Among the things I’ve truly missed over the past two years is the opportunity to meet in person with colleagues and public audiences to talk about the vital importance of the humanities in all our lives, especially as we face daunting challenges and cope with head-spinning technological, political, and cultural change.
This coming month, I’m starting to make up for lost time.
November 10th through the 12th I’ll be in Los Angeles, attending the 2022 National Humanities Conference (#NHC22LA) and participating in a panel discussion on how we might develop the collaboration between arts and humanities organizations to promote deeper community engagement, cultural equity, and better outcomes as we address issues in communities across the US. I’m delighted to be joined in that discussion by Professor Christine Henseler from Union College who also serves as codirector of the 4Humanities initiative; Kristin Sakoda, the director of the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture; and Rob Townsend (@rbthisted), director of Humanities, Arts, and Culture Programs for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
November 18–20 I’ll be participating in the culminating meeting of a two-year project on “Humane Technologies” at the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics at Arizona State University (@ASULincoln). It seems poetic that for this final meeting we are setting aside the digital technologies which have both facilitated and frustrated our connections with one another during the COVID epidemic and will be able to connect in that most “human” of ways, face-to-face.