Unearthed
Unearthed is a new multiyear thematic initiative from Indiana Humanities that encourages Hoosiers to discover and discuss their relationships with the natural world. Through engaging speakers, a statewide read, a tour of the Smithsonian’s Water/Ways exhibit, Campfires treks, a film series, a podcast and more, Hoosiers will explore how we shape the environment and how the environment shapes us.
Together, we’ll use the humanities to better understand our actions and interactions. We’ll consider what our state’s environmental history might reveal about its landscape and its people today. We’ll get comfortable with the idea of living in the Anthropocene. And we’ll ask questions like, “Are we being good ancestors?”
We think there will be something for everyone along the way—whether your idea of a good time is going for a long walk in the woods or sitting down with a book.
Curious to hear more about the programs included in Unearthed? Watch this informational webinar.
Program Highlights
Waterways Film Tour
Local communities to screen original short films created by Hoosier filmmakers exploring our relationship to water
Watch the Trailer
Dig deeper
This short new video featuring authors Ross Gay and Scott Russell Sanders helps frame the ideas behind Unearthed and provides a humanities lens to how we shape the environment and how it shapes us.
Watch this video
Why we chose this theme
Senior Program Manager Megan Telligman shares why we chose Unearthed as our next thematic initiative and why the environmental humanities are important for our current moment.
Read the blog
5 more small Indiana towns to host Smithsonian exhibit
Indiana Humanities will provide additional funds and resources to help residents explore their community’s relationship to water.
Learn more
Unearthed Novel Conversations Collection
In honor of our Unearthed initiative, we’ve created a book collection for the Novel Conversations lending library.
Check it outProgram Details
Environmental Humanities Speakers Bureau
About the Speakers Bureau
Do you want to have conversations with your neighbors to explore and contemplate the Anthropocene, Indiana’s environmental history, climate change, environmental racism and other topics related to the Unearthed theme? Indiana Humanities has curated a speakers bureau of talks and workshops by Hoosier scholars and experts. From writing haiku inspired by our natural world to conversations about what it means for Hoosiers to be living on indigenous lands, the speakers provide a variety of points of entry to join the statewide conversation.
Waterways Films
Indiana Humanities is hosting a 9-city film tour featuring six short documentary films about Indiana’s waterways. From improving the health of the Blue River to support the hellbender salamander habitat to the fading art of net making, the films explore issues of access and conservation, as well as the unique cultures that spring up around Indiana’s waterways.
Water/Ways
Indiana Humanities will sponsor a tour of the Smithsonian’s Water/Ways exhibit during the first year of the Unearthed theme.
Six communities will host the exhibit for six weeks each and will receive extensive training, funding and other resources from the expert staffs of the Smithsonian and Indiana Humanities. Each of the six hosts will also curate a unique section of the exhibit that explores their community’s relationship to water.
As part of the Indiana tour, Water/Ways will visit the following communities during 2021 and 2022.
North Webster Public Library (North Webster): June 26, 2021–August 7, 2021
La Porte County Soil and Water Conservation District / La Porte County Public Library (Rolling Prairie): August 14, 2021–September 26, 2021
University of Southern Indiana/Historic New Harmony (New Harmony): October 2, 2021–November 14, 2021
Riverscape/Wabash River Development and Beautification, Inc. (West Terre Haute): November 20, 2021–December 30, 2021
Jefferson County Public Library (Madison): January 8, 2022–February 20, 2022
Cope Environmental Center (Centerville): February 26, 2022–April 10, 2022
Cedar Lake Historical Association (Cedar Lake): April 15-May 22
Carnegie Public Library of Steuben County (Angola): May 28-July 17
Culver Union Township Public Library (Culver): July 23-Sept. 4
Switzerland County Tourism Office (Vevay): Sept. 10-Oct. 23
Benton County Soil & Water Conservation / Otterbein Public Library (Benton Co.): Oct. 29-Dec. 11
Campfires
Indiana Humanities has been hosting Campfires across Indiana since 2016 and will continue to invite Hoosiers to explore the connections between literature, nature and the future of Indiana in conjunction with Unearthed.
In 2021, we’ll host four in-person public events and one virtual event. These treks have limited capacity and typically sell out.
How to Survive the Future
How to Survive the Future is a podcast created by Alex Chambers and Allison Quantz in partnership with Indiana Humanities. Listening parties will be hosted for each of the five episodes.
About the Podcast
In How to Survive the Future, we ask everyday people to imagine a world where they have made it through the challenges of the present and faced the pain of the past and then tell us what life is like after that. Farmers, poets, parents, organizers and others imagine how their lives, and the landscapes around them, will be different than they are now—hopefully for the better, though it’s never that simple. From the interviews, we create sound-rich “imaginative documentaries” that explore real stories of the past and possible stories of the future. The stories teach us about history and society, show us struggles personal and political, and offer us a chance to reflect on how the state of the world, fixed and inevitable as it may seem, is always up for grabs.
Alex Chambers, Executive Producer
Alex is a writer, educator, and radio producer in Bloomington, Indiana. He produces and hosts WFIU’s Inner States, a weekly arts and culture show; he produced the Hoosier Young Farmers Podcast; and he teaches podcasting at the Indiana University Media School. His PhD dissertation, Climate Violence and the Poetics of Refuge, and his book of poems, Binding: A Preparation, are both about how we make it through, together
Allison Quantz, Executive Editor
Allison is a radio and podcast producer and consultant living in Bloomington, Indiana. She is senior producer at Virginia Humanities’ radio show and podcast, With Good Reason. She launched The Briefing from SiriusXM in 2015 and produced it until late 2017. In 2018 she helped launch and began producing The Growing Edge podcast with Carrie Newcomer and Parker Palmer. Her work has been heard on BackStory with the American History Guys, WFIU, Virginia Public Radio, Word of Mouth, Distillations and PRX Remix.
Statewide Read
Indiana Humanities’ One State / One Story program invites Hoosiers to engage deeply with a book as part of a statewide conversation tied to the themes of Unearthed. As in previous years, we’ll award grants to host a community read of the One State / One Story selection to organizations around the state.
On August 3, we announced that World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil will be the 2022 One State / One Story Selection.
INCONVERSATION
Indiana Humanities’ INconversation engages an intimate group in interesting and insightful conversations with some of the nation’s most intriguing thought-leaders. This highly participatory question-and-answer style discussion involves the thought leader, a moderator and the audience. INconversation is a signature program of Indiana Humanities.
Upcoming INconversations
INconversation with Vann R. Newkirk II
EVENT POSTPONED: INconversation with Robin Wall Kimmerer moderated by Felica Ahasteen-Bryant
Explore These Five Guiding Questions
How do we shape our environment, and how does our environment shape us?
What does Hoosier environmental history reveal about Indiana’s landscape and its people today?
How can the humanities help us understand our relationship with the natural world?
How does our understanding of nature affect our actions toward the environment?
How is environmental change impacting our understanding of humanity’s legacy? Are we being good ancestors?
Why we chose this theme
Senior Program Manager Megan Telligman shares why we chose Unearthed as our next thematic initiative and why the environmental humanities are important for our current moment.
Read moreQuestions?
Contact Megan Telligman, Senior Program Manager:
mtelligman@indianahumanities.org | 317.616.9409