Humanities Works
Making an impact with the humanities

Research & New Knowledge

Humanities scholars study historical texts, art, languages, histories. These investigations reveal truths about our experience in the present, as much as they inform us of human experience in the past. Stories in this section will highlight researchers who explore the unknown through humanities methodologies and in collaboration with other disciplines.

Man testing VR

Humanities research is familiar to most people in the form of books and creative works that provide analysis, interpretation and critique of philosophy, history, literature, music, languages, culture, and the arts. We study this research and creative output in school and in college. Throughout human history, the work of humanities scholars has formed an essential foundation for knowledge and education.

In collaboration with other disciplines, humanities methods can unlock insights into quantum physics, artificial intelligence, and neuroscience, among many other unexpected collaborations. Yet most people consider the humanities to be an investigation of the past, something a person experiences in the library.

Stories in this section will include The Shaping of Knowledge: Bridging Physics and Literary Theory, and The Artist as Explorer: Transformational Science and Artistic Perception. These projects highlight researchers who explore the unknown through humanities methodologies in collaboration with other disciplines.

HumIn Focus

As part of the Humanities Institute’s mission to publicize the social relevance of Humanities scholarship, we present HumIn Focus, an educational web series that asks scholars to reflect on the ideas lying behind pressing social issues. In each episode, we ask scholars to reflect on ideas in their work in ways that expand and enrich questions of current concern. In so doing, we hope to both broaden and deepen conversations about those questions in ways that emphasize how what we do in the Humanities matters crucially for all of us.

Learn more about HumIn Focus by visiting hi.psu.edu/humin-focus/

Getting to Know A.I.: Are We Asking the Wrong Questions? - HumIn Focus

A.I. has emerged as a force in culture today with the power to do immense good and immense harm. Journalists and other commentators have focused on the technological glitz of these new mechanisms and foregrounded the perspectives of their creators and their cheerleaders. In this episode we ask a different set of questions about how A.I. is already at work in our everyday life and what responsible deliberation about the potentials of these tools would look like. While engineers and entrepreneurs have often been driven to achieve greater speed and efficiency, our humanities focus asks about the implications of A.I. and what offloading tasks once done by human beings might mean for virtue, ethics and the good life.

Stories

The Shaping of Knowledge: Quantum Physics and Literary Theory – coming soon...

The Artist as Explorer: Transformational Science and Artistic Perception – coming soon...