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[DRAFT] Course Catalog 2025-2026 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Public Humanities Integrative Concentration
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The integrative concentration consists of a minimum of 5.5 full courses (or the equivalent), 2 demonstrated skill competencies, 1 experiential component, and 1 learning portfolio.
Note: Students must earn minimum grades of C- or P for all courses that apply toward the integrative concentration.
The public humanities integrative concentration will engage students in both learning and doing. In coursework across the humanities disciplines, students will learn to theorize and critically interrogate the ways in which the humanities offer tools to engage with communities and address contemporary issues. Through experiential learning requirements, they will practice public humanities by doing the work of translating humanities scholarship for diverse publics, working with community organizations on public projects, and creating humanities resources such as oral history archives and digital projects.
 Visit the concentration’s web page for more information.
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Note(s) on Requirements
- If a student wishes to count a course that is not listed below toward the concentration, they can petition the concentration chair(s) for approval to apply the completed or in-progress course toward their concentration.
- In planning their schedules, students should be aware that some of the courses listed below have prerequisites.
Detailed Integrative Concentration Requirements
Public Humanities Integrative Concentration Course Lists
Community-Based Learning Courses
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The community engaged courses will offer students hands-on experience in working with communities on public humanities projects. Students in these courses will practice engaging the public in conversation and reflection on issues and ideas related to humanities scholarship. Classes that meet this criteria will typically be specifically designated as Community-Based Learning (CBL) courses in the catalog.
Theory and Methods Courses
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Theory and Methods courses either theorize or historicize how humanities scholarship has been put to work in the world or critically interrogate how knowledge production in humanities disciplines or humanistic institutions (museums, archives, etc.) has been shaped by power relations and practices such as colonialism, racism, and sexism.
- AAST 126 - Archives ReImagined
- ANTH 460 - Museum Anthropology
- ARTH 270 - Africa, Europe, and the Art of Colonization
- ARTH / EAST 329 - Cultural Property? Art, Heritage, Ownership
- CAST / GSFS 309 - Performing America
- CAST / GSFS 313 - Archives and Affects
- ENGL 290 - Shakespearean Comedy and Social Justice
- ENGL 299 - What is Literature: Introduction to the Advanced Study of Literature
- ENGL 357 - Inventing America: Histories of the Book, Archive, and Empire
- HIST 207 - Cinema, Memory, and Politics in Egypt
- HIST 435 - Museums: A Social, Political, and Institutional History
- HIST 493 - Repairing the Past: Readings in Historical Justice
- MUSY 333 - The Racial Politics of Classical Music
Public Humanities Elective Courses
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Public humanities elective courses help students learn how to translate humanities scholarship for a public audience through their assignments or instruction. Students in these classes might be asked to do outward-facing writing for the general public, to curate physical or virtual exhibits, to produce podcasts or videos based on humanities research, or to use digital tools to communicate humanistic knowledge.
Demonstrated Skill Competencies
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Concentrators are required to demonstrate competency in at least two of the skills or practices that are commonly employed in the field of Public Humanities. Students may acquire experience with these skills through an academic course, a Winter Term project, or an internship experience. Concentrators will consult with one of the curricular committee co-chairs about their plans to develop specific skills and will demonstrate and document their competency in their required digital learning portfolio.
Example areas of competency are:
- Communicating with Diverse Publics/Public Speaking
- Curation and Exhibition Building
- Digital Humanities Tools such as Omeka, Scalar, ArcGIS, StoryMaps
- Grant Writing
- Interviews and Oral History Methodology
- Museum Interpretation (i.e., label writing or programming that serves to support interpretation)
- Project Management
- Public Programming for Community Audiences
- Sonic Storytelling (Podcasting, etc.)
- Translation: Translating Humanities Scholarship for a Public Audience
- Video Storytelling
- Writing Across Platforms (Social Media)
Experiential Component
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Students are required to pursue an internship, work experience, or an approved Winter Term project in the field of public humanities. Internship and work opportunities, which can take place on-campus or off-campus, will provide students important practical experience in the area and enable them to explore different career pathways in the field. All hands-on experiences must be full-time for a minimum duration of 4 weeks (or one Winter Term).
Students are encouraged to pursue an internship through joining a relevant career community in such areas as Arts and Creative Professions; Education; Music Leadership; and Nonprofit and the Public Sector. Many museums, cultural, and advocacy organizations offer internships that would be suitable for concentrators.
Campus or local opportunities may include:
Faculty involved in the concentration are also working with different public humanities organizations to craft internships that would be suitable for concentrators. Reflection Point, an organization that uses short stories to encourage small groups to discuss challenging civic issues, is interested in partnering with Oberlin on student experiential opportunities. The Fenton History Center in upstate New York and the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library and Museum in Fremont, Ohio are also eager to have Oberlin students as public humanities interns.
Learning Portfolio
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Concentrators are required to maintain a digital learning portfolio that will include signature course work, evidence of competency in two public humanities skills, and documentation of their experiential learning opportunity. Students will begin their portfolio as soon as they begin the concentration and will use it to chronicle and reflect upon their interests in the field and the synergy between their course work, their engaged practice with communities, and their internship or other experiential learning. Students will also document and showcase their public humanities work and their skill competencies in their learning portfolio. Portfolios will be reviewed by two members of the concentration advisory group upon completion of the integrative concentration requirements.
Public Humanities Integrative Concentration Advisory Group
Sebastiaan Faber, Professor of Hispanic Studies; co-chair
Jennifer A. Fraser, Professor of Ethnomusicology; co-chair
Corey L. Barnes, Robert S. Danforth Associate Professor of Religion
Laura J. Baudot, Associate Professor of English and Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; ex officio
KJ Cerankowski, Associate Professor of Comparative American Studies and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies
Thomas Dawkins, Director of the Bonner Center; ex officio
Hsiu-Chuang Deppman, Professor of East Asian Studies
Hannah Wirta Kinney, Curator of Academic Programs; ex officio
Charles F. Peterson, Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Director of the Lemle Center
Matthew F. Rarey, Associate Professor of African and Black Atlantic Art History
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