“Why read and write about literature while the world burns?” Because, in working to end the oppression faced by so many, the humanities can help.

Roopika Risam
Roopika Risam is Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies and of Comparative Literature in the Digital Humanities and Social Engagement Cluster at Dartmouth College. She is the author of New Digital Worlds: Postcolonial Digital Humanities in Theory, Praxis, and Pedagogy (Northwestern University Press, 2018) and co-editor of The Digital Black Atlantic (University of Minnesota Press, 2021). Risam also co-edits the journal Reviews in Digital Humanities, which offers peer review of digital scholarly outputs. Risam is the Principal Investigator of the Digital Ethnic Futures Consortium, an initiative supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to build capacity for teaching at the intersections of digital humanities and ethnic studies. Her current book project, “Insurgent Academics: A Radical Account of Public Humanities,” traces a new history of public humanities through the emergence of ethnic studies.
Academic Generosity, Academic Insurgency
During the summer of 2019, funding for the University of Alaska was slashed by the state legislature. With 41 percent of the annual budget, or $130 million ...