After many months of planning, AU’s College of Arts and Sciences launched the Humanities Lab this January.
The Humanities Lab is a cross-disciplinary program aimed at integrating humanities studies into current cultural and social dilemmas.
The Humanities Lab aims to incorporate AU faculty and student research on issues pertaining to humanities. Studies in humanities focus on the ways in which humans record the human experience--through art, literature, language, religion and history. Each semester, the lab will focus on a different theme in the humanities, based on student and faculty interests and discussion. This semester the program will entail thematic monthly lectures about media and geographies.
“Instead of thinking of the Humanities as an aside to the modern world, we think of it as the center,” said professor Despina Kakoudaki, director of the Humanities Lab.
The Humanities Lab originated from efforts to showcase and expand the Humanities Department at AU, Kakoudaki said. The department sometimes goes unrecognized, despite its varied programs, in D.C. universities where politics and social sciences are the focus, she said.
“What happens at AU and other other universities in the area is that the connections to the government, to the capital, to the law and to international relations are showcased, but then all of these universities have amazing humanities programs except that the humanities program is not the first thing you know about at AU or George Washington [University] or Georgetown [University],” Kakoudaki said. “We wanted to figure out a way to house humanities and put into practice show off how great.”
The Humanities Lab had its first event, a lecture about the Internet, on Jan. 21, propelling the program into full swing for the semester.
The lecture series schedule for the rest of the semester on this semester theme of media and geographies includes:
- Fables of De-Patriation: Undocumented Others in Cary Fukunaga's ‘Sin Nombre’ March 25 at 3 p.m.
- The Humanities Truck project April 8 at 1 p.m.
Leo Zausen, a senior in CAS, said he thought that the Humanities Lab was a special addition to the Humanities department.
“I haven't really seen anything like this at AU before,” Zausen said. “This is a concrete, interdisciplinary approach to education which acknowledges the faults of the humanities and tries to work around that through innovative, interdisciplinary themes that you probably wouldn’t even get in an introductory level humanities course.”
Kakoudaki and other faculty involved in the Humanities Lab envisioned opportunities for students to receive academic credit for attending lectures and conducting a project alongside or under her supervision. Although students showed interest in receiving credit through the program, there are no students during the spring 2015 semester who are expected to take it for credit because the program is still in its beginning stages.
“If I was not a graduating senior, I would definitely take it for credit,” Zausen said. “It’s a good form of alternative education.”
Zausen and Kakoudaki agree that the Humanities Lab offers an opportunity to explore the importance of humanities in current social and cultural life.
“We believe the humanities is so central to our experience, both in terms of university experience and cultural experience,” Kakoudaki said. “The humanities become a meeting ground for many different disciplines.”
