The Engaged Humanities Studio brings together scholars, students, artists, activists, and community members through collaborative projects to address issues of pressing social concern. We focus on experiential, community-based, and critical-making practices that combine humanistic modes of inquiry and understanding with extra-humanities disciplines, non-student communities, and/or pressing social issues that would benefit from humanistic perspectives.
Humanities Methodologies + Community Engagement + Critical/Creative Making
While this program’s primary purpose is to support projects, the program more broadly seeks to cultivate a campus community that better understands and appreciates the civic potential of the Arts & Humanities and the role they can play in helping us to shape a more just and compassionate world.
Each year, the EHS invites Swarthmore faculty, staff, and students to apply to be EHS Fellows. In close collaboration with community partners, each fellow embarks on a 12- to 18-month project that addresses a contemporary issue through the arts and humanities. Potential applicants and current Fellows are invited to view the Engaged Humanities Studio Handbook for more information.
Questions can be directed to Katie Price (kprice1).
Current Projects
The Chester Justice Digital Collection: Chronicling Community Resilience
Giovanna Di Chiro, professor of environmental studies and coordinator of the Environmental Justice and Community Resilience Program of the Lang Center; with Christopher Mele, professor of sociology and adjunct professor of geography at the University of Buffalo; Barbara Muhammad, Chester community activist; Reverend Hilda Campbell, Chester community activist; Twyla Simpkins, founder and director of the YES Center; and Zulene Mayfield, chairperson for Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living (CRCQL).
The Chester Justice Digital Collection: Chronicling Community Resilience is a collaborative initiative to build a digital repository for state-of-the-art collecting, storing, and sharing of local stories, oral histories, and critical social media content centered on and created by grassroots organizations in Chester, Pa. The collection will serve both as a practical asset to document social and environmental justice projects in Chester and as a knowledge resource for critical humanities education and scholarship at Swarthmore College and beyond.
Circling the Deaf World with Sparkles
Donna Jo Napoli, professor of linguistics and social justice; with Ian Sanborn, storysigner; and the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf (PSD)
Bimodal-bilingual videobooks give deaf children pre-literacy skills and offer a joyful way for families to share sign eloquence. This year, Sanborn, world-renowned deaf storyteller, will give presentations and workshops at the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf so students from PSD and Swarthmore can continue explorations in storytelling creativity, leading deaf schools around the globe in best practices to promote individual growth and social justice.
Chester City Walks
Sony Devabhaktuni, assistant professor of art, with Indigo Mills
The Chester City Walks project comprises four one-hour walks led by a different Chester community member, followed by a shared meal. The project focuses on relationship-building and knowledge-sharing that will lead to a collaborative urban design studio on the civic realm in Chester.
Navigating Nearby: A Multidirectional Learning Experience in Philadelphia Chinatown
Cheng-Yen (Billy) Wu ’26, peace & conflict studies major from Suzhou, China; with Asian Americans United
Through a short documentary, Navigating Nearby invites us into the life of Chinatown elders, a community that’s often unheard due to language barriers, and shares their life stories of how they navigate their nearby and build community. The project centers lived experiences and seeks to reinvigorate what builds community.
House of the Living is a collaborative public artwork between FarmerJawn & Friends Foundation Fund, EMIR Healing Center, and Swarthmore College to transform FarmerJawn’s greenhouse into a monument commemorating homicide victims in Philadelphia. The project intersects environmental sculpture, photography, and agriculture practices to create a safe, nondenominational, judgment-free space where co-victims and the broader community can reflect and heal from the trauma of violence.
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The House of the Living in progress.
Visual notes from a conversation between twelve South Asian artists and scholars.
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Visual notes from a conversation between twelve South Asian artists and scholars.
Cover of Rosine 2.0: Futures and Histories of Collective Care, edited by Carol Stakenas with Jordan Landes and Katie L. Price.
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Cover of Rosine 2.0: Futures and Histories of Collective Care, edited by Carol Stakenas with Jordan Landes and Katie L. Price.
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Participants of the Sticky Family Workshop, November 2023.
House of the Living is a collaborative public artwork between FarmerJawn & Friends Foundation Fund, EMIR Healing Center, and Swarthmore College to transform FarmerJawn’s greenhouse into a monument commemorating homicide victims in Philadelphia. The project intersects environmental sculpture, photography, and agriculture practices to create a safe, nondenominational, judgment-free space where co-victims and the broader community can reflect and heal from the trauma of violence.
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The House of the Living in progress.
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EHS Faculty Fellows
Giovanna Di Chiro
Professor of Environmental Studies and Coordinator of Environmental Justice
Coordinator of Environmental Justice and Community Resilience Program
Dr. Giovanna Di Chiro teaches and researches the intersections of environmental science and policy, with a focus on social and economic disparities and human rights.
