Do Migratory Birds Also Have to Leave Their Friends Behind?
This is an image drawn by an unschooled refugee child living in a camp in the outskirts of Chtoura, Lebanon. She is from Syria but has lived in Lebanon her whole life. In this image, we see "the human" in the form of the home/structure she herself has had to leave behind, as well as in the figure of the bombs/chemicals that caused her home to no longer be inhabitable. Like the migratory birds of our lesson -- the White Crane Syrians call Abu Sa'ad (the Father of Joy) -- she views the past not as something that has been lost to her forever, but as something that returns, in cycles. Whereas for the Abu Sa'ad of Syria's skies, the trees of Ghouta return in cyclical patterns according to the season of their flight, the children of Syria return to their homes in the cyclical patterns of their dreams. Scents also evoke memories of return, which the painter here evokes with her finger prints. I was moved by the child's use of her own hands and fingers to evoke scent and affect -- of roses, bombs, fear, and hope.
<em>Ein is for Nest</em> by Nour AlBrzwy and Tory Brykalski
Monday, June 28th, 2021
Tory Brykalski, 34, gradate student and anthropologist of emergency eduction
migratory-birds-friends
Reading and its Superpowers
I cannot remember who first introduced me to the work of Roald Dahl, but it is his books that sparked a lifelong love of reading for me. I grew up as the only girl between two brothers and our house was peppered with sports equipment; our calendar was controlled by games, practices, and tournaments. We all played sports, and I was frequently the only girl on the boys’ baseball teams, in the age division, and for a long time, in the league. Off the field, I loved school, reading, and arts & crafts. So, at times, I felt a little different or out of place. Like most kids, I often wondered how to act or how to be. <br /><br />I can’t remember now exactly when I read Dahl’s <em>Matilda</em>, but I remember identifying with the storyline about a young girl who felt out of place and who found comfort in stories. She was young, but was smart; she was independent and self-sufficient. She read books far beyond her age. Eventually, she learned she could control objects with her mind and she used these powers to outsmart the terrible people around her. In short, she became a hero. <br /><br />It wasn’t that our situations were the same that I felt an affinity with Matilda – I certainly wasn’t surrounded by terrible people as she was – but I think it was because she, too, felt a little different and she too, liked to read. I loved reading before <em>Matilda</em>, but I think that story made me feel like reading could lead to superpowers. She wasn’t a boy with a cape; she couldn’t scale buildings or fly; she didn’t have some extraordinary strength (and to be fair, it wasn’t the reading that gave her her superpowers, but that is what stuck with me). Rather, she had a library card and some quiet time and a few people that believed in her. So, it was also <em>Matilda</em> that made me feel that reading curled up in the back of the school bus or sitting out recess to finish a book wasn’t something to be embarrassed of, because that’s what she did. I wanted to have the mountains of books she did; I wanted to read everything she had. <br /><br />Now, I am sure I haven’t read everything Matilda did and I have been privileged to have had no real terrible things or people to overcome personally, but one part of her story did resonate. I did stumble into some superpowers. From reading stories, I learned empathy and kindness, connection and perspective, humility and humanity. I could hear stories from other people who were not me, who did not grow up in the world I did, who did not express their stories in the same ways as I would. It isn’t only children’s books that did this and continue to do this for me, but back then, Roald Dahl and so many others started it. <br /><br />These days, I mainly read and write nonfiction. I love how language creates moments and images; I love how writers make words live together on the page. I now study essays & poems, but sometimes I still think of them as kinds of stories. And I still think reading them (or listening to them) leads to those superpowers of connection, compassion, and humanity. <br /><br />But my connection with this children’s book goes beyond that, because it has also taught me why representation is so important. All young people should be able to see themselves in a story, to have that moment of realization, identification, and inspiration. Everyone deserves to see themselves as the hero, no matter their age, gender, race, class, sexual orientation, or disability. No matter if they read themselves in a book, hear themselves in a song, or find themselves in dance, theater, or the fine arts. The ability to see glimpses of our own stories in others is important, because I think it prepares us to be open to other stories completely different than ours. For me, it started with <em>Matilda</em>. And as an adult now, I am still a woman who loves to read and who still believes in its superpowers.
Roald Dahl
<em>Matilda</em>
Bailey Boyd, 32, Ph.D Candidate
reading-superpowers
A Love That Follows You
<p>One of my earliest childhood memories is of a sweet voice reading sweet words to me from a simple children's book. The voice belonged to my grandmother and the words were ones of pure love. As for the book, its title is <em>Love You Forever</em> and its memorable blue cover has followed me from childhood to my young adulthood, saving me repeatedly.</p>
<p>A child may not be able to comprehend the notion or importance of unconditional love but the comfort linked to it is easily understood and craved, love is a universal language after all. The affection my grandma held for me then was easily found within her every action, her hugs and excitement to see me, spending her nights watching movies with me, and of course, reading to me my favorite, little book. The words “I’ll love you forever/ I’ll like you for always/ As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be”, will forever invoke the purest, most childlike feelings of love and happiness. This love and understanding between my grandma and I is so important, and has become an important lifeline in times of trial.</p>
<p>Eventually, like we all do, I grew up and my memory of the book faded. My relationship with my grandmother did not fade, however, circumstances caused us both to move away from our home state of Arizona. While she was in Texas for work, my family was in Ohio to be an aid for my aunt during a hard time in her life. There I was, crammed in a house with ten other people, living in a state I’d never been to before, and on the other side of the country from everything and everyone I knew. It was, to say the least, difficult for me at 13 to cope with. My parents tried to make the best of it by taking day trips and getting occasional treats.</p>
<p>One small day trip in particular had us on the road to a little town I can’t remember the name of. As we explored, we found a quaint little bakery that sold donuts, so of course we went in. As my dad ordered, I found myself in the corner where there were some dusty books shelved up next to a fireplace. I glanced at the books and one blue cover caught my eye. At this point in my life, I was struggling to find peace or any kind of comfort. I know my family was doing their best but everyone was struggling to feel loved. This is the moment where I realized the importance of not only nostalgia but that eternal love I keep mentioning. All the warm, gushy feelings hit me at once as I pulled the familiar book from the shelf.</p>
<p>This book, on a dusty bookshelf, in a small bakery in Ohio had just changed my life, all because of the love a grandma has for her grandchild. To be brought back to such a perfect feeling of love in the midst of my unending depression was so staggering. This sudden change from despair to hope changed my life and my outlook from there forward. I was going to be okay because no matter what I did or who I became, there is someone out there who will always love me. This thought carried me through trials throughout my life to this point. Everyone needs somebody to love them without conditions. This is the reason for some people’s cruelty and others kindness, and I understand that now. This is why I will always choose kindness. This is my humanities moment.</p>
<em>Love You Forever</em> by Robert Munsch
Hailey Rogers, 18, High School Senior
love-that-follows-you
The Magic of the Humanities
When I think of my love for the humanities, I think of magic. For me, the humanities offer a glimpse into other realms, worlds filled with wonder, excitement and adventure. Perhaps nothing encapsulates the pure joy that the humanities represent to me as well as my forays into Narnia as a young child. C. S. Lewis’s magical land of Narnia was the first of many worlds I explored alongside my parents and younger sister. When I was small, my family did not have a television, so after dinner reading was our most entertaining pastime. I remember my parents taking turns reading through <em>The Chronicles of Narnia</em>. My daddy would perform different voice for each character—accents included. It was great fun! My sister and I would sit enthralled for hours (or what seemed like it), begging for “just one more chapter.” <br /><br />For us, it was not just a book—it was an entire world that we brought to life together in our middle-class kitchen in plain old Plano, Texas. <em>The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe</em> made us long for Christmas and shiver with cold, even in the hot Texas summers. We begged for Turkish Delight; the descriptions of the delicacy tested the limits of our childish imaginations and we wanted to taste it for ourselves. One day, daddy came home from work and brought us a box filled with the delectable sweet so we could experience Edmund’s temptation alongside him. We were unimpressed. In my memory, the texture is wrong and the taste pales in comparison to the way Turkish Delight had tantalized my imagination—it was like the inside of a jelly bean: bland, fruity—a little slimy. I remember thinking it would definitely take something chocolate and gooey (not fruity and slimy) for me to betray my siblings as Edmund had done. <br /><br />My sister and I fought over the relative merits of each novel. My favorite was <em>Prince Caspian</em> (I liked that Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy reprised their roles in the book and even at that age I was a sucker for a Prince and an under-dog rebellion), hers was <em>The Horse and His Boy</em>. For Christmas, the year after my parents finished reading through all seven of <em>The Chronicles</em>, they gave us the whole series of recorded books on tape. We listened to them so often that I think I still have the majority of <em>Prince Caspian</em> memorized. Indeed, for me—to a certain extent—the magic of Narnia is indelibly linked in memory to the magic of Christmas, each filled with happiness, family, and lots and lots of food. Reading <em>The Voyage of the Dawn Treader</em> had me dreaming about spiced wine. As a child, of course, I could not experience this particular delicacy from Narnia, but I recall the first Christmas that my daddy made it for us. Even as adults, the experience took me back to Narnia. We still drink it around the holidays and reminisce about those good old days adventuring with the Pevensies, King Caspian, and Reepicheep the mouse. <br /><br />I still often think of quotations from the books—they come to me, like magical mantas, perfect little bits of encouragement in my everyday life. One of my favorites is from <em>The Silver Chair</em> and perfectly sums up my beliefs about why we should study the humanities. A little bit of background: Puddleglum, a marshwiggle from Narnia, is (as his name would suggest) a glum old chap. On his adventure with two human children, they get caught in a witch’s underground realm. She casts a spell on them to make them forget the beauty and magic of the world above, of the stars, and the sun, and even the great Lion and King of the Woods, Aslan himself. In a truly heroic soliloquy, Puddleglum defends the idea of storytelling and the power of imagination, arguing against the witch’s claim that everything he believes is a lie: "Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things-trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say" (Lewis 182). <br /><br />The implied question at the end of this quotation is what keeps me coming back again and again to the power of story. Is the world as dull a place as most people believe? I cannot believe that. It is important in this scenario that the story Puddleglum has told the witch about the world above is true, just as there is a bit of truth in all of the things that we, as scholars of the humanities, study: the histories, and the paintings, and the stories. Many may tell us that what we do is not important—but the humanities matter. They speak to the essence of the human experience, to the beauty (although broken) of our wonderful world, and in <em>The Silver Chair</em>, C. S. Lewis wrote a compelling apology for the magic of the humanities. <br /><br />Lewis, C. S. <em>The Silver Chair</em>. New York, HarperCollins, 1953.
The Chronicles of Narnia
18 Years Ago
Nina Cook, 26, Graduate Student at Rice University
the-magic-of-the-humanities
Safe and Social at Home--with Books
As a librarian, I am always reading, usually two to three books per week. During this time of social distancing and online learning, I have more time for reading at home and am gravitating toward longer Young Adult novels and more non-fiction. Encountering characters from a story and reading about historical events are social activities for me. Whereas others might complain about being socially isolated, I find myself socially connected to the stories, historical figures and events, and concepts I am reading about in the pages of books.
Spring 2020
Scot Smith, 55, School librarian
safe-and-social-at-home-with-books
“You don’t just run, you run to some place wonderful.”
<em>From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler</em> turned Deborah Ross’s world upside down. Kongisberg’s book, which just celebrated its 50th anniversary, chronicles the adventures of Claudia and her brother, who run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The book kindled Ross’s imagination so much that when she visited the museum with her parents, she retraced the protagonist’s steps in search of the Egyptian cat, the fountain, and Michelangelo’s sculpture.
<em>From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler</em> by E.L. Konigsburg
Deborah Ross, U.S. Representative for North Carolina's 2nd District
deborah-ross-someplace-wonderful
Baseball, Jackie Robinson, and Racial Identity Formation
Reading a short biography on Jackie Robinson and developing my own racial identity were important ways that the humanities helped me in this moment.
As I grew up in rural South Carolina in the 1980s, baseball was my favorite hobby and pastime. For most of my 7 year Dixie league/recreational league baseball career (ages 5 to 12), my dad was my coach. I don’t remember watching baseball on television because we only had three to four channels and did not have cable.
On my first baseball team, I was the only black player; and then after that most of my teams were majority black. At this time I only had vague notions about race, although I knew that I was black. Because both of my parents worked, my brother and I attended a day-care facility in town. The day-care provider was a thirty-something year old white woman and most of the children in her care were also white. Again, I had little sense of my blackness.
Of the many books on hand at the daycare, one day I discovered a children’s book about Jackie Robinson. By this time, I’m in the third grade and am a good reader, so I read the book very quickly. Just as quickly, it becomes one of my favorite books.
I was extremely excited for several reasons: Never before I had a read a book with a Black main character. I knew there were black baseball players, but did not feel like I knew any very well. The book discussed racism that Robinson faced and how he overcame it and became one of the best baseball players in his generation (Rookie of the Year and MVP). It was the first example of people facing hardships because they were black and Jackie Robinson overcame the hardships. And lastly, a big part of my own racial development and understanding was that being black was not just about facing hardships in the past and overcoming them.
I continued to study Negro league baseball. Read several books and became fascinated by these invisible men who participated in a separate but unequal league, but had equal or superior baseball talent.
N/A
A children's book about Jackie Robinson (I don't remember the title)
I was a third grader in the 1980s.
<a href="http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/education-programs/teacher-advisory-council-2017-2018/">Jamie Lathan</a>, 39, teacher and school administrator, husband, father, son, brother, friend.
baseball-and-racial-identity
Visiting the Art Museum
On a school trip from suburban New Jersey when I was in second grade, I could take on the role of Claudia, admiring the works of art on display but also wondering: who made this? Why? How did it come to be here? These questions helped me realize from a young age the enormous potential of the experience of a work of art—to fascinate personally but also to open up a window onto the past. All of this activated by the curiosity to know more about what is staring you in the face.
My family always visited art museums when I was a child. I’m not quite sure why, as we never talked about the art, and I wondered, in secret, what exactly we were supposed to be doing there. When I was about eight years old, I read a book that answered that question: <em>From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler</em> by E. L. Konigsburg. It is the story of two children—a brother and a sister—who run away from home to solve the mystery of a sculpture: was it a long-lost work by Michelangelo? They hide in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, borrowing coins from the fountain to buy food, sleeping in a magnificent bed in a period room, and blending in with school groups. More importantly, the sister Claudia is entranced by the Renaissance sculpture of an angel then on display at the museum, and she is determined to get to the bottom of the question of authorship: is it really a Michelangelo? And, if so, how did it end up in the museum?<br /><br />On a school trip from suburban New Jersey when I was in second grade, I could take on the role of Claudia, admiring the works of art on display but also wondering: who made this? Why? How did it come to be here? These questions helped me realize from a young age the enormous potential of the experience of a work of art—to fascinate personally but also to open up a window onto the past. All of this activated by the curiosity to know more about what is staring you in the face.
E. L. Konigsburg
<em>From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler</em> by E. L. Konigsburg
1984
<a href="https://mornaoneill.wordpress.com/">Morna O’Neill</a>, age 41, art history professor
visiting-the-art-museum
Placing Our Family in the Story of America
<p>Actor John Cho shares how the humanities reveal answers to the most important questions in life. He notes his fondness of reading and how, during his childhood, the <em>Little House on the Prairie</em> books helped him process and understand his family’s place in America.</p>
<p>To celebrate its 40th year anniversary of grant making, programming, and partnerships that connect Californians to each other, California Humanities invited a group of 40 prominent Californians to explore what the humanities mean to them. For more information visit <a title="California Humanities: We Are the Humanities" href="http://calhum.org/about/we-are-the-humanities" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">California Humanities: We Are the Humanities</a>.</p>
<em>Little House on the Prairie</em> by Laura Ingalls Wilder
California Humanities
John Cho, actor
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms">Standard YouTube License</a>
john-cho-little-house-on-the-prairie