As we look back on the year, we want to thank you—the students, faculty, staff, and community members who made this all possible. Please read on for a few highlights and stories from this past year.

We're excited to announce the book selection for the 2022-23 Great World Texts in Wisconsin program: the 2018 novel There There by Tommy Orange, American novelist and citizen of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma.

In addition to the Great World Texts activities, Orange will deliver a Humanities Without Boundaries lecture that is free and open to all, presented in partnership with Wisconsin Book Festival. We'll share more details soon.

There There is a multi-generational, relentlessly paced story about a side of America few have seen: the lives of urban Native Americans. One of The New York Times' top books of 2018 and a Pulitzer Prize finalist, There There shows us violence and recovery, hope and loss, identity and power, dislocation and communion, and the beauty and despair woven into the history of a nation and its people. Orange talks about his craft, the writing process, and Native American history and culture.

Apply now for the next Great World Texts program: Applications are open for the 2022-23 program, in which high school teachers and students throughout the state will read and engage with Tommy Orange's novel There There. Applications from lead teachers are due by July 1; please access the form here.

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man in Wisconsin

Over 1,000 high school students at 20 schools across the state of Wisconsin read and responded to James Weldon Johnson's 1912 novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, for the 17th year of the Great World Texts in Wisconsin program. The text examines racial violence, social injustice, and the controversial practice of "passing". Johnson’s novel was selected to enable students and their teachers to compare and explore the continuities between the historical past and their own present.

In April, we convened a virtual student conference to discuss Johnson’s novel. Students shared their original artwork, dances, maps, podcasts, and songs with others, including the above piece, Face of a Dealt Hand, from America H. at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School Milwaukee. Student projects are archived on our digital conference program and social media at @greatworldtexts and #excoloredwi.

Each year, we invite applications for the Mellon Public Humanities Graduate Fellowship, designed to provide advanced graduate students in the humanities with experience outside of academia. By placing fellows in community partner organizations around Madison, the program facilitates the reciprocal sharing of resources and expertise, and highlights the significance of the humanities both on and off campus.

Vincent R. Ogoti, PhD candidate in African Cultural Studies, will join MYArts (Madison Youth Arts Center) as a Storytelling and Community Access Fellow.

Kimberly Rooney, PhD candidate in French & Italian, will join the League of Women Voters of Dane County as a Leadership Development Fellow.

Fatima Sartbay, PhD candidate in the Folklore Program, will join CEOs of Tomorrow as a Youth Empowerment Fellow.

Richelle Wilson, PhD candidate in German, Nordic, Slavic +, will join Midwest Environmental Advocates as a Public Narratives Fellow.

We hosted or co-sponsored more than 35 events and workshops during the 2021-22 academic year to engage our campus, community, and beyond, including Sharon Marcus, Henry Jenkins III, Robert S. Levine, Jason De León, Sara Ahmed, Stephen Kantrowitz, Ato Quayson, Bill Nye, and Caroline Randall Williams.

This included two Humanities NOW conversations, which provide intellectual resources for understanding complex and urgent events. In March, we discussed Policing, Violence, and Surveillance: Local, Historical, and Legal Perspectives, hosted at the UW South Madison Partnership. In April, we held a virtual event, Humanities NOW: Russia's Invasion of Ukraine, with speakers from UW-Madison and UW-Platteville.

Get on the list: We intend to mail a print brochure in late summer featuring our 2022-23 events calendar. To update your address or join the mailing list, please send your address to: events_humanities@wisc.edu

As we chart our upcoming and future events seasons, who would you like to hear from? The suggestions we receive from you will help our Steering Committee, composed of faculty and community partners, create a slate of exciting and diverse speakers.

Since the start of the pandemic, Humanities Responders have created humanistic social justice projects that serve and bolster community organizations addressing the invisible crises of the pandemic. We continue these projects via the Graduate Public Humanities Exchange (HEX) program and HEX-U program for undergraduates. These students demonstrate (in a very real way) the necessity of public humanities partnerships as essential projects of hope that reflect the importance of the humanities and the Wisconsin Idea in challenging times.

Here's a few highlights of recent student projects:

Connor Cameron is passionate about both medicine and social reform, which led him to meet other like-minded EMS professionals during the summer 2019 protests. This inspired him to create Madison Medical Activist Corps (M-MAC), a coalition of activist-oriented and community-focused EMS practitioners. For his HEX-U project, Connor aimed to bridge the gap between community organizations and EMS volunteers who wish to assist them. Community partners broadcast events and protests to M-MAC members, and EMS volunteers are coordinated to respond, to increase the efficacy and safety of community events.

Olivia Mockert partnered with Rosenow Elementary School to create an engaging math concepts book for second and third graders, drawing on her art and design background. Olivia writes:

Lucas Glander, Hanna Noughani, and Amanda Stezenski created a HEX-U project called, Sounding the Wisconsin Idea Through Commissioning and Recording Chamber Music. The students recognized the importance of collaboration even during a global pandemic and formed the Magnolia Trio. The woodwind trio has worked extensively on recording pieces individually and editing them together to create engaging online performances, despite not meeting in person. Magnolia Trio writes:

Madeline Walaszek collaborated with Madison Reading Project to help establish and expand their Little Free Library program. Madeline writes:

Lily Herling created a Flash project, Postcards from a World Without Fossil Fuels, a collaboration between Campus Leaders for Energy Action Now (CLEAN) and Sara Meredith, a local print artist. (Flash projects are typically smaller scale and/or have a shorter timeline than traditional HEX-U projects.) Lily writes:

Sophia Abrams partnered with Little Picassos, an arts enrichment organization, to develop art classes based on her student historian research on Black artists in Madison. A key part of the Little Picassos mission is that every child is an artist when granted access to art materials and education. The impetus of Sophia’s HEX-U project stems from the understanding that for there to be Black artists, access to art education and support is imperative. Sophia received a 2022 Lyman S.V. Judson and Ellen Mackechnie Judson Student Award in the Creative Arts for her project, from the UW-Madison Division of the Arts.

Austen Wallenfang is interested in the built environment and the design of things around him. For his HEX-U project, Austen focused on the George L. Mosse Humanities Building, an "incredibly maligned structure that is loved by some and hated by others," he writes. Austen is working with the Wisconsin Historical Society, the UW Madison Public History Project, and University Campus Planning to deliver a thoughtful consideration of the structure and space. The output of this project is a book about the building which will be permanently housed at the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Thom Van Camp and Iseult Gillespie (both are PhD candidates in Literary Studies)

In partnership with Black Umbrella, a local collective working to dismantle institutionalized racism, Thom and Iseult helped establish a library at the collective's headquarters, and documented their process along the way. The HEX project is a direct response to Black Umbrella's call for educational material focused on racial justice, equity, and financial literacy. In the long term, the library will act as an organizational hub: a space for community education and consciousness-raising. Thom writes:

Diego Alegria Corona (PhD candidate in Literary Studies)

Diego led weekly translation workshops with Madison high school students, who prepared a poetry reading and a cartonera publication (physical and digitalized) of their English translations of two South American poets based in the U.S.: Ida Vitale and Óscar Hahn. Diego writes:

Garett Zastoupil (PhD candidate in Civil Society and Community Research)

This HEX project, in collaboration with Dakota Resource Council, a rural organizing group in North Dakota, is working in North Dakota Coal Country to understand residents’ hopes, fears, and desires for the future, and bring community members together to collectively think about a post-coal future using a series of virtual community forums. Garret writes: