Backpack Mini-Documentaries are short, 5-7 minute documentaries that promote humanities scholarship by giving a narrative voice to the research process. Each mini-doc covers an individual scholar’s or student’s work or depicts an event put on by a student organization or department affiliated with the humanities.

Producing short, easy-to-watch films that are accessible to students and the larger public will hopefully, in turn, promote the value of humanities research to as large an audience as possible. Making these activities more visible and less mysterious will also encourage students to engage in the same scholarly activities that are depicted in the films. In essence, these documentaries bring the “human” back to the humanities by showing real people engaging in scholarly activities and entertainingly answering the question: What do humanists do?

Backpack Mini-Documentaries are a project of the 4Humanites@CSUN local chapter of 4Humanities. All MiniDocs are shot on the Sony 96GB HXR-NX30 Palm Size camera and edited in iMovie. The camera was purchased with the help of Associated Students at CSUN (California State University, Northridge) and a few generous individual donors.