WIIH – The Wheaton Institute for the Interdisciplinary Humanities

Who has heard of the Wheaton Institute for the Interdisciplinary Humanities, the WIIH? If you check this blog’s category for the WIIH you will quickly realize that the last blog post is from 2017 … That has been a while …

A lot has been going on at the WIIH, however! In the past years, the WIIH covered amazing topics, like “Whose normal?” by Ellen McBreen, “Intersections of Digital, Cinematic and Environmental Humanities” by Domingo Ledezma and Patrick Johnson, “Interpretation and Its Expressive Modes: Challenging Hegemony” by Charlotte Meehan, Renée White, Gabriela Torres, Stephanie Burlington Daniels, and Kirk Anderson, or “Queering Diversity” by Gabriela Torres and Montserrat Pérez-Toribio – just to name the projects that happened since then.

So what is this Wheaton Institute?

“The Wheaton Institute for the Interdisciplinary Humanities connects the humanities to other fields of study. Showcasing the humanities, the WIIH brings them together in dialogue with the arts, social sciences, natural and applied sciences, and professional studies: business, engineering, law, medicine, and technology.” (From the Institute’s About page)

Humanities can and should be part of professional practice. This is what the WIIH is about. Based on changing themes, the WIIH invites guest, organizes events, and features selected courses for students to engage with the topics of the theme.

The WIIH is a home that bridges academic studies and professional skills and helps create well-rounded students, innovators, and future leaders.

The WIIH will resume its work with new programming in the fall. Come and join us for the current project:

AI humanities

We want to revisit and reclaim artificial intelligence as an endeavor of the humanities, deeply philosophical, artistic and creative, a project for the liberal arts:

  • How can we understand artificial intelligence as part of the liberal arts, and of the humanities in particular, and not just as another piece of technology?
  • How does AI affect the humanities and how should AI be shaped by the humanities?
  • What philosophy comes implicit or even explicit in AI? What philosophy can potentially be modeled with AI?
  • How can higher education, liberal arts education in particular, make use of AI? What are risks?
  • How does AI touch the life and experience of the students already now, and in the foreseeable future?

To engage, for questions, comments, and suggestions, please reach out to me:

[email protected]

Looking forward to hearing from you!