Jessica Holmes Workspace

Public Activism in the Humanities

This seminar examines the relationship between activism and scholarship by exploring the history of public activism, the different genres and forms of activism, the deployment of social media in today’s climate, the methods of tracking public outreach and mobilization, and the types of texts that lay the groundwork for and emerge from activism. Emphasis will be placed on current environmental activism, but the seminar will seek to engage and compare a variety of social movements including human rights, Black Lives Matter, indigenous peoples’ rights, disability rights, #MeToo, Occupy Wall Street and animal rights.