can chart their own course, ways of letting the community decide instead of saying “I know best.” Paul Thompson related the difference between a Sumo (persuasion by power of intellect) and a Judo (persuasion by drawing people into an argument) approach to development/discussion. We stressed the balancing act that one is cast into while conversing with and working among these groups, and discussed the stakes of being accountable to power-brokers among diverse communities.

 
View the participanting students' and professors' personal reflections about the seminar and public humanities.

 


Contact Information

  • Public Humanities Collaborative
  • 119 Morrill Hall • Michigan State University • East Lansing, MI 48824
  • Phone: 517.432.3910 • Fax: 517.355.0159 • E-mail: phc at msu.edu