What is “Media & Meaning: Humanities in the World”?

“Media & Meaning: Humanities in the World” is the theme for the three-year term of the Humanities Initiative. Projects developed and supported by “Media & Meaning” explore the substantial role of media in creating meaning and in shaping our understanding of ourselves, each other, and the world in which we live. Conventionally defined, the term “media” refers to means of mass communication, such as film, television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and the internet. Understood broadly, media also encompasses a wide range of expressive forms spanning all time periods and geographic regions, from music, literature, performance, architecture, and the visual arts to smartphones, social media, and ChatGPT. Such media technologies have accelerated the spread of knowledge and information, altering human behavior and consciousness, raising important questions about humanity and creativity, and foregrounding a host of ethical concerns. 

Meaning making is a fundamental human activity and an elemental aspect of human culture, past and present. Meaning creates connection and community, engenders collective purpose, constructs identity and difference, delineates social categories and forms, allows for or restricts political agency, allocates power, safeguards or withholds justice and civil rights, and advances or inhibits the capacity of humans to thrive. Since the stakes of meaning are so high, understanding the mechanisms by which meaning comes into being, media among them, is an essential and urgent humanistic project, as is understanding the many valences and contested status of the very concept of “meaning.” Media & Meaning is a space for addressing these subjects from a variety of perspectives on the part of scholars from many disciplines using a wide range of methodologies and approaches. “Media & Meaning” projects provide a model for the kinds of collaborations and programming the planned Humanities Institute will foster and sustain.

What is “Humanities in the World”?

Civic engagement (sometimes referred to as “public humanities”) is a key pillar of the Humanities Initiative. The initiative fosters and supports humanities-based work that prioritizes public engagement, outreach, collaboration, and impact. This includes collaboration with campus partners already active in the public sphere; external partners such as public schools, community colleges, arts organizations, and local and national organizations such as the New Jersey Council for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities; and partners from industry, including the technology, media, and healthcare sectors. The initiative prioritizes knowledge sharing and learning from non-academic methods and perspectives with the goal of enriching both higher education and civic culture.