The Public Humanities Conference

Date: Friday 11 November and Saturday 12 November, 2016
Venues (Adelaide CBD):
Friday: Hetzel Lecture Theatre, Institute Building, State Library of South Australia (corner of North Terrace and Kintore Ave)
Saturday: Flinders in the City, Level 10, 182 Victoria Square, Adelaide (corner Flinders St and Victoria Square).
Registration: Registration is free. Register here.
Enquiries and further information: Email: Tully Barnett, or check the ACHRC website: http://www.achrc.net/annual-meetings/2016-annual-meeting/

The ‘Public Humanities’ conference will focus on a core aspect of humanities research that is particularly germane to research centres in universities and collecting institutions: the integral role of engagement with publics. This is really how the impact of our sector needs to be understood: in the long and dynamic threads of dialogue between researchers and publics on issues such as justice, creativity, decolonisation and heritage. The capacity of the humanities to deal with qualitative emotion as well as the quantitative facts of history and culture is crucial here. Any understanding of a cultures past, present and future requires an articulation of feelings as well as of facts.

Our aim is to bring together speakers with practical experience of programs that work so that our discussions are grounded in the pragmatics of public humanities. In Australia and New Zealand, government-led discussions of innovation and impact are mired in metrics that traduce the real public values of the sciences almost as completely as they ignore the HASS disciplines as a whole. We know about public value – its impact over time and in the lives of individuals – so this conference will be an opportunity build our case as a sector.

This meeting is sponsored by the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, The Australian Consortium of Humanities Research Centres and Flinders University.