Center for 21st Century Studies

A group of people attending C21's Attention Activism Workshop stand on a city sidewalk facing the street, with their backs to the photographer's camera. They hold up their smart phones as if they were taking pictures of the street, but their phone screens are black.

Humanities Research, Collaboration, & Public Engagement

Building a community of thinkers to address the pressing issues of our time, since 1968. Through fellowships, project support, and programming, C21 provides multiple points of access and honors multiple ways of knowing to support a shared vision for the humanities.

Center for 21st Century Studies
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Spotlight on Slow Care

This year, C21 activated “Slow Care”—a practice that places deliberate attention on the beings, things, and sites that together foster long-term visions of collective life across generations and communities of humans and non-humans, as well as ever-evolving technologies and ecologies. Learn more about Slow Care.

Recap: Artist Talk with Kite

With support from CHCI, C21 teamed up with the Center for the Humanities at UW-Madison to produce a program series that explored how AI-generated aesthetics reshape creative production, authorship, and interpretation. Watch a recorded lecture from this series above.

Recap: Attention Activism

a book with a picture of a person on it
Download Attention Activism Toolkit, Vol. I
Check out five Story Cart interviews about attention.
Read Story Fellow Adam Carr’s reflection on attention.
text, letter
Learn about our pick for the Cactus Book Club.

With support from WICCD, C21’s Story Cart program introduced Milwaukeeans to practices of radical attention by leading attention workshop pop-ups throughout the city. Explore four Slow Digest posts featuring different elements of the Story Cart: Attention program above.

News

  • Director’s Note: Looking Back, Moving Forward
    Dear C21 Friends, As another year comes to a close, I’m thinking back to our opening event: the State of the Humanities MKE panel that has quietly been shaping …
  • Slow Digest: Slow Action
    This week’s edition of Slow Digest is a statement about the Center's 2026-2027 theme of Slow Action, written by C21's Director, Jennifer Johung. What does it mean to act with deliberation, …
  • Slow Digest: A Story Fellow’s Reflections on Attention
    This week’s edition of Slow Digest was written by Adam Carr, one of C21's Story Fellows, as he reflects on his process of creating three attention experiments during the 2025-26 academic …

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Events

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6.5 Minutes With…C21 Podcast

A small podcast showcasing BIG ideas!

Produced, edited, and hosted by C21 Graduate Fellows Jamee Pritchard and Yuchen Zhao.