The concept of protest animates and anchors an increasing share of scholarly output and institutional activity across the University. Faculty, staff, and students mobilize on behalf of climate divestment campaigns; they stage protests, sit-ins, and rallies to raise awareness about the inconsistent application of Title IX in sexual assault cases; they, especially in the wake of the worldwide protests catalyzed by the murder of George Floyd, identify the university as a key agent in the reproduction of racialized inequity; and they continue to issue general calls to redistribute the university’s vast resources. These varied developments coincide with broader institutional and cultural challenges to the historical character and role of humanities teaching and scholarship. As higher education austerity continues unabated and student enrollments drop in traditional humanities departments like History and English, many university stakeholders—researchers, teachers, administrators, and staff—have reimagined humanistic scholarship as a crucial site of agitation and critique in our polarized, unequal, networked, and quickly transforming society.
In this Borghesi-Mellon workshop, we aim to interrogate these broad cultural and institutional shifts. We begin with a simple question—what is “protest” in the twenty-first century?—in order investigate the twinned developments of institutional austerity and the revisioning of the humanities. We aim to critique how protest has been subsumed by neoliberal cultural logics within and without the University while highlighting practices that might cultivate more equitable scholarship, more just institutional logics, greater intellectual fellowship, and ultimately, a better world.