{"id":13298,"date":"2025-08-25T15:55:04","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T20:55:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/c21\/?page_id=13298"},"modified":"2026-09-12T23:56:50","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T04:56:50","slug":"slow-care","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/c21\/events\/slow\/slow-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Slow Care"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Social distance. Compassion fatigue. Enshittification. Goblin mode. <\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such neologisms are totems of post-pandemic culture, signifying the tandem threats of apathy, antipathy, and growing precarity. If the 2010s were the decade of \u201cmove fast and break things,\u201d the 2020s are arguably the decade of surviving the wreck. Amidst these pressing concerns, the Center for 21st<\/sup> Century Studies activated \u201cSlow Care\u201d\u2014a practice that places deliberate attention on the beings, things, and sites that together foster long-term visions of collective life <\/strong>across generations and communities of humans and non-humans, as well as ever-evolving technologies and ecologies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In year two of SLOW<\/a>, our 3-year thematic arc wherein we explored and enacted slower-paced embodied modes of kinship and situation, we asked: How might the short-term efficiency models that dominate our personal and political landscapes feed ideologies of zero-sum competition and unchecked disruption? Do the humanities offer an antidote to the anti-social turn? Can communities succeed where institutions have failed? As we continue to test the boundaries of human innovation, is our tech a tool or a trap, and why does it matter? Can we foment a culture of repair by moving purposefully and building things? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 With interdisciplinary humanities scholars and community leaders, and a directed focus on our city of Milwaukee, our 2025-26 programming offered a range of exploratory and participatory events that ask what possibilities arise when we attune ourselves, and attend to our worlds, in slowness and with care.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

C21\u2019s Slow Care programming was supported in part by the<\/strong> Wisconsin Institute for Citizenship & Civil Dialogue<\/a> and the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\nNext: Programs & Initiatives<\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Programs & Initiatives<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

From panels to podcasts, C21’s year of Slow Care programming revealed the importance of reciprocal relationships, human-centered technologies, and committed stewardship of body, mind, community, and the natural world. From our State of the Humanities MKE panel, which affirmed that the future of the humanities is local and collaborative, to the relaunch of our Story Cart as an adaptive space for intimate community conversations, to Human Club events that gathered fellow humans around Milwaukee simply to be together, to our our Aesthetics, Art, and AI programming that asked what care means at the boundaries between human and machine creativity, we practiced what it looks like to attend to our various worlds in slowness and with intention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Aesthetics, Art, & AI<\/div>
February 12 – March 12, 2026<\/div>
Aesthetics, Art, & AI explored how AI-generated aesthetics reshape creative production, authorship, and interpretation. C21 programs included the Generation to Generation: Conversing with Kindred Technologies<\/em> exhibition and programming, and a talk by Kite, an Ogl\u00e1la Lak\u021f\u00f3ta artist, composer, and scholar.
<\/div>Learn more about Aesthetics, Art, & AI programming<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Envision: Toward a Queer Ethics of Slow Care\u00a0<\/div>
Spring 2026<\/div>
Selected for C21’s inaugural graduate-led public humanities program, Isabella Fincher’s Envision project explored creative practices and embodied experiences of slow care for individuals living with chronic illness and impairments.<\/div>Learn more about Envision: Toward a Queer Ethics of Slow Care<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Human Club<\/div>
Fall 2025 – Spring 2026<\/div>
Human Club offered human-friendly humanities gatherings and free field trips around MKE, including grad-organized events such as the Milwaukee Urban Demo Farms Network Potluck and the\u00a0Little Free Library Walking Tour<\/a>.<\/div>Learn more about Human Club<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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State of the Humanities MKE<\/div>
October 30, 2025<\/div>
This panel about the future of the humanities in Milwaukee brought together Michael Carriere (MSOE), Art Derse (MCW), Jodi Eastberg (MIAD), and Maggie Nettesheim Hoffmann (Marquette) for conversation about how Milwaukeeans might sustain, expand, and care for humanities institutions and practices.<\/div>Learn more about State of the Humanities MKE<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Story Cart: Attention<\/div>
Fall 2025 – Spring 2026<\/div>
C21’s mobile story collection program hosted pop-up workshops in community spaces, introducing Milwaukeeans to practices of radical attention. All activations were designed or curated by Story Fellows Adam Carr, Madeleine Doelker-Berlin, and Symphony Swan.<\/div>Learn more about Story Cart: Attention<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\nNext: Slow Media<\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Slow Media<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As an interdisciplinary humanities center within a public university, C21 aims to support ongoing scholarship and community-engaged work across digital platforms and a range of media. We recognize that academic research, community expertise, lived experience, and artistic practice all contribute to the production of knowledge. Our media is created, often collaboratively, by diverse contributors, with the goal of expanding modes of engagement with C21 events and areas of inquiry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Slow Digest<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Edited by C21 Graduate Fellow Jamee N. Pritchard, Slow Digest<\/em><\/a> <\/strong>was our weekly digital publication that celebrated and supplemented slow care, C21\u2019s 2025-2026 theme. Slow Digest<\/em> featured essays, insights, and annotations from C21 staff and stakeholders. <\/p>\n\n\n