2022 – 2023 “Re-Imagining/Re-Forming” Theme: Mindful of recent political, cultural, and environmental upheavals, the Northeastern Humanities Center invites proposals for the 2022-23 academic year on the theme of “Re-imagining/Re-forming.” We seek proposals that address how bedrock notions of social contract are being reconfigured by the disruptions of what some have called Industry 4.0, or the Fourth Industrial Revolution. What are the material implications of recent technological developments—broadly understood, including, for example, AI and biotechnologies—for the humanities, and for the laws and social ordering of what we have traditionally thought of as “the human”? Are we moving towards a digital social contract, and if so, who or what is determining its terms? We invite proposals connected to any dimension of this broad field of inquiry, including literary, artistic, historical, socio-political, economic, ecological, media theoretical, philosophical, linguistic, as well as technology-focused perspectives. Patricia Williams, University Distinguished Professor of Law and Humanities, will lead the year-long interdisciplinary conversation among fellows about their work.
Convened by: Patricia Williams
University Distinguished Professor of Law and Humanities
School of Law
College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Sari Altschuler
“Capable Citizens: How Disability Shaped American Citizenship“
Associate Professor of English
College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Kabria Baumgartner
“Revolutionizing the City: Black Youth and Civil Rights in Boston”
Dean’s Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies
College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Nick Beauchamp
“Re-Forming Politics Online: Community Formation and Social Policing within the Left”
Assistant Professor of Political Science
College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Victoria Cain
“Refuge, Revelation, Risk: A History of Adolescent Privacy in the Digital Age”
Associate Professor of History
College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Sina Fazelpour
“Standpoint matters: Justice and diversity in sociotechnical algorithmic systems”
Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Computer Science
Khoury College of Computer Sciences
College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Chad Lee-Stronach
“Encoding Justice: Towards a New Digital Social Contract”
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Deirdre Loughridge
“Sounding Human”
Assistant Professor of Music
Faculty Affiliate of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
College of Arts, Media, and Design
Lily Song
“Re-Imagining and Re-Formulating Spatial Planning and Development with Local Communities”
Assistant Professor of Race and Social Justice in the Built Environment
College of Arts, Media and Design
Gloria Sutton – CAMD Humanities Center Fellow
“Pattern Recognition: Marginality as Methodology within Computational forms of Art”
Associate Professor of Contemporary Art History
Faculty Affiliate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
College of Arts, Media + Design
Ari Waldman
“Laundering Misinformation Through Law”
Professor of Law and Computer Science
Faculty Director, Center for Law, Information and Creativity (CLIC)
School of Law
Khoury College of Computer Sciences
Taylor Braswell – Graduate Fellow
P.h.D Candidate
Department of Sociology
College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Cherice Escobar Jones – Graduate Fellow
P.h.D Candidate
Department of English
College of Social Sciences and Humanities
