Public Humanities Day: Wednesday, November 19, 2025
American Studies Association Hosts a Public Humanities Day to Kick Off the 2025 ASA Annual Meeting with cultural festivities in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The day’s programming will include film screenings, performances, and author readings by conference participants, evening keynotes, and other featured events. Arts and culture organizations in Old San Juan will welcome ASA members via self-guided walking tours and open houses, offering opportunities to see and support a range of community-based projects.
The day will also feature a community of practice for anti-racist and anti-colonial digital archiving and public humanities projects, and provide an opportunity to assist with an anti-colonial public history initiative. This on-going collaborative project — centered on a historic cemetery across from Humanidades Puerto Rico, where a number of notable Puerto Rican political figures are buried — will kick off at the Public Humanities day and be guided entirely by local organizations, with ASA members contributing as invited research and service partners.
Public Humanities Day on Wednesday, November 19th, in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Events will be held at Humanidades Puerto Rico’s headquarters in the Cuartel de Ballajá of Old San Juan. This building was originally constructed by the Spanish army and has since been repurposed to promote and sustain arts and culture, hosting special arts and culture events year-round. In addition to Humanidades Puerto Rico, the building houses El Museo de las Américas (the Museum of the Americas), Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española (the Puerto Rico Academy of the Spanish Language), La Oficina Estatal de Conservación Histórica (the State Office of Historic Conservation), and other organizations. Like the state Humanities Councils on the mainland, Humanidades Puerto Rico is facing steep federal cuts to their programing, and they are excited to collaborate with ASA, convene humanities work across Puerto Rico, and illustrate the importance of their work to a broad audience.
PUBLIC HUMANITIES DAY HEADLINE EVENTS
- Puerto Rico on the Map: A Black Boricua Perspective on Hurricane Maria, Mutual Aid, Self-Determination and Resistance
- Radical Imagination and the Transcolonial Condition: Giannina Braschi’s Literary Dispositifs (separate ticket required)
ASA’s Public Humanities Program
- You Can’t Erase Us: Testimony as Resistance in the Time of Climate Denial
- Archives of Empire in New York & Puerto Rico
- BlackItalian: A Film Screening and Discussion
- Reclaiming Humanity: Saving Seattle’s First Filipinx American US History Course
- Drag Against Empire: A Lecture meets Lip Sync Resurrection by la Profesora Lolita Cabrón & Fam
- Trans Ecologies and the Archive: Planting Euphoria in the Late-Stage Empire
ASA Public Humanities Day
ASA 2025 ANNUAL MEETING
LEADERSHIP
Alex Lubin, President-elect, American Studies Association
Pennsylvania State University
Moustafa Bayoumi, Brooklyn College
Marisol LeBrón, UC Santa Cruz
Jasbir Puar, University of British Columbia
Sara Awartani, University of Michigan
Amira Rose Davis, University of Texas
Gina Dent, UC Santa Cruz
Ira Dworkin, Texas A & M University
Cynthia Franklin, University of Hawai‘i
Emily Hobson, University of Nevada
Uahikea Maile, University of Chicago
Jorell Meléndez-Badillo, University of Wisconsin
Omar Zahzah, SF State University
key words: ASA Annual Meeting 2025, Public Humanities Day, Putinoika, Alex Lubin, Postcolonial Literature, Transcolonial condition, Radical Imagination