Amidst an era of increasing polarization, the Walter de Gruyter Foundation and 1014 launched a new trans-Atlantic series to take a closer look at some of the controversial terms that deepen the divides in our societies. Vitally important concepts come out of academic humanities and travel through our everyday lives. But sometimes these terms are intentionally mis-defined, like “critical race theory” or “white privilege,” and sometimes they are simplified to a point of misrepresentation of the work the term was meant to do, like “intersectionality” and “gender performance.”

Humanities for Humans strives to generate a better understanding of what the humanities are and what role they can play in today’s complex world. In each episode, two renowned experts from the academic world will engage in a moderated discussion on one of the prevalent concepts of our times such as racism and fascism, repair and reparation, identity politics, and transgender. Shedding light on their original roots and meaning, the humanities are re-energized for “humans”, particularly the way we live and interact with each other.      

 

Upcoming Events

 

Past Events

Turning Controversy into Connection

February 21, 2024

Seemingly everywhere we look these days, disagreement leads to estrangement and sometimes even to violence against those with a different opinion or personal identity. Increasingly in North America and around the world, we see this destructive pattern in the realms of politics, religion, healthcare, climate activism, civil society and more. Democracies seem to be wilting from lack of genuine interchange and compromise. How can educators support explorations of controversial subjects in ways that engage people’s hearts as well as minds? What tools of critique build connections rather than obstacles between people?

Legal scholar Martha Minow and choreographer, educator and writer Liz Lerman discussed such questions and offered examples that show how developing our capacities to find new routes and pathways to each other can be taken from classrooms and seminar rooms into the wider world. Moderated by Professor Irene Kacandes, Dartmouth College.

Virtual Talk: World on the Move

December 7, 2023

We’re told by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that more people are currently in motion across the planet than even during the previous peak in the wake of the Second World War.

Legal Scholar Dr. Kathryn Abrams, University of California, Berkeley and Migration and Racism Expert and Independent Scholar Dr. Mark Terkessidis, Berlin, Germany, addressed such questions as: Who is moving and why? From where? To where? Should we be differentiating among people on the move? Is there a human right to move? To move when your home is a war zone? An ecological disaster zone? An economic disaster zone? Can places to which migrants want to move accommodate them? Why are so many political parties on the right in receiving nations using migration issues to motivate voters? How do terms and narratives used for would be migrants affect what receiving populations think about them? Are “dangers” real or made up with regard to cultures being changed by incoming groups who don’t speak the currently dominant language or practice currently dominant religions? What roles have so-called “race” and the realities of multicultural societies played in the history of migration and play today? Moderated by Professor Irene Kacandes, Dartmouth College.

Discussion: Gender, Desire, Embodiment

October 18, 2023

Over the past decade or so, the emergence of terms like "non-binary" and expansions of the meaning of “queer sexuality,” have indicated a kind of loosening up of social values and prohibitions around non-normative expressions of embodiment. At the same time, however, new legislation around the country and globally seeks to prevent young people from accessing trans affirmative care and to limit sex education. Concerns about the widespread adoption of trans and non-binary forms of embodiment has initiated a panic of sorts among some conservatives, religious leaders and “family first” groups.

Poet Meg Fernandes and cultural critic Jack Halberstam discussed gender identification and sexual styles, while sharing new ways of talking about identity, the body, obedience and disobedience, community and its limits, fiction and fantasy, love, life and desire with the audience. Fernandes also read from her new book of poems, I Do Everything I’m Told (2023). Moderated by Irene Kacandes, Dartmouth College.

Discussion: Repair, Reparation, Refusal

May 10, 2023

The uneven distribution of the devastating losses of the last years due to the Covid-19 pandemic starkly revealed the legacies of structural racism, inequality, war, poverty, and climate change. Acts of mourning and memorialization also need to acknowledge these compounding inequalities, often dating back centuries.

Cultural studies experts Hortense Spillers and Marianne Hirsch discussed the connections between these traumatic histories and the responses of affected communities on both sides of the Atlantic.  They ask whether and how art, literature, architecture and public action can inspire struggles for repair and reparation, raising also the implications of the politics of refusal and abolition that some have recently adopted as a more appropriate reaction to continued dispossession and neglect. Moderated by Professor Irene Kacandes, German Studies and Comparative Literature, Dartmouth College.

Virtual Talk: Systemic Inequalities - Is Change Possible?

March 9, 2023

While we might believe that all humans are created equal, socially defined characteristics confer or withhold concrete privileges and opportunities that profoundly shape the quality of individual lives. And while we might want to see progress in statistics about average life expectancy or literacy rates, the gaps between rich and poor, haves and have nots are growing, not diminishing.  

Historian Robin D.G. Kelley, Distinguished Professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History at the University of California in Los Angeles, and cultural studies scholar Bruce Robbins, Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, discussed how intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity have historically produced and continue to create inequalities. Moderated by Professor Irene Kacandes, German Studies and Comparative Literature, Dartmouth College.

Virtual Talk: Imagining Anew the Future of the Earth

December 8, 2022

This trans-Atlantic conversation about climate change explored ancient and modern views of human relations to the earth from disciplines as seemingly different as legal studies and art, geography and ethics and from places as different as North America, Europe and Southeast Asia. While the “numbers” on climate change can pitch us into despair, these scholars offer hope that it is possible to change our individual and collective attitudes and behaviors in interacting with our environment—or at least to work toward such change. With Prof. Harriet Hawkins and Prof. Rebecca Tsosie. Moderated by Prof. Irene Kacandes.

Discussion: Racism and Fascism: A Love Story

September 27, 2022

Charges of being racist or fascist have filled the airwaves, cyberspace, and private and public discussions in our times of heightened crisis brought on by ultra-partisan politics and local and state violence. President Vladimir Putin’s justification for invading Ukraine to prevent the fascists from invading Russia is just the latest in perversions of history and current events. Featuring Professor Michael Hanchard, Political Scientist, University of Pennsylvania, and Professor Dagmar Herzog, Historian, CUNY Graduate School. Moderated by Professor Irene Kacandes, German Studies and Comparative Literature, Dartmouth College.

 

More episodes will be added on a rolling basis. Sign up for our newsletter to be notified.

Board of Advisors: “Humanities for Humans”


Jennifer F. Hamer, Penn State University
Professor of African American Studies and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Interim Associate Vice Provost for Educational Equity
Senior Faculty Mentor, Office of the Vice Provost for Educational Equity
Ph.D. in Sociology, University of Texas at Austin

Michael P. McDonald, University of Florida
Professor of Political Science
Ph.D. in Political Science, University of California at San Diego

Helmut Walser Smith, Vanderbilt University
Martha Rivers Ingram Professor of History
Ph.D. in History, Yale University

John H. McWhorter, Columbia University
Ph.D. in Linguistics, Stanford University

Manuela Gerlof, De Gruyter Foundation
Vice President Publishing, Humanities and Social Sciences, De Gruyter
Ph.D. in German Literature, Humboldt University Berlin

Katja Wiesbrock Donovan, 1014
Executive Director 1014
Ph.D. in International Law, University of Goettingen

Irene Kacandes, Dartmouth College, 1014 Board Member, De Gruyter book series editor
Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, Harvard University