The Imagining America consortium (IA) brings together scholars, artists, designers, humanists, and organizers to imagine, study, and enact a more just and liberatory ‘America’ and world. Working across institutional, disciplinary, and community divides, IA strengthens and promotes public scholarship, cultural organizing, and campus change that inspires collective imagination, knowledge-making, and civic action on pressing public issues. By dreaming and building together in public, IA creates the conditions to shift culture and transform inequitable institutional and societal structures.
Reflecting on the importance of transitions – from political crises to global climate change, and personal identity to organizational transformation – the 2026 IA National Gathering invites participants to share stories, research, creative works, and community practices exploring the complex process of transitioning away from systems of fear and domination and towards restoring collective spirit.
Featured Image: Taller Arte Nuevo Amanecer (TANA) Archive
By: Kendall Bryant and Ijeoma Njaka, Red House, Georgetown UniversityPhotos: Logan Wang, Red House, Georgetown University Introduction Critical Speculative Design for Anti-Racism in…
+ Enacting Radical Imagination in Higher Education: A 2025 Collaboratory Report
This month’s member spotlight uplifts the Center for Community Based Learning (CCBL) at Occidental College, which will celebrate 25 years of bringing together faculty, students, and community partners as co-thinkers and collaborators in addressing social justice issues. Founded in November of 2001, by a group of faculty and then president, Ted Mitchell, the creation of the CCBL aimed to shift the College’s engagement with the local community from volunteerism to long-term reciprocal community partnerships anchored in the curriculum.
+ Celebrating & Reflecting: 25 Years of Community Based Learning and Research at Occidental College
Following the 2024 election, the Creating Refuge Collaboratory (featuring participants from Bates, Bowdoin, Carleton, and Macalester Colleges) emerged as a collective effort to explore the ways in which civic and community engagement centers could facilitate intersectional spaces of community care, resiliency, and creative resistance for students and communities. Learn more in this blog post.
In the first episode of Gathering Whispers for this season, we talk to IA Managing Director, Stephanie Maroney and IA Faculty Director Erica Kohl-Arenas, who give us a sneak-peek at what we can expect to experience and learn at the 2026 IA National Gathering.
+ EP 1: A CONVERSATION WITH STEPHANIE MARONEY AND ERICA KOHL-ARENAS
Annual convening of public scholars, artists, designers, students, and cultural organizers addressing today’s pressing issues.
IA is proud to share that Pennsylvania State University is the next campus home for Imagining America, starting July 1, 2027. Learn more about this intentional cycle of transition for IA.
IA fosters vibrant networks of graduate and undergraduate students from our member institutions.
IA’s research initiatives and learning opportunities leverage the intellectual and creative capital that is the consortium’s greatest strength.
We envision a world of expansive social imagination, constructed by multiple ways of knowing, where people work together to nurture healthy, vibrant, and joyful communities.
The Imagining America consortium (IA) brings together scholars, artists, designers, humanists, and organizers to imagine, study, and enact a more just and liberatory ‘America’ and world. Working across institutional, disciplinary, and community divides, IA strengthens and promotes public scholarship, cultural organizing, and campus change that inspires collective imagination, knowledge-making, and civic action on pressing public issues.
By dreaming and building together in public, IA creates the conditions to shift culture and transform inequitable institutional and societal structures.
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Funding has been provided by California Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
