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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Coming up at C21

The Aesthetics, Art, & AI series (February 12 – March 12) explores what creativity means when artistic agency moves between people and algorithms. Check out the multi-media exhibition Generation to Generation: Conversing with Kindred Technologies by artist-technologist Nathaniel Stern and poet-researcher Sasha Stiles from February 12 to 20. Join Stern, Stiles, and The Brooklyn Rail editor-at-large Charlotte Kent for a gallery walk, panel on AI and contemporary art, and reception on February 12. Take a trip to UW-Madison for Dr. Kris Paulsen’s lecture, “Model Collapse: Art, AI, and the Seductions of Hallucinations.” Catch a talk by Kite, an Indigenous artist whose work spans Lakota ontologies and machine learning, on March 12. 

Aesthetics, Art, & Ai is supported by the Consortium for Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI) and produced in collaboration with the Center for the Humanities at UW-Madison. All events are free and open to the public.

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News

  • Slow Digest: More Than A Feeling
    This week’s edition of Slow Digest is adapted from More Than a Feeling: Performativity, Sincerity, and Sociality in the Art of the Affective Turn, a master’s thesis by Katie Waddell, …
  • Slow Digest: Nathaniel Stern
    Once a month throughout the 2025-26 academic year, Slow Digest will feature an episode of C21's 6.5 Minutes With…C21 podcast series, produced by C21 Graduate Fellows Jamee N. Pritchard …
  • State of the Humanities MKE Report
    The Center for 21st Century Studies is pleased to release the State of the Humanities MKE Report, a synthesis of insights from our recent panel discussion and community conversations. …

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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.