How do we transform the landscape around us through stories, images, memories, and experiences? In this discussion, Professor Dan Kerr introduces an innovative project for truly mobilizing the humanities!
The Humanities Truck
Dan Kerr, Nina Shapiro-Perl, Juliana Martinez
Wednesday April 8, 2014, 1 p.m.
Battelle-Tompkins 228
How do we mobilize the humanities, and connect with the community in ways that are innovative, uncharted, and truly on the move? Functioning as a mobile workshop, recording studio, and exhibit space, the Humanities Truck will document experiences, start conversations, and share the stories of diverse, underserved communities in the Washington, DC, region. For this lunchtime roundtable discussion, the interdisciplinary team of faculty behind this exciting project will present their first projects and aims. As an experimental mobile platform for collecting, preserving, and expanding dialogue around the humanities, the Humanities Truck will work with specific micro-communities throughout the region, in order to recognize and enhance the existing cultural creativity in communities that are typically devalued, and foster imaginative new ways of addressing community challenges in the midst of rapid urban change.
Update, 2018: The Humanities Truck Project began as an idea that was cultivated by one of the Humanities Lab’s very first working groups. Today the Lab and the Truck work closely together to mobilize the humanities at American University and throughout Washington, DC. To find out more about the current initiatives and projects related to the Humanities Truck please visit their new website:
