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CONTEXT
Across the nation, universities are contemplating how to provide an education that is global and interdisciplinary — one that promotes community-engagement and advances democracy in an increasingly diverse and changing world. Higher education in the 21st century presents complex challenges and opportunities for transformation. Higher education for the 21st century requires a deep investment in core disciplinary competencies as well as an increased emphasis on cross-disciplinary collaborations.
We face critical societal challenges of great consequence and complexity: from the global pandemic and socio-economic disparities to global warming and forced migration, to mass incarceration and poverty, to authoritarianism and the breakdown of democratic institutions. The arts and humanities have a vital role to play in confronting these challenges — building from strong foundations in disciplinary expertise, accentuating new understandings and imaginaries, and translating knowledge into solutions for social impact.
Indeterminate in scope and scale, critical societal challenges not only require attention to global systems but to local cultures and histories, and they therefore compel a shift from crisis-based thinking to contextual thinking. The critical in “critical societal challenges” can mean urgent, pressing or necessary — but it also points to a methodological orientation. As the global pandemic illustrates, seemingly-emergent challenges are tied to the history of structural inequities. For instance, vaccine distribution has made the deep link between the history of racial disparities and access to health care all the more visible.
Emergent challenges — multi-causal, multidimensional and resistant to singular solutions — push the boundaries of disciplinary understanding and call for cross-disciplinary collaborations and multifaceted solutions. The construct of solutions is but one framework for understanding the applicability and relevancy of the arts and humanities. Solutions to complex problems can only be transformative if they attend to a diversity of perspectives, practices and methods. This includes the recognition that methods themselves are informed by cultural histories and embodiments. In this sense, solutions are iterative and context driven. Creative and critical humanistic modes of inquiry and discovery help us to better understand these histories and their present formations. They shape how we see the world around us, how we conceptualize and categorize knowledge, and how we live and adapt. They are central to demystifying the logics that underlie crisis and envisioning socially-just possibilities.
As a leading land-grant institution of the 21st century, The Ohio State University has a vital role to play in fostering cultural understanding and advancing democracy and social justice — especially at moments of great uncertainty. The university must continue to invest in research and creative practices that provide insight into the human dimensions of these critical societal challenges.
Integrated arts and humanities methods and practices provide indispensable tools for understanding our place in the world — methods that forefront deep observation, listening and empathy, and skills to communicate diverse viewpoints and imaginative possibilities. These tools include creative action, contextualization, representation and synthesis — modes of inquiry that account for our relations, interdependencies and interconnections. Significantly, they cultivate the compassion that drives social change.
Ohio State’s strategic plan, Time and Change, signals a commitment to cross-disciplinary research and creative expression as drivers of “significant advances for critical societal challenges.” Building on Ohio State’s strengths in discipline-specific fields and integrated disciplines, Global Arts + Humanities advances intellectual community and capacity across the university through cross-disciplinary collaborations. These collaborations help to shift institutional culture away from siloed thinking and toward reaffirming the translational aspects of creative and humanistic inquiry.
More than ever, we see the urgent need for integrated arts and humanities research and creative practices to apply qualitative as well as quantitative methods to understand and respond to critical societal challenges. By breaking down barriers to meaningful collaboration, Global Arts + Humanities is uniquely positioned to become a national leader in demonstrating the transformative power of cross-disciplinary collaborations that amplify the arts and humanities as modes of inquiry and discovery.
CAPTION Keynote speaker Becca Heller (left) and Associate Professor Hasan Kwame Jeffries (right, History) hold a discussion following Heller’s address, “Refugee Rights at a Crossroads.” October 17, 2019.
Wendy S. Hesford, Faculty Director
