Public humanities is a term used to describe the work of organizations, including federal and state humanities agencies, that support and present lectures, exhibitions, and other programs for the general public on topics that include history, philosophy, and the arts. The American Council of Learned Societies' National Task Force on Scholarship and the Public Humanities suggests that the nature of public humanities work is to teach the public the findings of academic scholarship: it sees "scholarship and the public humanities not as two distinct spheres but as parts of a single process, the process of taking private insight, testing it, and turning it into public knowledge."http://www.acls.org/op11quay.htm Others suggest a more balanced understanding of the ways in which history, heritage and culture are shared between the academy and the public. Public humanities programs explore ways in which humanities may enrich everyday life.
Several universities have established programs in the public humanities, including Brown University, whose John Nicholas Brown Center supports public humanities programs, and whose American Civilization Department offers a masters degree in public humanities; the University of Washington, whose Simpson Center for the Humanities offers an annual symposium. http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/research_graduate_Connecting.htm; and Michigan State University, whose Public Humanities Collaborative "provides a gathering place, a commons, where faculty, students, and outreach professionals can collaborate with community groups to build strong campus-community partnerships and enhance public understanding of liberal arts for democracy".
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