Humanities Exposed (HEX)

Application Process

The spring 2009 application round for the HEX program is now closed. Thanks to all the applicants. A call for applications for the 2010-2011 cycle will be available in the spring of 2010.

Congratulations to the 2009-2010 HEX Scholars!

Mary Claypool, Department of French and Italian
Kristina Kosnick, Department of French and Italian
Michael Kwas, Department of History
Mytoan Nguyen, Department of Sociology/Center for Southeast Asian Studies
Naomi Olson, Department of Slavic Languages and Literature
Patricia Rengel, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Emma Schroeder, Department of Geography
Andrew Stuhl, Department of History of Science
Djurdja Trajkovic, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Hilary Joy Virtanen, Department of Scandinavian Studies/Folklore Program

What is HEX?

Humanities Exposed (HEX) awards go to University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate students in the humanities to design and implement projects in collaboration with community partners. Each HEX project addresses a community need or form of poverty, while relating to the graduate student’s own research. HEX scholars represent a cross-section of disciplines and frames of reference, and they use their research to engage diverse members of the public in related kinds of exploration, writing, and discussion of ideas. Each HEX project spans the educational continuum, bringing together people of various educational levels in collaborative, sustainable partnerships.

Past HEX scholars have worked with middle and high school students in the Madison Public Schools, with community gardeners and farmers, with female cancer survivors, with East and South Asian immigrant populations, and with inmates at Oakhill Correctional Institute. Project activities have included publishing anthologies of student work, creating websites, holding writer’s workshops, staging performances, hosting conferences, constructing displays, hosting radio series, facilitating discussion groups, and creating pieces of art. Throughout Madison, HEX scholars have fostered critical reading and writing skills, literary interpretations, media analyses, cultural pride, and community solidarity.

HEX strives to bring a more public orientation to research in the humanities, and to create a cadre of public scholars in the UW-Madison Graduate School who are unafraid to work in and with communities. “[Public scholarship] does not assume that useful knowledge simply flows outward from the university to the larger community,” writes Lakshman Yapa. “It recognizes that new knowledge is created in its application in the field, therefore benefiting the teaching and research missions of the university.” In this vein, HEX aims to change the culture of UW graduate education by providing support to humanists and humanities departments in their efforts to become citizens of the wider community.

Now in its sixth year, HEX upholds the belief that graduate students can make a real difference in Madison and in the state of Wisconsin, by sharing their knowledge and talents.

HEX in the Press

Read more about ongoing HEX projects and events featured in Wisconsin Week, The Badger Herald, and Imagining America's quarterly newsletter.

Major Funding and Support

• The Evjue Foundation, the charitable arm of The Capital Times
• The UW-Madison Graduate School / the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF)
• The Dean of the UW-Madison College of Letters and Science
• The Anonymous Fund of the College of Letters and Science
• The UW-Madison English Department
• Wisconsin Campus Compact AmeriCorps*VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), a program of the Corporation for National and Community Service

For more information, e-mail Courtney Byelich, HEX Program Coordinator (hex@humanities.wisc.edu), or call the Center for the Humanities at 890-1146.