Humanities Action Lab

The Humanities Action Lab (HAL) is a coalition of universities, issue organizations, and public spaces in 40 cities, and growing, led from Rutgers University-Newark, that collaborate to produce community-curated public humanities projects on urgent social issues. Through project-based courses, in which students collaborate with local organizations, students and stakeholders in each city develop local chapters of international traveling exhibits, web projects, public programs, and other platforms for civic engagement. Projects travel internationally to museums, public libraries, cultural centers, and other spaces in each of the communities that helped create them.  Projects include the Guantánamo Public Memory Project; States of Incarceration, in which students worked with returning citizens and others impacted by incarceration; Climates of Inequality, exploring climate and environmental justice; and the Rikers Public Memory Project, which uses storytelling, art-making, and oral histories to document and make visible the impact of Rikers Island.