Vanderbilt joins Global Urban Humanities Network of scholars and practitioners
Vanderbilt University has joined the Urban Humanities Network (UHN) as a consortium campus, solidifying the university’s place among leading institutions at the forefront of urban humanities scholarship. Established in 2022, UHN unites universities, organizations, and researchers dedicated to interdisciplinary study within the urban humanities, which operates at the nexus of humanities, urbanism, and design.
As a consortium campus, Vanderbilt will collaborate on place-based experiential research across global and local scales and will have an enhanced presence at UHN’s upcoming (Un)Conference—their signature annual convening—in fall 2025. Other consortium institutions include Princeton University, the University of California, Los Angeles, and Washington University in St. Louis (WashU), who will host the upcoming convening.
The emerging field of urban humanities tackles the multitude of pressing challenges facing modern cities today. The field offers a new approach not only for deepening knowledge and understanding of cities, but also for intervening in them collaboratively. This wide-ranging work can include interpreting cities’ histories, engaging with their present formations, and improving their futures.
The College of Arts and Science has fostered critical work in the urban humanities, particularly through the Cities Grand Challenge Initiative (GCI), an interdisciplinary, faculty-led effort that examines urbanization and the challenges and opportunities it presents. In 2023, the Cities GCI organized Cities, Universities, Communities, a symposium that provided a forum for exchange between faculty, staff, students, and distinguished scholars from outside the university to speak about their nationally recognized centers for urban studies. The Cities GCI led the effort for Vanderbilt to join UHN, and the new partnership builds on the Cities GCI’s foundational work.
Vanderbilt brings to UHN thought leaders in public memory and urban space, transportation, infrastructure, and city-based politics, among other topics. Scholars include:
- Peter Chesney, Postdoctoral Scholar, History of Art and Architecture
- Lee Ann Custer, Postdoctoral Scholar, History of Art and Architecture
- Julie Gamble, Assistant Professor, Gender and Sexuality Studies
- Re’ee Hagay, Postdoctoral Scholar, Jewish Studies
- Claire Sisco King, Associate Professor, Communication Studies and Cinema and Media Arts
- Bill Purcell, Adjunct Professor, Public Policy Studies
- Tasha Rijke-Epstein, Assistant Professor, History
- Angela Sutton, Research Assistant Professor, Communication of Science and Technology and Assistant Dean for Graduate Education and Academic Affairs
- Jessica Trounstine, Professor, Political Science
- Matthew Worsnick, Assistant Professor, History of Art and Architecture
“Joining UHN spotlights the ongoing efforts of Vanderbilt’s intellectual community to grapple with the problems and possibilities of cities—past, present, and future,” said Custer. “It also provides a conduit for inter-institutional knowledge-sharing with dynamic scholars and practitioners working to leverage the methods and practices of the humanities and design to rethink urban life today.”
At UHN’s inaugural (Un)Conference in March 2023 at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Custer presented research on the American artist John Sloan’s early twentieth-century depictions of urban air in New York City, which raise important questions about land use, density, and spatial justice that resonate both historically and today. Since then, Custer has played a vital role in shaping the UHN Consortium, serving on UHN’s Advisory Board and Steering Committee, and helping to plan the next (Un)Conference.
“Being a member of both the Cities GCI and UHN, I realized how much existing synergy there was between the conversations happening at Vanderbilt and those taking place through UHN at the national and international levels in terms of how we think, write, research, and live in cities. The Cities CGI was the ideal place to forge this connection,” Custer noted.
Nashville provides fertile ground for advancing and exploring innovative urban studies.
“Vanderbilt is particularly well-positioned to contribute to the humanistic study of urbanity given its location in Nashville, which is a creative city that is currently experiencing considerable growth and development,” said King. “The university’s relationship with UHN will benefit scholars and students of urbanity as well as the Nashville community that Vanderbilt calls home.”
Vanderbilt’s participation in UHN will help to advance the field in meaningful ways.
“Vanderbilt’s membership is an exciting milestone for testing how our spatial trans-disciplinary training and expertise can grow and change as we ourselves become mobilized into new locales and relationships beyond our home campuses,” said Jacqueline Jean Barrios, UHN Advisory Board Member and assistant professor of public and applied humanities at the University of Arizona. “Our ability to mount a second event in St. Louis with WashU is evidence of the momentum in this generation of scholars and practitioners to imagine the future of the discipline.”
UHN’s (Un)Conference reimagines the traditional academic conference, coupling scholarly exchange with place-based workshops and immersive site visits in its host city. Designed as a platform for collective reflection, the (Un)Conference aims to take the pulse and chart a path for the next generation of urban humanities scholars and practitioners.
For more information on Vanderbilt’s role in the UHN or details about (Un)Conference 2 in St. Louis visit urbhum.net.