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Who reads what Stanford writes?
Most of the ideas universities send into the outside world attract little notice. Stanford is giving academics the skills to reach a wider audience.
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Illustration: Michelle Henry
On the one hand, scholars write a lot of books and papers that very few people read, apart from other scholars.
On the other hand, out in the “real world,” billions of people scroll through headlines, hot takes, and clickbait—the kind of writing more likely to produce fleeting endorphins than lasting insight.
Between these two extremes, there’s an opportunity for knowledgeable authors to provide thoughtful readers with deeper understanding, if only they can learn how to publish the kind of articles, op-eds, essays, books, blogs, and podcasts that ordinary people see.
This is not a skill most universities teach. But it’s the mission of the Stanford Public Humanities Initiative.
Since 2017, the initiative has taught a growing number of Stanford faculty and students how to shape their ideas and pitch them so that they find a broader audience. For example, courses such as Pitching and Publishing in Popular Media have now helped more than 170 students, both undergrad and graduate, publish more than 100 pieces (explore some of them below).
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The Impossible Dream: Why we should never stop attempting hard things, by Nestor Walters, ’22, in STANFORD Magazine. Illustration: Mark Matcho
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“I decided to observe a nursing home acquisition up close. The question I grappled with was: Why do deaths skyrocket in private equity-owned homes?”
When Private Equity Takes Over a Nursing Home, by Yasmin Rafiei, MD ’24, in The New Yorker
“Wherever I went, I felt like an outsider. In Korea, people knew I wasn’t a local from the way I smiled widely and pronounced French fries in two syllables instead of six (프렌치 프라이).”
For Me “Home” Is Never Present, by Hannah Kim, PhD ’21, in Catapult
“The brain can sound like an amusement park: reward centers ‘light up,’ dopamine ‘floods’ our system, we experience an ‘adrenaline rush.’ However, the truth is not nearly as straightforward as the internet might lead us to believe.”
Treating depression takes much more than serotonin, by Grace Huckins, PhD ’23, in Popular Science
“What seems novel is the degree to which heiresses misuse money in ways that are impressively bizarre.”
The Rise of the Downfall of the Dirtbag Heiress, by Chelsea Davis PhD, ’19, in Literary Hub
This is not the kind of writing for which scholars are typically rewarded. Magazine articles historically don’t count toward your PhD, and books without footnotes do not pave professors’ way to tenure. Stanford, however, has taken a fresh look at the premise that if universities exist to generate knowledge, it should reach people. The point of the Public Humanities Initiative is to increase the impact of Stanford’s work in the humanities, arts, and social sciences—areas where Stanford faculty, staff, and students rank just as highly as their peers in STEM fields.
“We are, I dare say, leaders in the emergent field of Public Humanities,” says Laura Goode, associate director for student programs in the Public Humanities Initiative.
After earning an MFA in poetry, Goode spent a decade as a freelance writer, learning to pitch on the job. She also published a novel (Sister Mischief) and a collection of poems (Become a Name), and wrote a screenplay that actually made it to the screen (Farah Goes Bang).
The experience left her wondering, “Why did no one in my wildly expensive MFA program teach me these incredibly practical skills?”—Laura Goode
Those skills include advanced networking, some burnout-prevention techniques, and bringing a little concision to academic writing. Among Goode’s lessons is a playful exercise in which graduate humanities students must describe their dissertations in one sensational sentence, harnessing the power of clickbait for higher education. Case in point: “This 17th-Century Poet Lost Her Virginity—You Won’t Believe What Happens Next!!”
Goode’s classes are consistently overenrolled, and course evaluations regularly feature phrases like “best class I’ve ever taken at Stanford.”
For those who do seek academic careers, the initiative has launched the Public Knowledge Fellowship, supporting graduate students who produce public-facing content. The inaugural fellow, Chanhee Heo, is the first PhD candidate in religious studies to write a dissertation in the non-traditional form of narrative history, incorporating the intimate desires, memories, and emotions of historical figures. Her body of work also includes a podcast and a Washington Post op-ed.
The public writing classes have now expanded beyond the humanities. Stanford students from the sciences and social sciences are also learning to put ideas from their fields in front of people everywhere.
“Students are incredibly hungry for the how of distributing their thoughts to the world,” Goode says. “I’m really proud that our resources provide an answer.”
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