Arts and Humanities on the Edge

It is no secret that enrollment in arts and humanities courses is down, all across academia. Professors have been laid off, and whole departments have been eliminated in the past several years, as universities market their education as explicit career training, and students flock to majors that promise a smooth, linear path to a lucrative job. Many observers have wondered what future, if any, exists for the arts and humanities in higher education.

But go to the edges of our society, and you’ll find a different view. When art and literature, philosophy and religion are brought into prisons, homeless shelters and halfway houses, the results can be astonishing, and there are many from those worlds who will testify to the literally life-saving power of these supposedly useless, ornamental explorations. How to reconcile these realities? What are the arts and humanities for, and what can institutions like Harvard learn about them from the experience of those pushed to the edge of American life?  
To address these questions, the Public Culture Project is delighted to host James Parker, Atlantic columnist and long-time director of the Black Seed Writers Group, a weekly writing workshop for homeless and housing-insecure Bostonians. He will be joined by Hilary Binda, who leads Tufts University’s degree-granting prison initiative. Harvard's own James Wood will be moderating the conversation.