Description
The idea to bring knowledge resources to people where they live seems to have originated in 1905 in Maryland with a mobile library operated out of the back of a wagon. More than a century later—even in our contemporary era of virtuality—the idea still has power and utility. Updating the “bookmobile” for the 21 st century, American University (AU) has developed a concept for a “Humanities Truck.” Not a van with books, the Truck is a humanities laboratory on wheels, equipped with state-of-the-art technology and designed to support collaboration between scholars and communities.
During discussions about the future of the humanities at the University and the challenges those fields faced, faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences brainstormed two ideas: an internally-focused Humanities Lab—now operating—that would help faculty make connections across disciplines and departments and an externally-oriented Humanities Truck that would connect AU to its host community of Washington, DC.
Project leaders believe the Truck would serve several purposes simultaneously. First, it would provide a group of scholars at the University with a critical tool to advance their research. AU is home to vital Public History and Communications programs. Faculty in those programs have already developed projects for the Truck, including an urban art project utilizing archival streetscape images and an oral history of the nation’s largest homeless shelter, which is next to the Capitol. The project team plans to reach out beyond Public History and Communications to others in Arts and Sciences as well as to the schools of education, business and public affairs. (The Humanities Truck team is working closely with AU’s Institutional Review Board to ensure that all projects that will utilize the Truck have the necessary approvals.)
Second, the Truck would support the University’s graduate programs—especially the Public History program. The presence of the Truck will attract students to the program and give them access to a unique tool for learning. As important, it will enable the University to provide humanities graduate students with a different perspective on research and the role of research subjects. The humanities have traditionally emphasized text-based scholarship; the Truck will create opportunities for field-based research and for collaboration with the subjects of research—an approach that will yield very different projects and results.
Finally, the Truck would extend the University’s reach throughout the city of Washington. Already, AU is well-connected to Washington’s policy and political communities; the Humanities Truck would permit it to establish relationships with the city’s less nationally-visible communities. And not simply connect with these communities, the Truck would also provide them access to the tools of humanistic investigation and expression, empowering them as well as serving the needs of academic researchers.
The first five projects that the Truck would host—illustrative of the theme, “Dwelling and Mobility”—have already been identified. During the first year, when the first projects are underway, the project team will reach out to faculty across the College of Arts and Sciences and beyond to educate them about the Truck and to invite proposals for additional community-based research projects. The Truck can also be used for graduate research projects and in undergraduate and graduate courses. Grant-funded faculty research projects and undergraduate courses would contribute funds for the operation of the Truck, enabling it to remain viable beyond the period of the grant.
The Truck will house audio and video recording, viewing, and projection equipment, a powerful computer and scanner, a wireless hotspot, light furniture, including a tent and an outdoor screen, and more.
The Luce Foundation’s grant would enable American University’s College of Arts and Sciences to fit out the Truck, cover a number of project-related expenses, and hire a part-time program associate and assistant (both graduate students) who will manage the truck and equipment, the projects, and outreach to the University community. The work of the program associate and assistant will be overseen by a program director who is a tenured faculty member in the history department. AU will cover insurance, maintenance, fuel, etc.
Recommendation: That the Directors of the Henry Luce Foundation approve a three-year grant of $225,000 to American University to support the Humanities Truck, a public humanities initiative in the District of Columbia.
Approved by Board: November 2, 2017
