Human Chapters: Where people are now becoming open books

The “Human Chapters” bottom-up initiative is financed by the Arqus Innovation Fund. PhD student Saumya Sadhu leads the project to bring people together.

An experience familiar to all students and researchers: You want to find out more about a topic or a person. That’s why you enter a library, take a book off the shelf and read a chapter or two to expand your knowledge. But what if there was a library where people instead of books were waiting for inquisitive people? People who are willing to behave like open books and answer open questions by recounting chapters from their lives?

This is exactly what PhD student Saumya Sadhu from the University of Graz wants to make possible together with colleagues from the universities of Granada, Lyon 1, Minho and Padua. As part of the “Human Chapters” project, online events on the topic of “Diversity at universities” are to be created in which all interested people can participate. People who study and work at universities and have experienced diversity will then be waiting for visitors in various rooms.

Tangible stories

Saumya Sadhu explains: “The aim is to enable people to learn more about the reality of life for a wide variety of people. But not through specialised lectures and theory, but directly from people who talk about their lives.” The aim is to make opportunities, problems and solutions tangible.

A platform that is here to stay

According to Sadhu, the funding of the Arqus Innovation Fund is central to the realisation of “Human Chapters”: “One thing was clear to us from the outset: we don’t want to expect our ‘chapters’ to do this without payment. That would be unfair and against our principles.”

Even though the project is only just getting off the ground, Saumya Sadhu and her team already know exactly what they want: “Our events should offer a platform where people can simply speak freely. Experiences should be shared as they were experienced. This can create a space where people can learn first-hand about the experiences of women, people of colour and queer people during their time at university.”

Human Chapters: Join in now!

The first edition of “Human Chapters” is set to take place at the end of  2025. And it won’t just be one event: “Our hope is that we can do this regularly with lots of different people.” That way, as many people as possible can learn from each other and ultimately understand each other better.

Anyone who would like to become a “Human Chapter” themselves and report on their own experiences at one or other event can contact Saumya Sadhu (saumya.sadhu(at)uni-graz.at) and become an open book themselves.

Original news

“Human Chapters” is one of the many ad hoc bottom-up initiatives financed by the Arqus Innovation Fund. Read more about it here.