PAST EVENTS
Humanities Action Lab Hosts 2023 National Convening: "Communities Joining Forces to Address Climate Crisis"
October 26, 2023
The Humanities Action Lab organized the 2023 National Convening, themed "Communities Joining Forces," bringing together organizers, scholars, and students from ten communities at the forefront of the climate crisis.
Participants hailing from diverse regions, ranging from Merced, California, to Magaguez, Puerto Rico, converged in Newark to exchange stories and strategies while establishing connections with their peers nationwide. The event aimed to foster collaboration and the sharing of knowledge to collectively address the pressing climate crisis.
The program for the day included discussions on designing a trans-local campus, where students, scholars, and organizers from across the country can learn from and support each other. Additionally, participants engaged in the development of a collective public memory project that interconnects their stories, fostering a sense of collective action and solidarity.
This National Convening served as a vital platform for those on the front lines of the climate crisis to collaborate, learn from each other's experiences, and work together to create a more sustainable future. It was a dynamic and insightful gathering of passionate individuals committed to addressing the challenges of climate change.
Workshop on Mutually Supportive Learning Relationships Through Mutual Mentorship
March 31, 2023
Workshop at UM-Baltimore: March 31, 2023 from 1:00-3:00 pm EST
Dresher Center for the Humanities
Facilitated by Leora Fuller
This workshop was co-facilitated by HAL’s Learning and Coalition Facilitator Leora Fuller, alongside Mastress (Workers Revolutionary Collective, Philadelphia) and Melody Magly (Brick City Mutual Aid, Newark), and introduced the idea of “mutual mentorship.” Mutual Mentorship is a way to build mutually supportive learning relationships in our classrooms, organizations, and the rest of our lives.
Participants were able to…
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Connect with a mutual mentor and/or people doing mentorship work within the session
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Tell stories about their shared needs
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Imagine specific ways to meet those needs
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Learn across traditional personal and institutional barriers
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Build solidarity with each other and ignite future collaborations
Together they grew collaborative relationships in the region with institutions and community partners who are dedicated to ethical, sustainable and mutually supportive action.
Translocal Learning Studio (TLS)
Spring 2021
HAL’s Translocal Learning Studio (TLS) was a virtual studio for developing and expanding accountable, transformative, and community-centered learning practices that activate history and memory for justice-centered movements and mutual aid in the current moment. This studio was “translocal,” a core tenet of HAL that honors the unique circumstances, autonomy, and tools of hyperlocal organizing and supported building reciprocal learning relationships between these localities across the world.
In the TLS, participants engaged as both teachers and learners to collaboratively experiment with exercises, workshops, readings/media, and other forms that challenge what teaching and practicing justice-centered public history can and should be. The “course” included structures for intentional, reciprocal mentoring to facilitate a lasting learning community. It generated community curated resources and model practices collaboratively designed by members.
Spring TLS Sessions:
TLS Session 1--Mutual Mentorship: April 1, 1:30-3pm EST
TLS Session 2--Mutual Aid Storytelling: April 8, 1:30-3pm EST
TLS Session 3--Transforming Learning Spaces: April 22, 1:30-3pm EST
Fall 2020
The Humanities Action Lab opened a virtual studio for developing and expanding anti-racist, decolonial, and community-centered learning practices that activate history and memory for justice-centered movements and mutual aid in the current moment. This studio is “translocal,” a core tenet of HAL that honors the unique circumstances, autonomy, and tools of hyperlocal organizing and supports building reciprocal learning relationships between these localities across the world. The pilot “course” for Fall 2020 consisted of 6-8 online modular sessions and included undergraduate/graduate students, members of community organizations, and faculty from HAL’s 20+ partner communities. Participants engaged as both teachers and learners, to collaboratively experiment with exercises, workshops, readings/media, and other forms that challenge what teaching and practicing justice-centered public history can and should be.
Fall TLS Sessions:
TLS Session 1: October 15, 2020
TLS Session 2: October 29, 2020
TLS Session 3: November 12, 2020
TLS Session 4: December 3, 2020
TLS Session 5: December 17, 2020
You can find the video recordings of our first session, second session, and third session.
Climates of Inequality and COVID: Stories from Frontline Communities
Summer 2020
The Humanities Action Lab invited all of its partners—students, frontline organizers, community members, exhibit hosts, faculty, etc.—to contribute to a collective mass-listening project designed to record the impacts of COVID-19 on frontline communities. Summer Storytelling events were held online throughout the summer.
Summer Storytelling Sessions:
Session 1: Storytelling Today; June 25, 2020
Session 2: Storytelling Today; July 9, 2020
Session 3: Reimagining Our Learning and Teaching; July 30, 2020
Session 4: Storytelling and Media Making; August 20, 2020
Session 5: Exhibitions & Public Programs; September 17, 2020
HAL International Launch Convening
October 30 - November 1, 2019
Why does the past matter for the future of climate change? Leading advocates, scholars, and students from over 20 cities joined together to launch a memory movement for climate justice. These are the creators of Climates of Inequality: Stories of Environmental Justice, a multi-media installation created through collaborations between universities and frontline communities from Newark to New Orleans.
HAL International Convening
November 1-3, 2018
HAL's university and community partners came together with Newark community members and environmental justice issue experts to plan HAL's next project on climate and environmental justice.
HAL International Convening
October 18-21, 2017
HAL's university and community partners, along with leading scholars, activists, and organizers in criminal justice and climate justice, came together to reflect on HAL's most recent project, States of Incarceration, and strategize for the next initiative. Read more
PRESS
CLIMATES OF INEQUALITY
News at Indiana University | Bantz Community Fellowship project explores environmental injustice in Indianapolis
January 14, 2024
The IUPUI 2023 Charles R. Bantz Community Fellowship will support a traveling exhibition and series of public conversations that explore the history of environmental injustice in Indianapolis. Elizabeth Kryder-Reid, Chancellor’s Professor of Anthropology and Museum Studies in the IU School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI, and Laura Holzman, professor and public scholar of curatorial practices and visual art in the IU Herron School of Art & Design and IU School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI, were awarded the fellowship for their project “Indy Toxic Heritage: Pollution, Place and Power.” Read more
UIC Today | Climates of Inequality exhibition opens at Chicago Justice Gallery
November 7, 2023
The Chicago Climates of Inequality exhibition, featuring stories of environmental justice and community resilience, was organized by the UIC Rafael Cintrón Ortiz Latino Cultural Center and Social Justice Initiative in partnership with community organizations Alianza Americas and Little Village Environmental Justice Organization. Read More
Read more press on Climates of Inequality
STATES OF INCARCERATION
Charlotte Observer | Local museums roll out exhibits on dinosaurs, the Charlotte Hornets and Grier Heights
September 13, 2023
Science and cultural museums in Charlotte have upcoming exhibits for the new arts and culture season that feature groups as different as historic city neighborhoods, the Charlotte Hornets and dinosaurs. Officials with the Charlotte Museum of History, Discovery Place and Levine Museum of the New South discussed with The Charlotte Observer the exhibits they are looking forward to, new programming for visitors and shared challenges. Read more
Epicenter NYC | How Should Rikers be Remembered?
May 30, 2023
Rikers Island will no longer exist after 2027. By law, New York City will close Rikers and replace it with four also controversial borough-based jails. Some will remember Rikers by its headlines - dead inmates, failed attempts at reform, negligence. Read More
Read more press on States of Incarceration
GUANTÁNAMO PUBLIC MEMORY PROJECT
The Guardian | Destroying the notorious Camp X-Ray at Guantánamo is a huge mistake
March 12, 2018
The Pentagon this week announced it will tear down Camp X-Ray, the first temporary facility at Guantánamo where “enemy combatants” were imprisoned in 2002. Despite a US federal court’s preservation order, the Pentagon argued it did not need to preserve the physical site because the FBI has created a 3D digital reconstruction. Read More
Read more press on the Guantánamo Public Memory Project
HAL COALITION
Humanities Action Lab Awarded NEH Grant for Climates of Inequality Discussions Initiative
August 23, 2023
Rutgers University–Newark’s Humanities Action Lab (HAL) has been awarded a $498,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to support its Climates of Inequality (COI) Discussions initiative, a two-year program to drive humanities-based conversations across the country led by “frontline” or “environmental justice” communities—those bearing the greatest burdens from climate change due to long histories of environmental racism. Read more.
Environmental Justice Advocates Will Gather at Rutgers-Newark
October 22, 2023
A two-day event will explore collective projects that combat the climate crisis, including its impact on neighborhoods in Newark. Read More.
From Across the Nation, Communities Fighting Environmental Injustice Will Gather at Rutgers-Newark
October 19, 2023
Researchers, students and activists from communities bearing the greatest burdens of climate change due to long histories of environmental racism will convene at Rutgers-Newark beginning October 25. They will explore collective projects that combat the climate crisis, including its impact on neighborhoods in Newark. Read More
Rutgers University-Newark News | Humanities Action Lab Awarded Mellon Grant for Mass Incarceration and Climate Projects
January 11, 2023
The Mellon Foundation recently awarded the Humanities Action Lab (HAL), based at Rutgers University–Newark, a $1.1 million grant to expand and integrate two of its signature projects, States of Incarceration: A National Dialogue of Local Histories and Climates of Inequality: Stories of Environmental Justice. Read More
Rutgers University-Newark News | Mellon Foundation Awards $500K to HAL to Use Public Humanities and Engagement to Confront COVID
June 29, 2020
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded the Humanities Action Lab (HAL), headquartered at Rutgers University–Newark, a $500,000 grant over three years to establish and support Climates of Inequality and the COVID Crisis: Building Leadership at Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs). This national initiative comprises a cohort of minority-serving colleges and universities charged with confronting COVID, and its racially disproportionate impacts, through public humanities and public engagement. Read More
Rutgers University-Newark Newsroom | International Coalition to Meet at Rutgers-Newark to Address Global Climate and Environmental Justice
October 25, 2018
From November 1-3, the Humanities Action Lab (HAL), a coalition of universities, issue organizations, and public spaces led by Rutgers University-Newark, will bring together scholars and activists from 23 cities to Newark to develop an international initiative on climate and environmental justice. To be created by over 600 students and people from front-line communities across the country and around the world, the initiative will include a traveling installation and digital platform featuring stories of climate and environmental (in)justice by and from each of the participating communities. Read More
The New School | The New School’s Liz Ševčenko Awarded Rome Prize for Work on Preserving Sites of Trauma
May 11, 2017
For 20 years, Liz Ševčenko has been working to preserve sites impacted by trauma or struggle. As founding director
of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience (ICSC) a group that grew to include more than 250 such sites in 50 countries, she helped to conduct workshops, trainings, and consultations with everyone from national governments
saving secret detention centers in Latin America to grassroots groups marking lynching sites in Louisiana. Read More
Rutgers University-Newark Newsroom | The Humanities Action Lab Awarded $310,000 Grant by National Endowment for the Humanities
May 1, 2017
The National Endowment for the Humanities has announced a $310,000 grant to the Humanities Action Lab (HAL),
a coalition of 20 universities, including Rutgers University-Newark (RU-N), collaborating to produce student- and
community-curated public projects on pressing social issues. Read More
The New School | Mellon Foundation Awards $150,000 Grant To The New School's Humanities Action Lab
September 19, 2016
The New School has received a $150,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for the Humanities Action Lab (HAL),
a coalition of 20 colleges and universities collaborating to produce student- and community-curated public projects around pressing social issues. Read More
UCR Today | Coalition of Universities Nets $250,000 NEH Grant
February 25, 2016
The National Endowment for the Humanities has announced a $250,000 grant to The New School’s Humanities Action
Lab (HAL), a coalition of 20 universities that includes the University of California, Riverside, collaborating to produce
student- and community-curated public projects on pressing social issues. Read More
UMass Amherst News | UMass Amherst Public History Program is Part of Coalition to Receive $250,000 NEH Grant for Major Study of U.S. Incarceration
February 24, 2016
The Humanities Action Lab (HAL), a coalition of 20 universities including the University of Massachusetts and its
Public History Program, has received a $250,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant to support “States of Incarceration,” a traveling exhibit, web platform and series of curricula focusing on mass incarceration. Read More
IUPUI News | IUPUI to share in $250K NEH award
January 28, 2016
The National Endowment for the Humanities has announced a $250,000 grant to The New School’s Humanities Action
Lab, a coalition of 20 universities, including Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, collaborating to produce
student- and community-curated public projects on pressing social issues. Read More
UNO | National Endowment for the Humanities Gives $250,000 Grant to Coalition That Includes UNO
January 22, 2016
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has announced a $250,000 grant to The New School’s Humanities
Action Lab (HAL), a coalition of 20 universities, including the University of New Orleans, collaborating to produce
student- and community-curated public projects on pressing social issues. Read More
The New School | The New School’s Humanities Action Lab Awarded $250,000 Grant by National Endowment for the Humanities
January 7, 2016
The National Endowment for the Humanities has announced a $250,000 grant to The New School’s Humanities Action
Lab (HAL), a coalition of 20 universities collaborating to produce student- and community-curated public projects
around pressing social issues. Read More
UMass Amherst | Grant Boosts UMass Amherst Public History Program in Nationwide Partnership Focusing on Crime, Punishment and Mass Incarceration
August 5, 2015
The Humanities Action Lab (HAL), part of a 20-campus coalition formed by the University of Massachusetts Amherst and
its public history program, is receiving a $150,000 grant from the Whiting Foundation to fund HAL’s “Global Dialogues on Incarceration” project. Read More
The New School | Humanities Action Lab Awarded $150,000 Grant by Whiting Foundation
July 1, 2015
The Whiting Foundation has announced a $150,000 grant to The New School’s Humanities Action Lab (HAL), an
interdisciplinary hub that brings together 20 universities from across the country with global partners and community organizations to foster public engagement on urgent social problems. Read More
