What is the Humanities Lab?
Humanities are playing an increasingly important role in education, culture, and society as a whole. The significance of these disciplines is recognized in many university educational programs, and in the professional world, the training they provide is valued for the transferable or generic skills they foster in graduates.
However, every year fewer young people are interested in studying the humanities, which offer very limited and traditional career prospects; moreover, these disciplines do not have the media impact or connection to the wider world that they could generate and that society needs. In addition, a significant number of undergraduate programs in history and literature have been discontinued, and the availability of graduate programs is very limited.
“Training in entrepreneurship, interdisciplinary studies, innovation, and technology
is very limited in humanities programs and, in some cases, nonexistent.”
If Humanities are so important, why must they be taught in college and applied in professional life in exactly the same way as they were decades ago? Why are young people fascinated by historical TV series and video games with cultural content, yet they don’t consider pursuing degrees in the humanities? Why do so many people read historical novels and travel the world marveling at the heritage of civilizations, yet never consider making a living through history, literature, or philosophy?
This paradox has led to the creation of Humanities Lab, whose mission is to study and promote innovation and entrepreneurship in the humanities and to recognize a humanistic education as one of the foundations of creativity and professional autonomy. In short, the goal is to give the humanities the central role they deserve in our society and the prominence they have held in the past.
The Lab is composed of humanities scholars, professionals, and academics from other disciplines who are convinced that innovation and entrepreneurship are not concepts that are at odds with or alien to the humanities, nor are they the exclusive domain of science, business, engineering, and technology—just as a laboratory is not a space reserved solely for the natural sciences. Innovation and entrepreneurship can serve the purpose of the humanities, just as the humanities can be the very foundation of innovation and entrepreneurship.
It is an experimental and collaborative space that carries out its mission in the fields of interdisciplinarity, education, communications, heritage, and technology. As an academic unit within the School of Psychology and Humanities at the University of San Sebastián, its activities extend throughout the entire university, infusing every space, community, and corner of the institution with the Humanities.
El Laboratorio de Humanidades realiza asesorías para empresas e instituciones, capacitaciones docentes y profesionales, cursos y conferencias, asesorías comunitarias, intervenciones culturales y académicas, actividades de extensión, proyectos de investigación y publicaciones, y fomenta espacios colaborativos. Con un enfoque interdisciplinar, promueve la creatividad, el emprendimiento y la comprensión cultural para abordar la actualidad desde las humanidades.
Our mission is inspired by the motto: “Innovation in the humanities and the humanities for innovation”
Consequently, we do not advocate rejecting every change brought about by modernity; rather, we seek to understand it, explain it, and guide it toward the transcendent goals that the Humanities have always championed. This fast-paced world needs the wisdom and aesthetic sensibility of the humanities, but we humanists must learn to communicate with this ever-changing world so that the truth and beauty inherent in our knowledge can transform the lives of many.
The Humanities Lab’s vision is to become a space that promotes the diversification of humanities graduates’ employability and their ability to engage with the wider world, as well as to amplify the impact of the humanities on contemporary society and address the challenges posed by modernity. It is conceived as a center where the collaborative work of scholars and professionals from various faculties and professions converges.
USS Humanities Lab:
A New Vision for the Humanities
in the Digital and Technological Age.