SDSU Public Humanities Initiative
The SDSU PHI is a humanities research unit housed in The School of American and Global Studies at South à£à£Ö±²¥Ðã State University. The SDSU PHI brings humanity to the university’s tripartite land-grant mission of teaching, research and service, connecting scholars and local communities around projects and topics that reflect our heritage, traditions and histories and are essential to the current conditions of shared civic and cultural life.
The Initiative seeks to:
- Conduct public humanities research and outreach around critical areas of community interest.
- Connect the university and local communities in conversations about the value and contributions of humanities studies.
- Provide multidisciplinary public programming that engages local, national and international communities in humanities discussions.
- Provide undergraduate students with opportunities to apply their humanities training and develop critical workforce skills: adaptability, communication across difference, creativity and the ability to shift cultural perspectives.
Projects
Welcoming New Americans
- This outreach project recognizes that the social, cultural, economic and political issues unfolding in our own backyard are directly linked to challenges occurring throughout the nation and the world and harnesses our research associates’ skills and expertise to address these challenges. This initiative expands the university’s extension mandate to include our non-English speaking newcomer neighbors in five areas of critical engagement: English as a Second Language (ESL) instruction, translation services, legal support and advocacy, workforce development and intercultural competence training.
- Community Partners: Bienvenidos a Brookings, Nitza Rubenstien and Fajitas Restaurant (Flandreau), Elkton Community Center, South à£à£Ö±²¥Ðã Dream Coalition, South à£à£Ö±²¥Ðã Voices for Peace/Justice, Brookings Economic Development Corporation, Brookings Human Rights Commission
PHI research associates bring an impressive breadth and depth of academic training and public humanities experience to our current research and outreach initiatives.
Christine Garst-Santos
Christine Garst-Santos, director of the Public Humanities Initiative (PHI) and Associate Professor of Spanish, works with the state’s newcomer neighbors and Indigenous communities through a series of outreach projects focused on ESL classes, legal advocacy and support, translation projects, workforce development, Lakota language revitalization efforts and diversity and intercultural competence workshops. A Cervantes specialist by training, her teaching and research explore how literature negotiates questions of gender, race, ethnicity and religion to both contest and create national identities and narratives. Convinced that the humanities can address the current “state of emergency†in which we live, her recent work has shifted to public-facing humanities projects and the development of the SDSU PHI | Public Humanities Initiative.
Current PHI projects: Citizenship, Community and Belonging in South à£à£Ö±²¥Ðã and Welcoming New Americans
José Ãlvarez
José Ãlvarez, associate professor of Spanish and global studies, specializes in contemporary Latin American literature and culture and inter-American studies. His research focuses on the intersection between literary, journalistic, scientific and philosophical discourses and their role in the construction of individual and collective identities.
Current PHI project: Welcoming New Americans
Molly Enz
Dr. Molly Krueger Enz is Distinguished Professor of French and Global Studies. Her research is interdisciplinary and weaves together several areas of inquiry: Francophone literature and cinema from West Africa and the Caribbean, gender studies, and postcolonial studies. From 2020-2022, she served as Co-Principal Investigator on a Community Innovation grant project funded by the Bush Foundation called the Brookings Inclusive Collaborative. Dr. Enz is a qualified administrator of the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), has designed and taught courses on intercultural competence at SDSU, and has been invited to deliver workshops on developing intercultural competence by groups in the Brookings community and professional organizations in the state of South à£à£Ö±²¥Ðã.
Current PHI project: Welcoming New Americans
