A new quarterly journal aiming to bridge the gap between humanities research and everyday life has been launched by Cambridge University Press – with a University of Birmingham academic at the helm. Public Humanities was co-founded by Dr Zoe Hope Bulaitis, who will be the open-access journal’s Editor-in-Chief, and has a global advisory board of 102 academics.
“I am absolutely thrilled to be the inaugural Editor-in-Chief of Public Humanities,” says Dr Bulaitis, Assistant Professor in Liberal Arts and Natural Sciences at the College of Arts and Law. “The journal is a space to curate, represent, and evidence the value and diversity of humanities research.
“This journal, along with the identification of public humanities as an important theme in the 125th Anniversary Fellow and Chair appointments, is a clear sign that the University of Birmingham will be a central hub for emerging and ongoing intellectual discussions about the public humanities in the twenty-first century.”
The first issue – published later this year – will be called ‘The Manifesto Issue’ and looks to address the status and stakes of public humanities today, including understanding what it means, how it should be supported and what the future holds for the emerging field. The journal is currently inviting submissions of articles of between 1,000 and 3,000 words, with initial 300-word abstracts for consideration to be sent via email by 1 April.
This open access and international journal creates a global platform to share ground-breaking work in socially-engaged and civic humanities but also foster meaningful dialogue and collaboration within our scholarly community at the University of Birmingham and beyond. I am grateful for the opportunity to lead this initiative and eagerly invite contributions from scholars worldwide to join us in shaping the future of public humanities research.
Dr Zoe Hope Bulaitis, Assistant Professor in Liberal Arts and Natural Sciences
