Workshops for Graduate Students

The workshopping experience is integral to excellent scholarship. At the center, we focus on creating spaces where graduate student work is the primary focus, rather than at the periphery, and where graduate students can convene across disciplines and gain insights from one another, about the production of academic writing, the institutional strategizing required to manage a dissertation to completion and the array of methods for connecting to wider publics.

Check this page for a continuously updated list of the humanities center’s periodic workshop and other special offerings, both standalone and tied to the center’s events, for graduate students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. Below are workshops and opportunities for the 2023–24 academic year.

Single Event

The Humanities in the AI Future - Graduate student lunch
April 5, 2024. Event has passed.
An opportunity for graduate students and postdocs to casually talk with The Humanities in the AI Future symposium speakers about plotting a scholarly project that uses or focuses on AI, AI methods and the job market and other grad-oriented topics.

Writing as Advocacy
March 28-29, 2024. Event has passed.
The spring 2024 RDE workshop for graduate students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences will focus on writing as a tool for advocacy of various forms. Through a series of writing workshops and discussions with an array of humanities practitioners, this event will explore ways that graduate students can use their most well-honed and readily deployable skill — writing — to achieve a variety of ends across the graduate school experience, both on campus and off. Students participating in this workshop will be invited to think capaciously about writing, community and the role of the humanities PhD in the contemporary world.

From Climate Anxiety to Climate Action
February 29, 2024. Event has passed.
Faculty Books Celebration keynote speaker Nicole Seymour led a two-hour writing workshop on writing in an age of major climate upheaval. Seymour guided participants in considering how and where they can take action, identify local resources and opportunities for meaningful impact and use writing to build collectives around the issue of climate change. Echoing Seymour’s own eclectic approach to environmental humanities, the workshop also included time for slowness, reflection, deliberation and fun.

Artistic Research in Academic Work
Fall 2023–Spring 2024. Application deadline has passed.
WashU’s Center for the Humanities and Tyson Research Center invited WashU humanities graduate students to participate in artistic research at Tyson’s fascinating site, which includes remnant structures from WWII built into the wooded landscape, and which will culminate in a two-day on-site workshop-gathering on April 26 and 27. The participation will include on-site meetings, individual project development with guidance, a publication opportunity, as well as exposure to the field of “Artistic Research.” The intention is to generate community among researchers from different branches of humanistic inquiry, for whom creative practice can provide a methodologically necessary complement to their critical and intellectual work.
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• Friday, April 26–Saturday, April 27: Artistic Research at Tyson — RSVP required

Ongoing

Scholarly Writing Retreat
May 14–24, 2024. Registration limited to 30; sign up by May 7.
The Scholarly Writing Retreat offers WashU humanities and humanistic social sciences faculty, postdocs and graduate students the opportunity to jump-start their summer writing in a motivated, supportive and collaborative atmosphere.

Humanities Graduate Student Writing Commons
Most Friday mornings during the academic year. Waitlist open.
All humanities and humanistic social sciences graduate student writers — at any stage — are welcome to join the Humanities Graduate Student Writing Commons. It’s an opportunity for quiet, focused writing alongside peers, providing community and accountability. Registration is required.

Humanities Advocacy Day
March 10–12, 2024. Application deadline has passed.
Each year, the humanities center sponsors up to three graduate students’ participation in the National Humanities Alliance’s annual Humanities Advocacy Day in Washington, D.C. WashU’s participants receive advocacy training and collaborate with members of their statewide advocacy group before meeting with their state’s members of Congress on Capitol Hill to encourage support for federal funding for humanities programs such as the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Department of Education’s International Education programs.

Graduate Writing Workshops
Spring 2024 registration is closed.
The Center for the Humanities and the Writing Center partnered to offer writing workshops for graduate students in humanities and humanistic social sciences fields. The workshops convened approximately six people each across fields and to meet every few weeks throughout the semester. These workshops are designed for those working on long-term academic writing projects such as dissertation chapters, major fields papers, dissertation prospectuses and articles.

More opportunities for WashU graduate students

There are many more ways for graduate students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences to become involved with the Center for the Humanities. Click the button below to return to the Graduate webpage.

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