The Public Humanities Initiative facilitates a path to public engagement and publication for Stanford undergraduates interested in writing about the arts and humanities for a wide popular audience. We equip students with career-oriented skills to write for the general public, in forms including but not limited to newspaper and magazine reportage, cultural criticism, op-eds, first-person essays, blogs, and podcasts. We also foster literary community among Stanford humanities undergraduates in the following ways:
- Support for on-campus publications by students with funding, mentorship, and interconnection.
- Collaboration with BEAM and other career services to connect humanities students with paid internship and job opportunities.
- Pitching and Publishing for Undergraduates, a one-unit winter-quarter course on freelance humanities writing, taught by Associate Director for Student Programs Laura Goode.
- What Is A Public Intellectual Today? is the flagship event series of the Public Humanities Initiative. Three times per academic year, WAPIT hosts public interviews with acclaimed intellectuals within and beyond Stanford who represent a variety of career stages and areas of humanistic focus. These events explore the writing process, make acclaimed authors available for questions and dialogue, and provide accessible insights to help all writers improve our craft.
- An ongoing database of publications by students and recent graduates, intended both to celebrate that work and to provide a resource of editorial connections for other emerging authors in the Stanford community.
