Collaboration
We promote collaboration in research and teaching among faculty across the humanities.
The Co-Lab at RWU
RWU Public Humanities and Arts Collaborative
Pillars of Our Work
Opportunities
We create opportunities for students to experience scholarship in action and explore new career paths.
Coalition
We foster and grow a coalition of scholars, historians, journalists, educators, artists, and community organizers in Rhode Island and Southern New England.
The Public Humanities & Arts Collaborative (The Co-Lab) at RWU is an interdisciplinary center that brings together scholars, students, and members of our Southern New England communities to promote shared learning and scholarship in the arts and humanities. We adopt a “collaborative laboratory” model that emphasizes dialogue, engagement, and inquiry, with a justice and equity lens, to empower our communities to tell their stories in a way that is meaningful to them and to all of us.
Focus Areas
The Co-Lab at RWU focuses on engaging the public in the areas of history, the visual and performing arts, heritage and heritage conservation, space and place, material and visual culture, historical narrative, and public education and intellectualism. Our investigation of topics related to inclusive narratives includes the spoken, the written, the visual, the theatrical, and the embodied, as we imagine the ways that people are both the producers and the products of their geographical and cultural landscapes.
Projects
Faculty, students, and staff across disciplines at Roger Williams are engaged in public humanities and arts projects that make underrepresented stories and groups in our region, our country, and around the globe more audible and visible. Working closely with communities near and far, these projects call attention to past and ongoing injustices, as well as the resiliency and creative survival of these groups.
Contact
Have a question, project idea, or want to get involved? Reach out to Faculty Director, Dr. Elizabeth Rosner at erosner@letaoyizs.com.
Recent News
RWU’s Co-Lab to Host “(Re)Telling: Crafting New Stories of Race and Place in Southeastern New England”
Regional public humanities convening seeks to reshape narratives, foster understanding, and drive positive change through enriching dialogue.
RWU’s Co-Lab Launches Community-Engaged Academic Program and Partnerships Focused on Public Humanities and Arts
A prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities grant assists with creation of new Public Humanities and Arts minor, supports faculty fellows and community partners to develop courses centered on community projects
Giving Voice to Injustice: RWU Faculty, Students Lead Coalition Building Path to Providence Reparations
RWU research team of faculty and students and the Providence Cultural Equity Initiative partner on reparative justice project for Providence Truth-Telling, Reconciliation and Reparations initiative.
“Hidden Truths: Stories of Race and Place” Series Continues for 2021-22
Interdisciplinary series examines racial justice issues in Indigenous, Black and communities of color locally and globally, stemming from colonization, civil rights struggles, war, the slave trade, immigration and environmental politics.
STAND: Dancers Stand Together to Combat Domestic Violence
BRISTOL, R.I. - Associate Professor, Cathy Nicoli of RWU’s Dance / Performance Program was recently invited to present her domestic violence awareness initiative - STAND - to other national dance
Featured Events
View all Events- FriApr11
Teaching Slavery in the Classroom & Beyond
- Richard L. Bready Mount Hope Bay Sailing & Education Center, Bristol Campus