On October 30, 2025 the Center for 21st Century Studies hosted a panel discussion that explored how Milwaukeeans and MKE organizations might sustain, expand, and care for the humanities.
You can watch a video of the panel (above) or read a summary of the discussion, with audience reactions and key takeaways (below).
In October 2024, the Consortium for Humanities Centers and Institutes’ World Humanities Report warned of extinction risk to human knowledge. In the year that’s passed since that report’s publication, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting lost its federal funding, the National Endowment for the Humanities was radically restructured, causing state humanities agencies to lose funding to the point of near closure, and multiple U.S. universities have taken steps to shrink, pause, or shutter humanities degree-granting programs.
But the resilience of humanities practices and institutions in the face of so much uncertainty evinces their value, and merits further dialogue.
The State of the Humanities MKE panel brought together four Milwaukee-based humanities advocates—Michael Carriere (MSOE), Art Derse (MCW), Jodi Eastberg (MIAD), and Maggie Nettesheim Hoffmann (Marquette)—to discuss:
- What’s important about the humanities in Milwaukee, especially in our current moment?
- What are we fighting to sustain, expand, or ideate?
- How can we care for the humanities in MKE? What does this look like?
