Professor Ricardo Ortiz has been named guest editor for a special edition of Public Humanities, a peer-reviewed journal from Cambridge University Press that publishes scholarship at the nexus of the humanities and public life. Ortiz is also a standing member of the journal’s editorial board.
For Ortiz, this is an opportunity to continue beating the drum for the value of the humanities, both within the halls of academia and out in the world.
“For higher education, the field of public humanities offers an opportunity to deepen and extend our commitment to innovating in some of the more traditional humanities disciplines, as well as in some of the newer inter-disciplines,” said Ortiz, a professor in the Department of English. “In the wider world, the practice of public humanities offers us an opportunity to act, and in meaningfully collective, collaborative ways, not only to bridge the divides between our campuses and our communities, but also to engage with otherwise unlikely partners in work that invites us to forge shared commitments and interests.”
Launched this fall, Public Humanities is a new journal that seeks to “bridge the connection between the academic and everyday life.” To that end, the journal publishes research from across the humanities, regardless of discipline or methodology, that brings ideas to the public sphere.
A digital cover of the journal Public Humanities.
“It’s scholarship written with fire and footnotes,” said Jeffrey R. Wilson, one of the journal’s co-founders and editors-in-chief, in a press release announcing the launch of Public Humanities. “The journal is a response to the complexity of contemporary societal challenges and the demand to demonstrate the societal impact of humanities research,” said Zoe Hope Bulatis, the journal’s second co-founder.
The first issue of Public Humanities, dubbed “The Manifesto Issue,” sought to “set an agenda for public humanities in the years ahead.” The forthcoming special issue edited by Ortiz is called “Public Humanities in Action” and seeks to highlight the practical work of the humanities in the world.
“The special issue will contribute directly to the journal’s larger goal of establishing the scope, depth, and variety of approaches that qualify work as genuinely within the field of the public humanities,” said Ortiz. “In particular, this issue will showcase a wide array of publicly-engaged projects modeling successful collaborations between university-based humanities scholars, often themselves working in teams, and community partner organizations.”
Ortiz, an expert on Latinx literatures and cultures within the United States, is excited by the global scope of “Public Humanities in Action.”
“At its current state of development, the field of public humanities relies heavily on a case-study approach to archive and disseminate information about what’s happened, what’s happening, and what’s possible going forward,” said Ortiz. “This special issue has the added advantage of collecting case studies from around the world and not just the United States, in keeping with the global reach of the Public Humanities journal.”
At Georgetown, Ortiz serves as the director of the M.A. Program in Engaged and Public Humanities, which launched in the fall of 2020.
“Editing this journal is a great opportunity to bring our program to the attention of Public Humanities’ global readership,” said Ortiz. “It’s also a great opportunity to complement work by some of our excellent core faculty, in particular Michelle May-Curry, who co-edited the Routledge Companion to Public Humanities Scholarship, and Heather Steffen, who has been working with a team of ENPH students on the creation of Interspaces, our own Georgetown-based public humanities journal.”
On the Hilltop, Georgetown has continued to invest in the humanities through the Georgetown Humanities Initiative, which works to promote interdisciplinary collaborations across the university. In October, the College of Arts & Sciences celebrated the opening of a dedicated space for the initiative in the university’s historic Old North building with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Ortiz hopes that “Public Humanities in Action” will not only catalyze a global conversation, but will continue to inspire Hoyas in the humanities.
“I hope the creativity, diversity, and impact of the projects we’ll showcase will in turn inspire the creation and execution of an ever wider, more diverse array of future projects,” said Ortiz. “‘Action’ is the keyword in our special issue’s title, and it should orient readers forward, toward that better future that endeavors like theirs might make possible.”
Georgetown celebrated the opening of a dedicated space for the Georgetown Humanities Initiative, a university-wide project that aims to promote and strengthen studies in the humanities.
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When Ricardo Ortiz was named president of the Association of Departments of English, the author, professor and former chair of Georgetown’s Department of English planned to use his year term as president to address and counteract structural inequities that persist in literary departments across the United States and beyond.
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