Public Humanities Infrastructure

As Houston rebuilds in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, we find that our vision of infrastructure, whether gray or green, is defined almost exclusively in terms of civil engineering and the social sciences. The task of reimagininging cities like Houston in the age of climate catastrophe demands humanistic perspectives, both to critique core assumptions of and to provide alternative visions for our common existence. This joint public talk with Alan Liu and James Smithies introduces the emergent, interdisciplinary field of “Critical Infrastructure Studies” and considers the institutional dimensions of the public humanities and higher education, in order to help articulate how the humanities can critically and productively contribute to public debates on topics such as “preparedness,” “resiliency,” “disaster,” and “infrastructure."

Contact John Mulligan (jcm10@rice.edu) with any questions!

Event listing: https://events.rice.edu/#!view/event/date/20190124/event_id/25147