Beyond these areas of knowledge, the term humanities also involves processes such as careful reading, reflection and critical thinking, whereby these areas are analyzed, understood, presented and preserved.

Public Humanities provide the important connection between academic disciplines and the larger public in better understanding the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of everyday life. By connecting the ideas and traditions of diverse communities with the methods and skills of humanities scholars, public humanities programs help to broaden the ways that we understand our cultural heritage and traditions at the local, regional and national level. The underlying goal of humanistic disciplines is to engage public life by rethinking our perspectives, investigating our assumptions, and raising questions about human thought, history, and culture.