The Crucial Role of the Humanities in Enterprise and the Economy
Edited by Alain-Philippe Durand and Christine Henseler
With AI, cryptocurrency, and more in the news, it seems that being an entrepreneur means being in IT, but humanities graduates are launching new businesses every day, turning a profit and having social impact. This book explores how a humanities background can enable entrepreneurs to thrive.
Across all levels of education, students are given the message that to change the world - or make money - the arts and humanities are not the subjects to study. At the same time, discussions of innovation and entrepreneurship highlight the importance of essential skills, such as critical thinking, storytelling, cultural awareness, and ethical decision-making. Here’s the disconnect: the subjects that help to develop these vital skills are derided at critical points in any aspiring entrepreneur’s education. This collection of perspectives from entrepreneurs in a range of fields and humanities educators illustrates what individuals, and the wider world, are missing when humanities are overlooked as a source of inspiration and success in business.
Featuring a foreword by Sensemaking author Christian Madsbjerg, this is a thought-provoking guide for aspiring entrepreneurs in all sectors, and for educators, a window on the practical value of the humanities in an ever more mechanized world._
CONTENTS
Foreword by Christian Madsbjerg
Introduction: Open for Business: The Entrepreneurial Humanities
1. Sparking a Movement: Cross-Disciplinary Innovation and The Humanities
2. Diplomacy as Entrepreneurial Humanities
3. Entrepreneurship: A Radically Relational Undertaking?
4. Developing the Entrepreneurial Mind: A Fresh Look at the Humanities
5. Disruption in the Arts and Humanities: Promoting a Mindset of Innovation and Entrepreneurship
6. Saving Humanity: The Courage to Act on Climate Change
7. Voice Entrepreneurs: Making a Career in Human Speech
8. Collaborative Humanities: Creativity, Classics and Being a Chameleon
9. Healing Trauma at the Intersection of Entrepreneurship and Design
10. Liberal Arts Approaches to Teaching Women Entrepreneurship in Senegal: Narratives, Ethics, Empathy
11. The Humanities at Work: Internships and the Entrepreneurial Act
12.Mastering the Art and Science of a Humanized Employee Experience
13. An Agora for the Medical Student Community: Creating
14. An Agora for the Medical Student Community: Creating Innovative Spaces for Medical Trainee Reflection and Collaboration
15. Perfection Fatigue and the Resurgence of Humanist Microentrepreneurs
EDITORS
Who We Are
ALAIN-PHILIPPE DURAND
DORRANCE DEAN OF COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
Alain-Philippe Durand is Dean of the College of Humanities, Professor of French and Applied Intercultural Arts Research, and affiliated faculty in Africana Studies, Latin American Studies and LGBT Studies at the University of Arizona. His research interests include French and Brazilian literatures and cultures, French Cinema, Hip-Hop, and the promotion of the Humanities disciplines in the professions. He is the author and editor of five books as well as many articles and chapters. He serves as Associate Editor of Contemporary French Civilization and on the boards of AZ Humanities and American College of the Mediterranean. His most recent edited book is titled Hip-Hop en français. An Exploration of Hip-Hop Culture in the Francophone World.
CHRISTINE HENSELER
PROF. OF SPANISH & HISPANIC STUDIES
UNION COLLEGE, NY
Christine Henseler is professor of Spanish and Hispanic Studies at Union College, NY. She has served as the chair of the Department of Modern Languages & Literatures, as the Director of Faculty Development and the Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Studies, among other administrative positions.
Christine is actively engaged in the advocacy of the arts & humanities on national and international fronts. She co-leads 4Humanities and continues to build a website called The Arts & Humanities in the 21st Century Workplace. She was a blogger for the HuffPost and actively publishes public opinion pieces in Inside Higher Ed and other outlets, often in collaboration with colleagues from different fields and professions outside of academia. Her most recent book is titled Extraordinary Partnerships: How the Arts and Humanities are Transforming America.
BOOK CONTRIBUTORS
(currently accepting contributions on a rolling basis)
FORWARD
written by Christian Madsbjerg
Professor of Applied Humanities at The New School and Co-Founder of the pioneering consultancy Red Associates.
SIMONE KLIASS
"Voice in Tech: Using the Human Voice to Bring AI to Life"
São Paolo, Brazil
International ambassador for Women in Voice, vice-president of the Brazilian extended-reality association (XRBR), and creator and curator of the Pixel Voice voiceover conference, Simone Kliass has given talks at SXSW and VO Atlanta in the United States, The VoiceOver Network in Europe, and Rio2C, Path, HackTown, and Pixel Show in Brazil. She hosts Brazil's leading virtual reality conference and works as a consultant for the New-York-based Edge Studio. She’s also the voice of the São Paulo International Airport, LATAM Airlines, Globo's GNT channel, SKY TV, and of several immersive experiences, including the Primetime Emmy-award-winning "The Line".
ROSEANNA CHANTILUKE
"Entrepreneurship: A Radically Relational Undertaking?"
Oxford, UK
Roseanne Chantiluke is a researcher and programme manager whose work brings together humanities research, collaborative educational programming and social justice. Rose is currently working as the Director of Global Programming for the Centre for Tutorial Teaching, based in Oxford, UK, and as a researcher for the Penguin Books and the Runnymede Trust Lit in Colour Project. She holds a BA and MSt in Modern and Medieval Languages from the University of Oxford.
KEN MCALLISTER AND JUDD RUGGILL
The Humanities at Work:
Internships and the Entrepreneurial Act
Arizona, US
Ken McAllister is a Professor in the Department of Public & Applied Humanities, and the Associate Dean for Research & Program Innovation in the University of Arizona's College of Humanities. In both of these roles, Ken is able to exercise his penchant for gaining new perspectives on the world, whether through his scholarly collaborations with language instructors, video game designers, community organizers, and software archivists, or through his administrative work assisting students, staff, and faculty from dozens of different disciplines to write grants and execute small and large scale projects.
Judd Ruggill is Professor and Head of the Department of Public & Applied Humanities. He primarily researches play and the technologies, industries, and sociocultural phenomena that enable it. He has published and presented on topics ranging from xenolinguistics to the wicked problem of collaboration, and is currently working on a book with Ken McAllister about archiving. In his spare time he plays the double bass.
ALEENA PAUL
"An Agora for the Medical Community:
Creating Innovative Spaces for Medical Trainee Reflection and Collaboration"
—co-edited with Ajay Major —
New York State, US
Aleena Paul is General Internal Medicine and Academic General Pediatrics Fellow at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell Health, and co-founder with Ajay Major of Pager Publications, Inc. a non-profit literary corporation that curates and supports peer-edited publications for the medical education community.
AJAY MAJOR
"An Agora for the Medical Community:
Creating Innovative Spaces for Medical Trainee Reflection and Collaboration"
—co-edited with Aleena Paul —
Chicago, Illinois, US
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Ajay Major is chief fellow in adult hematology and oncology at The University of Chicago. He is Class of 2016 graduate of Albany Medical College and finished his residency in internal medicine at the University of Colorado in 2019. He and Aleena Paul founded Pager Publications, Inc. in 2014, a 501c3 non-profit literary corporation that curates and supports peer-edited publications for the medical education community.
CHRISTINA GOLDSCHMIDT
"Healing Trauma With Entrepreneurship and Design"
Christina Goldschmidt is an award-winning design leader who is known for transforming product design teams to work at enterprise scale while fostering cultures that drive both business and social impact. Before joining Etsy as Head of Product Design, Christina spent 25 years gaining cross-functional experience driving digital innovation at Fortune 500 companies like Accenture, Morgan Stanley, American Express, Omnicom Media Group, The Discovery Channel and others.
Christina’s expertise extends beyond design into product and tech, helping teams innovate by focusing on the intersection of desirability, viability, and feasibility. With an equal leadership in management, her key to helping designers unlock and empower themselves and their careers is a strong foundation in anthropology and customer behavior. As an advocate for mental health, she works to help managers lead from a place of authenticity.
Christina received her MBA from NYU Stern and a B.S. in design from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She is passionate about education and is a leading instructor and guest lecturer at NYU Stern and General Assembly, to name a few. She has also been featured at SXSW, the Better Product Podcast, Ecommerce Design Summit, InVision’s Inside Design and HR Transform. Outside of work she loves to focus on craft, be it in millinery, ikebana, cooking or the perfect cocktail.
If you'd like to learn more about Christina's work, go to SXSW, Better Product Podcast, Ecommerce Design Summit, InVision’s Inside Design, and HR Transform.
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JANA FEDTKE
AND MOHAMMED IBAHRINE
"Disruption in the Arts and Humanities: Promoting a Mindset of Innovation and Entrepreneurship"
United Arab Emirates
Dr. Jana Fedtke is Assistant Professor in Residence in the Liberal Arts Program at Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q). Her research and teaching interests include science and technology in fiction, gender studies, and transnational literatures with a focus on South Asia and Africa. Dr. Fedtke’s work has been published in, for example, Online Information Review, Asian Studies, Journalism Practice, South Asian History and Culture, and Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives (Routledge).
Dr. Mohammed Ibahrine is a Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the American University of Sharjah (AUS), United Arab Emirates. Before coming to AUS, he was a lecturer at the University of Hamburg and the University of Erfurt, Germany, as well as an Assistant Professor at Al-Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco. Dr. Ibahrine has also presented his research at many European and North American universities. In Spring 2020, he won the Award for Excellence in Research of the College of Arts and Sciences at AUS. He has published widely on digital technologies and human behavior as well as innovation and entrepreneurial marketing.
SHIVAIKE SHAH
"Collaborative Humanities - Creativity, Classics and Being a Chameleon "
London, UK
Shivaike Shah is a British Indian producer who has worked in fashion, theatre and film. Shivaike was a show producer at London Fashion Week and worked with West End production company Selladoor Worldwide. He recently finished as Key Assistant Production Coordinator on a major Netflix feature film, and also worked in production on a Marvel TV series. In March 2020, Shivaike founded Khameleon Productions, and has since been awarded public and private funding from the UK and US. He is also the creator and host of the Khameleon Classics podcast. Shivaike is currently the Visiting Artist at Brown Arts Institute, Brown University as part of his Uprooting Medea tour. He graduated in English Literature from University College, Oxford in 2019.
ANDRÉ GOODFRIEND
"Making It Real: Diplomacy as Entrepreneurial Humanities"
Washington DC, US
M. André Goodfriend joined the Department of State in 1987 and is a member of the Senior Foreign Service (the diplomatic corps), with the rank of Minister Counselor. His overseas assignments have ranged from adjudicating visa applications in India, safeguarding the welfare of U.S. citizens in the UK, countering organized crime and visa fraud in Russia, providing political analysis in Israel, advising consular officers at small U.S. embassies across Africa, heading the Consular Section in Syria and heading the U.S. embassy in Hungary. In Washington, D.C., he has worked on conflict prevention strategies and on the implementation of new information technologies.
Born in California and raised in Arizona, André has studied Hungarian, Hebrew, French, Russian, Greek (classical and modern), Spanish, Hindi, Arabic and Yiddish. The State Department has recognized his work with numerous Meritorious Honor and Superior Honor awards, as well as the Mary Ryan Award for Outstanding Public Service. In 2018, André was selected as the University of Arizona College of Humanities Alumnus of the Year; and, recognizing the value of seeing humanities as something which can be applied directly and tangibly to improve the human condition, he established a scholarship fund for UofA students studying Applied Humanities.
LEAH N'DIAYE
"Mastering the Art and Science of a Human Employee Experience"
Albuquerque-Santa Fe, USA
Leah is a transformation and change leader with expertise in organization effectiveness and management consulting. She is known as someone who leads with empathy, curiosity and has a passion for enabling people to tap into their fullest potential. She began her career focusing on adult learning and culture – living and working abroad in France, Mexico, Italy and Spain - and then focused the bulk of her career as a management consultant in Accenture’s Talent and Organization practice.
Today, Leah is in charge of Silicon Valley Bank’s (SVB) Organizational Effectiveness Center of Excellence which she built from the ground up. Her team built change and organization design services that have significantly supported SVB’s growth. Some of this work has involved digital transformation, process and technology adoption as well as leading the transformation efforts for the recently acquired Boston Private Bank.
Leah believes that the connections with business, people, language and culture are key to a successful employee experience. She gained this perspective through many years of practice and observation. Her academic training also helped to inform this perspective. She earned her Master’s Degree at Paris Dauphine IX in Organizational Science and Human Resources. She gained a Master’s Degree in French Literature from the University of New Mexico and studied French, Spanish and Cultural Anthropology in her undergraduate studies.
JOANNA CAREY
"Saving Humanity: The Courage to Act on Climate Change"
Dr. Joanna C. Carey is an Associate Professor of Earth & Environmental Science at Babson College. Her research focuses on answering fundamental questions regarding ecosystem processes in the context of global change. She examines how human activities are altering carbon, nitrogen, and silicon cycling along the land-ocean continuum (forests, tundra, rivers, salt marshes, and estuaries) in temperate and Arctic ecosystems. While at Babson she has created and taught several courses, including the introductory science course Oceanography (NST 1060) and an upper level co-taught elective Unintended Consequences, at the Interface of Business and the Environment (SUS 3601). Dr. Carey received her Ph.D. in Earth Science from Boston University (2013), her M.S. in Environmental Science from Yale University (2007), and her B.S. in Environmental Policy & Planning from Virginia Tech (2005). Before joining Babson in 2017, Dr. Carey completed several post-doctoral fellowships, including an NSF Earth Science Fellowship and a USGS Powell Center Fellowship, both hosted at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA.
ERIC TOUYA DE MARENNE
"Liberal Arts Approaches to Teaching Women Entrepreneurship in Senegal:
Narratives, Ethics, Empathy.”
South Carolina, US
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Eric Touya de Marenne is Professor of French. He received his Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago, the John B. & Thelma A. Gentry Award for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities in 2012, and the Dean’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Service in 2017. His research and teaching interests include 19th-21st Century French and Francophone Literature and Culture, and interdisciplinary approaches to literature, art, economics, ethics, and society. His most recent publications include Simone de Beauvoir: le combat au féminin, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2019, and The Case for the Humanities: Pedagogy, Polity, Interdisciplinarity, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.
SUSAN M. FROST
The Entrepreneurial Guide to Teaching the Humanities:
A Fresh Look at Use
Wisconsin, US
Susan Frost founded Frost Marketing Communications in the 1980s, to provide comprehensive marketing communications for retailers and business-to-business companies. While completing a master’s degree in Modern Studies at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, she realized the study of literature and theory was a key to fostering lasting, in-depth perspective that efficiently increased critical thinking, empathy and negotiating skills.
Susan teaches in both the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay’s Humanities Department and in the Business Department and MBA program. Her “Thinking Through the Humanities” workshops in diversity, critical thinking, and empathy for organizations including business, medicine, and public service are offered throughout the country. Practicing the applied humanities in her community, she has served on museum, theatre, music, and historic preservation boards. The study of the humanities, she maintains, creates a biosphere which increases the creativity and functionality of all other disciplines.
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MATTHEW M. MARS
"The 21st Century Humanist Entrepreneur and the Power and Value of Imperfection"
— co-edited with Hope Jensen Schau —
Arizona, US
Matthew M. Mars, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Leadership and Innovation in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at The University of Arizona. Matt’s research focuses on how entrepreneurial logics and strategies become embedded in and influence academic cultures, community development initiatives, and social movements. Dr. Mars has published in a range of academic journals that include Agriculture and Human Values, Higher Education, Journal of Higher Education, Journal of Management Inquiry, Minerva, Organizational Dynamics, Review of Higher Education, and Rural Sociology. He is the Co-Editor of Advances in the Study of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Economic Growth.
HOPE JENSEN SCHAU
"The 21st Century Humanist Entrepreneur and the Power and Value of Imperfection"
— co-edited with Matthew M. Mars —
Arizona, US
Hope Jensen Schau, Ph.D is Eller Professor of Marketing at University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management. Hope’s research focuses on market practices, consumption journeys, brand building, integrated marketing communications, the impact of technology on marketplace relationships, and collaborative value creation. She is President-elect of Consumer Culture Theory Consortium, an Associate Editor at the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, an Area Editor for the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing and the Journal of Business Research.
WHAT DOES THE FUTURE LOOK LIKE?
CONTACT
Please get in touch for more information about The Entrepreneurial Arts & Humanities book, to discuss possible contributions, or for any other questions.
Alain-Philippe Durand, University of Arizona (adurand@arizona.edu)
Christine Henseler, Union College (henselec@union.edu)
