New Humanities Lab

The New Humanities Lab is a program of the IU Indianapolis Arts and Humanities Institute (IAHI). It starts from the premise that humanities scholarship is always becoming new again, with questions, methods, and practices that are ever-evolving. The humanities are always being reborn because our lived worlds are constantly in flux—and the humanities is about engaging with these lived worlds.

The “New Humanities” approach begins by identifying a problem and looking at it through the lenses of philosophy, history, literature, religious studies, and more to address this problem—engaging with and drawing from the vast array of speculative and critical possibilities suggested by those concerned with understanding and interpreting human expression and social practices. The types of problems addressed in a “New Humanities” project might be grounded in the day-to-day of mundane existence, or it might be centered on abstract concepts, such as value or truth. It might be a question that attempts to better understand how we think about self, or it might address how we tell stories that express deeper meanings. It might be concerned with the practice of justice, or it might be focused on the nature of existence. Unlike other approaches to inquiry, the “New Humanities” need not solve a problem in any simple sense. Rather, the path to addressing the problem might be an end in itself, important because it opens up new ways of thinking about, experiencing, and acting in the world.

The “New Humanities” is defined by its expansiveness. It emphasizes the capacity of the humanities to engage with deep pasts, deep futures, and all the moments between. While “New Humanities” recognizes the value of disciplinary expertise in addressing problems, it is not beholden to disciplinary approaches. While it is linked to the traditions of logic, rhetoric, and philology, it embraces the possibilities offered by the digital humanities, community engaged scholarship, or new materialism.

The “New Humanities” does not make the case for the relevance of the humanities. It operates from the principle that the humanities are always essential to contemporary society.

The “New Humanities” does not frame the humanities through instrumentalist justifications for their existence. While the humanities might drive democratic citizenship, the economy, self-development, empathy, equity, ethics, and more, their worth is not reducible to any single utilitarian framework.

The operating principle of the New Humanities Lab @ the IAHI is recognizing that the humanities constitute a cluster of ways of questioning, ways of knowing, ways of narrating, ways of being, ways of critiquing, and ways of imagining the world that are

1. fundamental to understanding ourselves and engaging with other humans, other-than-human creatures, and living systems.
2. essential to imagining and crafting new social, cultural, political, and environmental futures.
3. complementary, but not reducible, to those in STEM and the arts.
4. central to narrating the story of our pasts, presents, and futures.
5. key to transcending localisms while still recognizing the rich diversity of lived experiences around the globe.

The New Humanities Lab aligns with the strategic goal of IU 2030 to promote student learning and success. Participation in high impact learning practices—specifically that of long-term, personal engagement through research with faculty and peers—enhances students’ experiences, sense of belonging on campus, and retention. Moreover, participation in long-term, community engaged research projects gives students the opportunity to develop community connections as well as the opportunity to develop portfolios.

The New Humanities Lab extends the work of the Institute for Engaged Learning by creating humanities-centered research and learning opportunities for undergraduate students. The lab will work with the institute to design a framework for evaluating impact and program success.