Writers Room is creating a national model in humanities education.
The bus driver who lives next door has stories to tell. The waitress serving up a slice of pie is a local historian. The kid on the skateboard can speak in poetic couplets.
A project led by Drexel’s Writers Room aims to cultivate unseen literary opportunities that abound in West Philadelphia.
“UnMapping: A Project of Radical Textual Geographies” is one of 26 initiatives nationwide that received an inaugural Higher Learning Open Call grant from the Mellon Foundation to support social-justice research and programs.
A $500,000 grant will allow the UnMapping project to bring the literary and broader humanities imagination to bear on issues of social justice in West Philadelphia and serve as a national model for institutions and organizations undertaking civic engagement work.
“UnMapping involves questioning established norms and challenging the status quo,” says Rachel Wenrick, founding director of Writers Room and executive director for Arts & Civic Innovation in the Office of University and Community Partnerships. “This project insists on privileging partnerships and presence over hierarchy by positioning all participants as potential teachers and students.”
The UnMapping project aligns with Drexel’s mission to address society’s challenges through an inclusive learning environment, experiential learning, external partnerships, transdisciplinary and applied research, and creative activity,” Drexel President John Fry says. “UnMapping will elevate the importance of public humanities in developing the next generation of scholars, practitioners and activists.