Dean’s Forum

Featured episode

Dean’s Forum: Professor Sarah Churchwell

Revealing the ‘invisible’ Humanities with Being Human Festival Director Sarah Churchwell

The Humanities can help us to understand so many aspects of this year’s crises – from the politics of fluctuating global COVID-19 statistics to the histories of plagues and pandemics past. The Humanities shape every major challenge of our time, and yet often remain on the sideline to the sciences in the public consciousness. So how do we advocate for a transformation in the public understanding of the ‘invisible’ Humanities?

Professor Sarah Churchwell holds the Chair in Public Understanding of the Humanities at the University of London and has some extraordinary insights to share on this topic. In this Dean’s Forum, Professor Churchwell sits down with Professor Russell Goulbourne to tackle the task of defining the Humanities and the need for Humanities scholars to communicate their work to non-specialist audiences. Professor Churchwell is the Director of the Being Human Festival, which the Faculty of Arts is participating in for the third time this November. She shares her perspective on the Festival’s ethos of getting Humanities research ‘out of the ivory tower’ and into the community.

• Learn more about the 2021 Faculty of Arts international hub of the Being Human Festival