1
30
15
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/5/53/Ohlone_Indians_in_a_Tule_Boat_in_the_San_Francisco_Bay_1822.jpg
3e1195e33a0f6a007296d7215714a53a
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Ohlone Indians in a Tule Boat in the San Francisco Bay 1822, by Louis Choris
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Title
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California Humanities: “We Are the Humanities”
Description
An account of the resource
To celebrate its 40th anniversary, California Humanities invited a group of 40 prominent Californians to share what the humanities meant to them, helped shape their lives and their understanding of the world. The complete archive of these recollections is available at http://calhum.org/about/we-are-the-humanities.
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california-humanities
Moving Image
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Player
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<iframe width="480" height="270" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/bzvcw4Gv6co" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
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Title
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Making the World Bearable
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Author and publisher Malcolm Margolin shares how the telling of stories helps shape and give meaning to the world. He also reflects on his time documenting American Indian life in the Bay Area and becoming captivated by the stories and histories from this experience.</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 href="http://calhum.org/about/we-are-the-humanities" title="California Humanities: We Are the Humanities" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">California Humanities: We Are the Humanities</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms">Standard YouTube License</a>
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California Humanities
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malcolm-margolin-making-the-world-bearable
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Malcolm Margolin, author, publisher, and founder of Heyday Books
Books & Reading
Cultural History
Love
Native American History
Oral History
Publishers
Publishers & Publishing
San Francisco, California
Storytelling
Violence
Writers
Writing
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/7/95/Willie_Millan.jpg
ae46611b14bc3874b157ce9018cd181d
Dublin Core
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Title
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William Millan
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Title
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#Humanitiesinclass
Description
An account of the resource
This collection includes contributions from members of the National Humanities Center's education project Humanities in Class. The project aims to develop a deeper portfolio of curricular materials and help set standards for humanities education that highlight differences among humanities disciplines.
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Finding “the Truth” in Music
Description
An account of the resource
In June 2017, I found myself in a cramped, sweltering apartment in New York’s East Village. I was there with three high-school students to interview William Millan, founder of the seminal 1970s Latin band, Saoco. The students were working on a documentary film about the history of musical communities in New York City. After playing several Saoco albums for us, William described how his interest in the roots of Latin music led him on an intellectual journey to understand the cultural history of the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa. Then he said something profound:
“I wasn’t a very good history and geography student when I was in school… it wasn’t until I really got into the music that I realized it’s not that I don’t like history and geography—I really love history and geography. It was the information they were giving me in school that I couldn’t relate to because it had nothing to do with what I was living. If you go into the music, and you check out the artists’ lives, that’s going to give you a truer picture of history; and in their body of work you’re going to see what the truth is.”
In 20 years of teaching, I have never heard a better articulation of music’s power to engage students in the study of history and culture.
Reflecting on the interview with William, I realized that he was describing the very learning experience my students were having as they created their documentary. By investigating the relationship between individuals and the music that shaped their lives, the students were in fact developing deeper understandings about the history of neighborhoods, their city, and American society—and seeing connections across time and place. Like William, their interest in music led them to think like historians. That day reaffirmed my commitment to interdisciplinary learning and, specifically, to using music and art wherever possible to help students make meaningful connections in my classroom.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Reflecting on the interview with William, I realized that he was describing the very learning experience my students were having as they created their documentary. By investigating the relationship between individuals and the music that shaped their lives, the students were in fact developing deeper understandings about the history of neighborhoods, their city, and American society—and seeing connections across time and place. Like William, their interest in music led them to think like historians. That day reaffirmed my commitment to interdisciplinary learning and, specifically, to using music and art wherever possible to help students make meaningful connections in my classroom.
Source
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Interview with William Millan, musician and founder of the band, Saoco
Date
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June 2017
Contributor
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<a href="http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/humanities-in-class-guide-thinking-learning-in-humanities/">Ben Wides</a>, age 46, social studies teacher, East Side Community High School, New York City
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
finding-truth-in-music
Art
Cultural History
Documentary Films
Geography
History
Interdisciplinarity
Latin Music
Millan, William
Music
New York, New York
Saoco
Teachers & Teaching
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/5/146/Hawaii_Filipino_Welcome_Philippine_Navy_Capt.jpg
5b4c6279ddd9407741e1de92b427a809
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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The Hawaiian Filipino community welcomes a Philippine navy captain
Dublin Core
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Title
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California Humanities: “We Are the Humanities”
Description
An account of the resource
To celebrate its 40th anniversary, California Humanities invited a group of 40 prominent Californians to share what the humanities meant to them, helped shape their lives and their understanding of the world. The complete archive of these recollections is available at http://calhum.org/about/we-are-the-humanities.
Identifier
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california-humanities
Moving Image
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<iframe width="480" height="270" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/9z20jWC0wWY"></iframe>
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Title
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The Currency of Emotional Intelligence
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye is the 28th Chief Justice of the State of California. She recalls her experiences as a student in a humanities class in college, her upbringing in a Filipino community of hardworking women eager to pass on their traditions, and her realization that the humanities teach us to celebrate and respect the stories and uniqueness of people.</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>
Contributor
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Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye, 28th Chief Justice of the State of California
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tani-gorre-cantil-sakauye
Community Colleges
Cultural History
Families
Filipino Americans
History
Justices
Oral Tradition
Teachers & Teaching
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/5/147/Willa_Cather_1912.jpeg
de3a94aa924b00c168499fd84ccaaeaf
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Title
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Willa Cather, 1912
Dublin Core
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Title
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California Humanities: “We Are the Humanities”
Description
An account of the resource
To celebrate its 40th anniversary, California Humanities invited a group of 40 prominent Californians to share what the humanities meant to them, helped shape their lives and their understanding of the world. The complete archive of these recollections is available at http://calhum.org/about/we-are-the-humanities.
Identifier
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california-humanities
Moving Image
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Player
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<iframe width="480" height="270" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/UTRTegx-8zk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Learning How to Read a Poem
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Janet Napolitano, President of the University of California, reflects on her life growing up in New Mexico and how a low grade on a poetry analysis assignment in college encouraged her to master the craft of writing. She notes how her writing abilities and exposure to the humanities served her well in a career in government and higher education.</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 href="http://calhum.org/about/we-are-the-humanities" title="California Humanities: We Are the Humanities" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">California Humanities: We Are the Humanities</a>.</p>
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Janet Napolitano, President of the University of California
Identifier
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janet-napolitano
Source
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"Batter My Heart, Three-Person'd God" by John Donne; <em>Death Comes for the Archbishop</em> by Willa Cather
Analytical Skills
Batter My Heart, Three-Person'd God
Cather, Willa
Citizenship
College Teachers
Cultural History
Death Comes for the Archbishop
Donne, John
Humanities Education
Literature
Music
New Mexico
Oakland, California
Santa Clara University
Santa Clara, California
Science & the Humanities
Teachers & Teaching
University of California
Writing
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/8/182/paris-2971589_340.jpg
fb8e367832a7d7212a36b96bd05873bc
Dublin Core
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Title
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Paris café
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mimili271
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Pixabay, https://pixabay.com/en/paris-cafe-road-france-2971589/
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Title
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National Humanities Center Fellows
Subject
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Any contributions from current or past fellows at the National Humanities Center
Description
An account of the resource
This collection includes contributions from current or past fellows at the National Humanities Center
Sound
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Transcription
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Hi, I’m Peter Galison, I’m a professor at Harvard University and a Fellow at the National Humanities Center this semester. I’m interested in a combination—odd as it sounds—of filmmaking, physics, and the history of science.
<p>A moment that really was hugely affecting for me in the humanities was seeing an old film, that was filmed in the summer of 1960, called <em>Chronicle of a Summer</em>. It was a French film made by a collaboration between a sociologist/philosopher, Edgar Morin, and a great filmmaker, might be called an anthropological filmmaker, Jean Rouch.</p>
<p>They combined to make this film in a moment just when it was possible to have portable sound-taking. They went onto the street and they asked people everything from, “Are you happy?” or “What are you doing?” In the course of what people say, you see a France that goes back even before the war, of horse-drawn carriages, but also cars. You meet a woman who had survived Auschwitz-Birkenau, lost her father there, and was now trying to navigate this post-war world. But 1960 is also the cusp of this opening up to another world of France. In a sense you see the beginnings of the unrest, the uneasiness with the received order of things, that culminates in May ’68 and the explosion of the student and worker revolt of that period.</p>
<p>For me, this film had a huge effect because it seemed to me to capture, in a moment in specificity, some really deep understanding of this transition point between the old order and the new order. It showed me that film could do something, a documentary film of a certain type—a certain exploratory, innovative type—could push beyond what text alone could do. I think, for me, the idea which I keep trying to figure out, is how do visual sources—especially the filmmaking that I’m doing and writing—combine to produce something whole that each part can’t quite do on its own.</p>
<p>With each bit of understanding, as people push what can be done with text, or text plus still images, or with film in innovative ways, I find it enriching and exciting and it opens up new possibilities for how I think about the kinds of problems that I want to work on. For me, the humanities at its best can do that, can take something specific and open up a world from it.</p>
Player
html for embedded player to stream media content
<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/809871604&color=%2355d7d2&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=false&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=false"></iframe>
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Title
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Chronicling a Summer in Cinéma Vérité
Description
An account of the resource
For Peter Galison, an influential moment was seeing a film made in 1961 by an anthropologist and a sociologist, featuring a series of estival interviews with people on the sidewalks of France. With its innovations in sound technology, <em>Chronicle of a Summer</em> opened Galison’s eyes to the possibilities of documentary film. The film illuminated the interplay between image and text, revealing how the humanities can “open up a world.”
Contributor
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<a href="https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/meet-the-fellows/peter-galison/">Peter Galison</a>, Joseph Pellegrino University Professor in History of Science and Physics at Harvard University
Identifier
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peter-galison-chronicling-a-summer-in-cinema-verite
Source
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<em>Chronicle of a Summer (Chronique d'un été)</em>
Anthropology
Chronicle of a Summer (Chronique d'un été)
Cinema Vérité
Cultural History
Documentary Films
Film
History
Morin, Edgar
Professors
Rouch, Jean
Sociology
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/15/320/HM_Japan_Books.jpg
796d93e1cd155b416c0188b616195b34
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Title
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Book spines
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
https://unsplash.com/photos/HslUloFIIk0
Identifier
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book-spines
Dublin Core
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Title
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Graduate Student Summer Residents 2019
Description
An account of the resource
The National Humanities Center's graduate student summer residency program, <a href="https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/nhc-welcomes-graduate-student-summer-residents/">“Objects and Places in an Inquiry-Based Classroom: Teaching, Learning, and Research in the Humanities”</a> took place July 15–26, 2019. Representing 28 universities in 18 states, these participants worked with leading scholars and educators from across the United States as they learned how to add value to their research by focusing on teaching and learning.
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Referrer
For internal use only, for tracking and metrics.
#GSSR2019 #GradsintheWoods19
Player
html for embedded player to stream media content
<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/809871433&color=%2365d4da&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=false&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=false"></iframe>
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
My Humanities Moment is with my favorite book: The Book in Japan, written by Peter Kornicki, a former professor at the University of Cambridge. This book was published in 1998, but his research began in the 1970s when he visited archives in Japan to collect materials on rare books that were made in pre-modern Japan, which is roughly before 1868. It was a time when Orientalism was highly popular in the West, the 1970s, and you have all kinds of elite white men marching to Asia to write about exotic and mysterious cultures of Asia. They enjoyed all kinds of white privilege in Asia, they were welcomed everywhere. And Peter Kornicki was one of them.
So honestly what I had expected from the book was what I got from many other books produced around that time: Eurocentric Orientalist bias from elite white men. But I was so surprised to find that the book was almost free of any kinds of such bias. Peter Kornicki treated books of pre-modern east Asia as they were. It was shocking to see what an amazing job he had done.
When I was reading the book, I was getting my MA in Japan, and I was under a lot of pressure. The field was very hierarchical, and I constantly faced doubts from scholars around me, because I was not a native Japanese speaker. I still am not. I didn't know how far I could go pursuing a career in pre-modern Japanese studies as a foreigner, but Peter Kornicki's perfect book on the book history of Japan, made me realize that my skin color, my nationality, my gender, they do not matter. All of those cannot define me as a scholar. And this is probably true with a lot of other things in my life. The only thing that matters is what kind of person I envision myself to be as a scholar and as a human being. And that was my Humanities Moment.
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Contributor
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Jingyi Li
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<em>The Book in Japan</em> by Peter Kornicki
Title
A name given to the resource
Be What You Want to Be
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
be-what-you-want-to-be
Description
An account of the resource
In this audio recording, graduate student Jingyi Li describes how a late twentieth-century academic study of the book in Japan upended her expectations by rejecting the Eurocentric and Orientalist bias of many comparable scholarly works. Her experience with this text inspired her to move beyond her own linguistic insecurities and to continue with her research on premodern Japan.
Books & Reading
Cultural History
Kornicki, Peter
Orientalism
The Book in Japan
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/9/336/Power_of_Myth_HM.jpg
8a90406de812b4d3fd749f592253229c
Dublin Core
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Title
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Constellation myths
Source
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Pixabay
Identifier
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constellation-myths
Dublin Core
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Title
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Teacher Advisory Council
Description
An account of the resource
This collection includes contributions from the National Humanities Center's Teacher Advisory Council. The council is a 14-member board that supports the Education Programs of the National Humanities Center for a one-year term of service.
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Referrer
For internal use only, for tracking and metrics.
I heard about this while taking a class at the National Humanities Center
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
From a young age I thought I would be a mathematician, but when I became 18 or so, I realized that humanities, not math, asked the questions I was yearning to explore. Nobody did this better than Joseph Campbell in his series of interviews with Bill Moyers done for PBS in 1988.
At the time, this program rocked my world. I laugh today when I consider how boring teenagers might perceive it today because the cinematography basically consists of 2 people talking in chairs facing one another for hours. Yet, at the time, it set my mind on fire. I saw this series on TV just after graduating college with a minor in folklore and a year working in Japan. I was so enthralled that I eventually got the recorded tapes and companion book. Here was an intellectual who not only confirmed some of the ideas I had been exploring in the past few years, but also provided critical perspective and expanded my understanding.
Bill Moyers was able to capture the brilliance and gentleness of Joseph Campbell. He captured the idea that people all over the world try to understand themselves and the mysteries of the universe through story. He reminded to try to be humble and listen to those stories which can have incredible power and meaning. He also opened my eyes to the common threads that weave through global cultures. I truly loved his work on the hero’s journey, a story that is told with little variations across time and place. The hero’s journey is inspiring because it tells us to expect trials, be brave, and do things for others. Sometimes the journey is scary and we may not return in the same state as we left.
I also try to live by the motto, “follow your bliss.” When I found that I wasn’t happy as a lawyer, this idea gave me the inspiration to change my life and do what makes me happy without worrying about loss of money or status.
I also loved how Joseph Campbell could look at the pop culture of the time, like Star Wars, and demonstrate the relevance of the past. He talks about this series borrowed elements of Zen Buddhism and the bushido code of the samurai warrior. I have also been inspired by the wisdom Campbell shows when exploring an idea. He is able to draw on cultural practices from a wide variety of cultures to help bring understanding about the human condition. I want to emulate him in this area.
He also opened me to the idea that in addition to the past having value, one must recognize that culture is always changing. Although nationalism has made perhaps a last gasp comeback, Campbell was a true globalist who recognized the uniqueness and similarity of cultures. He talked about the development of a new global culture emerging. My eyes are looking out for signs of this.
Player
html for embedded player to stream media content
<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/809871574&color=%2365d4da&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=false&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=false"></iframe>
Dublin Core
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Contributor
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Ron Eisenman, public high school social studies teacher, Rutland, Vermont
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1988
Source
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"The Power of Myth" (PBS television series)
Title
A name given to the resource
The Power of Myth
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
power-of-myth
Description
An account of the resource
Ron Eisenman shares how a PBS television series encouraged him to pursue his passions and turn to the humanities to help him make sense of the world around him. His engagement with "The Power of Myth" helped to connect seemingly disparate cultural contexts by illuminating the shared elements of the stories we tell about ourselves.
Campbell, Joseph
Cultural History
Moyers, Bill
Multicultural Education
Multiculturalism
Mythology
PBS (Public Broadcasting Service)
Popular Culture
Storytelling
Teachers
The Hero's Journey
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/362/tikal-2917724_1920.jpg
d36a0d9613fc354260303e2b34978ea5
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Tikal Maya Ruins
Description
An account of the resource
Tikal Maya Ruins
Identifier
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tikal-maya-ruins
Creator
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Pixabay
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Referrer
For internal use only, for tracking and metrics.
Dr. Gregory Byrd, Intro to Humanities Professor
Dublin Core
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Contributor
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Melanie Gonzalez, 19, Student
Date
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September 12, 2016
Source
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The Pyramids of Tikal, The Masks Temple
Description
An account of the resource
I had never felt so small, in the moments I sat and looked down towards the trees and pyramids surrounding me. Where I sat was the top of The Masks Temple, it was a gift from the king Jasaw Chan K'awiil I in honor of his queen Lady Kalajuun Une' Mo'. The Mayans had slept, eaten, worked and celebrated in the areas below. They lived and served their purpose in their society and brought us the magnificent temples. Each temple made from the same stone but each unique in design. The temples were beautiful, the view from up above was mesmerizing. Unfortunately we would never know the true creators by name; those who cut, moved, and placed the stone or those who fed the workers. All I could do, was to appreciate what they had left behind. <br /><br />Just like the non-royal Mayans, my specific contributions to society may not be known for years after my passing. I may be apart of something great or not, my name may make a mark on human kind or not. I can live trying to be known or I can live for these moments when I am at peace, appreciating the beauty around me, contemplating the arts, and enjoying life.
Title
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Being Nobody
Identifier
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being-nobody
Cultural History
Mayan Empire
Peace
Self-Realization
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/383/Untitled_presentation-3.jpg
0a86fa6f37787879f33479d2dbac3c97
Text
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My english class
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Esther Chacon, 18 year old student
Date
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July 2019
Source
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Visiting a little city in Ecuador
Description
An account of the resource
My Humanities Moment started when I moved with my family from Utah to Ecuador in July 2019. My family is originally from Venezuela but moved to the United States many years ago. I am currently living in Ecuador because my dad is the mission president for the Church of Jesus Christ in the Quito North area. This has required us to travel to multiple cities; one of those cities is Otavalo. I thought it was going to be like any other modern, updated country, but when I arrived in Otavalo I realized that everyone was dressed in their traditional clothing. I became very interested in their attire, since all the other cities I visited in Ecuador people wore the common clothing we see in the United States. Therefore, I began to ask around for details about their clothing and if there were symbolisms behind each piece.
The females in Otavalo, starting from a young age, wear a white blouse which is embroidered with flowers. Having the shirt embroidered by hand represents the dedication and wealth of the woman wearing it. The skirt and Alpargatas vary in color depending on the tribe the person was born into. Most Otavaleno females use a black skirt with black Alpargatas. Then comes the shawls and scarves, that depending on the material and thickness, represent the wealth in the family. They use these shawls as a cover-up to protect them from the sun. The most interesting part for me was the jewelry. Of course if you have gold that shows how rich the person is, but that is not it; Otavaleno women wear 10 or more gold necklaces so that people can see she is royal or rich.
The males wear white shirts and pants with a blue poncho, and on special occasions they wear hats as well. Again the Alpargatas depend on the tribe, but the males usually use white Alpargatas. The interesting thing that all males do is grow their hair from a young age, maintain it in a braid and never cut it. Even the government understands the importance of them doing this, so that when Otavalenos enter the army they are not required to cut their hair. The length of the hair, when they are older, represents the wisdom in the man. They say “ the longer the grey hair is the wiser they are.” I thought it was fascinating that their hair represents wisdom for them and how they continue to believe in that.
I began to ask the Otavalenos why they continued to wear the clothing that their ancestors wore. One sir said “ It is a respect for those in our past and we continue to honor them by maintaining the culture.” That response shocked me because even though my family and I kept some culture, we didn’t honor the whole culture of our ancestors. I realized how important it was for the Otavalenos to maintain their whole culture and to teach their children at a young age the life of their ancestors. I admired how whether rain or shine, young or old, male or female, rich or poor ;they continued to embrace their culture proudly.
This moment made me realize that there are smaller towns and cities that still keep their culture alive and do not modernize like the bigger cities do. This has influenced me to increase my knowledge and be more interested about new and different cultures. Since that moment I learned about the Otavalenos and their culture I became more interested in my own Venezuelan culture. I plan to pass this knowledge down to my future family so they can see how a culture can be so important to some people. I am grateful for this moment because it has opened my mind in seeing the power a culture can have in a life and how important it can be.
Title
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Keeping the Otavalenos Culture
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keeping-otavalenos-culture
Cross-Cultural Relations
Cultural History
Family
Modernity
Travel
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/17/399/HM_Tiber.jpg
3b23951862e18d010703fbee3268e09e
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Tiber River
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Pixabay
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tiber-river
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2020
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graduate-student-summer-residents-2020
Text
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NHC Summer Residency 2020
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Alexander Lowe McAdams, literary scholar and dedicated pedagogue
Date
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July 2019
Source
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Tiber River in Rome, IT
Description
An account of the resource
Like so many significant events throughout the history of the Western world, my humanities moment begins on the banks of the River Tiber in Rome. I had just crossed the Ponte Sisto bridge and was standing at the crosswalk to Piazza Trilussa in the Trastevere neighborhood. The sky was crystal clear and had the color of deep blue topaz, and the sun was bearing down in an unforgivable blaze. Only three minutes prior I had been hellbent on making it back to my AirBnB as quickly as possible; I desperately needed an hour or two of rest and relaxation in air conditioning.
But the Tiber pulled me back.
I asked my spouse Brandon if he minded my turning back to get a photo. Ever the Type-B match to my persistently Type-A personality, he said it was no problem, even though I know he was just as ready to be back our apartment as I was.
I approached the bridge’s short wall and gazed out. The river was moving at an even pace, but its motion looked lazy in comparison to the times that I had visited Rome in the spring—when the snow from the Alps melted into the tributaries and flooded rivers like the Tiber with a rush of new life and renewed possibility.
I recalled a Horace poem that I read during a summer Latin language-learning intensive I attended three years prior. It was not a particularly inclusive environment. The institute taught Latin via the nineteenth-century-style grammar-syntax model, demanding its students to learn the language, not as a vibrant cultural milieu brimming with life and storytelling, but as if it were a mathematical equation to be decoded and solved. In this program, there was no room for nuance.
As a burgeoning literary scholar, I struggled with this model because my entire academic career had been built on the notion that meaning and context are fluid. So, when I encountered one of Horace’s Carmina describing the Tiber as yellow, I was baffled by the adjective/noun agreement. Bordering frustration, I asked an instructor of the institute, and he casually (and not a little derisively) explained that if I had ever been to Rome, I would know that the river looked yellow.
Having not had the resources to travel abroad in well over a decade, I felt ashamed, small, and provincial. It was July 2016 at this time, and the preceding August I lost my mother to a long-term illness that none of us knew she had. Her passing was quick, but the grief stuck around. This instructor’s condescension cut deeper than my ineptitude at translating Latin poetry. It felt like an indictment of my life, the choices I made, and the opportunities that had not been afforded to me.
The only amelioration was my summer study group that year, the group of underdogs that kept me tethered to the Earth and from going completely mad.
(I should note, we were the underdogs not because we were somehow lesser than intellectually, but because we were all pursuing advanced degrees in higher education. We all were also, it should be known, the only students in the entire program who fit into some category of “minority” student; we were either female, or BIPOC, or LGBTQ+, or first-gen, or a combination of all the above. But we persisted, and all of us managed to hobble over the finish line after three months of intensive study.)
When I saw for myself the yellow tinge of the Tiber last summer, this pedagogical memory came flooding back to me.
But instead of feeling sad or sorrowful, I felt empowered—vindicated, even—because I was in Rome for a professional reason. I was invited to present a paper at the European Shakespeare Research Association, an experience that would eventually lead to my first peer-reviewed publication the following spring. The inclusivity I felt in that moment resonated greatly with me.
Unlike my experience three years prior, my voice was valued and sought after. I mattered.
My education and language-acquisition struggles being what they were, it gave me perspective. Yes, I can see for myself now that the river looks yellow. It is a beautiful sight, to be sure, but the yellow river is not all that different from the brackish waters I grew up with in Mississippi.
I can guarantee, however, that I will convey this piece of trivia in a more accessible way to my students, those like myself, who a few years prior was someone with little cultural capital but the rapacious desire to research, to learn, and with a little help of my friends, to lift myself out of a life that felt inescapable.
Title
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Reflections on the Banks of the Tiber
Identifier
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reflections-on-banks-tiber
Cultural History
Graduate Students
Language & Languages
Latin
Rome, Italy
Self-Realization
Travel
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/17/400/HM_Wiesel_Night.jpg
740ddea61d9da72beb8fe064ee6f4691
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Auschwitz Image
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Pixabay
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auschwitz-image
Dublin Core
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2020
Identifier
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graduate-student-summer-residents-2020
Text
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VGSSR
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Samantha Lack, 38, PhD Candidate
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Middle School
Source
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Night by Elie Wiesel
Description
An account of the resource
I came across Night by Elie Wiesel while in middle school. I found it at my school library and the barbed wire and shadow of a boy on the cover immediately caught my attention. I was captivated from the very first page and read the entire book that evening. I did not fully understand the power and life lessons of the work at twelve years old but I felt awe and knew it was special.
I have read Night several times since then and am reminded each time of its importance. One of the main themes is the struggle of faith. As a boy, Eliezer valued his faith but began to struggle once he was sent to Auschwitz as a teenager in 1944. He questioned why God did not intervene on behalf of the Jews and why he would allow such evil. Eliezer did not stay long at Auschwitz but it was the last place he saw his mother and younger sister alive. He was in three different concentration camps between the time he left Auschwitz and his liberation, and he became angrier and more spiritually broken as time went on. Eliezer's anger was the result of the atrocities committed to him, his family, and all others with him in the concentration camps. The death of his father, which came three months before the liberation, was the final straw that destroyed his will to survive. He was so emotionally, physically, and mentally defeated by the time he was liberated that he no longer felt human and could not even fathom revenge. He just needed to eat, heal, and begin the process of learning how to feel human again.
Night is haunting, real, and relevant. I was introduced to dehumanization the first time I read it, which affected me greatly. As a middle schooler, I knew bad things happened but it was hard for me to relate. My world was not perfect but I did not truly grasp that some people intentionally treated others inhumanely. This opened my eyes and it was the first time I really thought deeply about the experiences of others. Night helped me begin to learn empathy. It also awakened a desire to learn and understand more about human experiences, both past and present. In many ways, my interaction with Night helped shape the social and cultural historian I am today.
Night is relevant in the world today. The hate and dehumanization that is happening in American and around the world is not new. So often people look away when injustices occur because they are not affected, do not care, or hate the particular people of group. Wiesel’s work stands as a reminder that we are all equal and that no one should be unempathetic to the suffering of others.
“Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.” ~ Elie Wiesel
Title
A name given to the resource
Night
Identifier
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night
Books & Reading
Cultural History
Education
Historical Memory
Holocaust
Night
Wiesel, Elie
World War II (1939-1945)
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/17/401/73849b6c02430c12b5db2964049f4acb.jpg
b290e1d7414401d228518cc415b5dca0
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Chicano Park
Identifier
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chicano-park
Dublin Core
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Graduate Student Residents 2020
Identifier
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graduate-student-summer-residents-2020
Text
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During the National Humanities Center VGSSR2020
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Sean Ettinger, 28, PhD Candidate in History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Date
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2017
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
My visit to Chicano Park in San Diego, California
Description
An account of the resource
I had been in San Diego for less than a week and was still unsure of bus routes. Having successfully navigated the trolley-to-bus transfer from La Mesa to the Gaslight District downtown, I figured I was close enough to walk. If it were a different day I would welcome any unexpected detours as a result of getting on the wrong bus, but today I was headed somewhere specific.
It was July, Saturday, and sunny. I walked southwest from downtown heading toward Barrio Logan. A historically working class Mexican and Mexican American neighborhood in the city, Barrio Logan is home to Chicano Park. Chicano Park is located under the Coronado Bridge and contains over 70 outdoor murals that decorate the pillars that support the bridge.
Chicano Park came into existence in April 1970 when neighborhood activists occupied the then vacant space under the bridge. The bridge was built around three years earlier, displacing thousands of residents in the process. Though the vacant space under the bridge was originally set to be the site of a highway patrol station, community activists instead demanded that the site be turned into a public park. After months of struggle, the city ceded to the community activists’ demands and designated the site a park. Soon thereafter local residents began calling the space Chicano Park. The name Chicano Park reflected not only how Barrio Logan was a predominantly Mexican and Mexican American neighborhood, but also how those involved with the takeover supported El Movimiento, the civil rights movement in the U.S. that focused on those of Mexican descent. Activists who participated in El Movimiento regularly identified themselves as Chicanas and Chicanos.
Since the 1970s artists like Victor Ochoa, Yolanda Lopez, and Salvador Torres have painted murals dedicated to Mexican and Mexican American culture and history on the bridge’s bare pillars. Popular murals painted in the 1970s include Historical Mural, Quetzalcóatl, and Birth of La Raza. Much like the name of the park, artists found inspiration in El Movimiento’s goals of eradicating ethnoracial discrimination and used the bridge’s pillars to present positive renderings of those of Mexican descent. Also starting in the 1970s, a festival, or Chicano Park Day, is held each April commemorating the day community residents occupied the land under the bridge, reinforcing the park’s continued importance to the local community.
After around a half hour of walking toward the park, colorful pillars broke into view. I entered the park and saw people walking among the pillars taking photos of the murals and reading the walls. People sat on steps of the green, red, and white painted kiosko situated near the center of the park. As I walked around taking my own photos a man in his mid-20s approached me and we began to talk. Learning that I was not a local, he began running through aspects of the park’s history. While I would later tell him that I was writing about Chicano Park in my dissertation, I initially kept this information to myself. I was more interested in hearing about how he spoke of the park. As he talked he braided the park’s history and importance to the community with the park’s significance in his own life. We stayed in the park and talked for hours while he guided me from pillar to pillar discussing the murals.
My “Humanities Moment” is therefore the confluence of walking to the park, seeing the pillars for the first time, and listening to a man – now a friend – talk about the importance of Chicano Park in his life and to the community. Chicano Park is representative of Mexican and Mexican American activism, culture, and history in the U.S. and reveals the power of community to determine the shape of its immediate surroundings. As my friend also demonstrated, Chicano Park is deeply personal and holds layers of meaning for community residents and those who visit the park.
Title
A name given to the resource
Chicano Park
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
chicano-park
Activism
Artists
Communication
Community
Cultural History
History
Public Spaces
San Diego, California
-
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Big Bang
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Pixabay
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big-bang
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Graduate Student Residents 2020
Identifier
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graduate-student-summer-residents-2020
Text
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National Humanities Center
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Jiajun Zou, 25, Graduate Student
Source
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Maps of Time
Description
An account of the resource
My Humanities Moment was when I first read David Christian's Maps of Time during my 2nd year of grad school. It made me interested in some of the big questions that I have never thought are important and compelled me to converse about these topics with others and to converse with them well. There are two major academic challenges that I faced which were what makes humanities education meaningful? How can I attract an audience to listen to my expertise?
The book helped me overcome these two challenges by convincing me that whatever disciplines we work on, it always boils down to the fundamental big questions that are of concern to us all. It teaches me how to use metaphor and how to reach out to a wider audience. As a scholar of Chinese history, I always thought that only historians (indeed only Chinese historians) will ever be interested in what I have to say. But this book changed my mindset and made me realize that I was the one who was locking up the door not my audience.
It is up to us as humanities scholars to demonstrate why any knowledge or skills passed down are worth learning about. I was overwhelmed by the ability of the author to do interdisciplinary research. It is true that in his discussion of the origin of the universe and humanity, Christian is not an expert in math, science, geology, history, anthropology, etc. But what is valuable and worth keeping in mind is that this is the right approach to do humanities research because the questions come first and our ego and pride come last.
Title
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How Maps of Time Made me Rethink the Significance of Education
Identifier
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how-maps-of-time-made-me-rethink-education
Books & Reading
Christian, David
Cultural History
Education
History
Maps of Time
Self-Realization
-
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8751541ff0056b79f4f6507baf64ca1a
Dublin Core
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Sword in Chicago
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sword-chicago
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
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graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Referrer
For internal use only, for tracking and metrics.
National Humanities Center
Dublin Core
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Contributor
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Thomas Morin, 32, Historian
Date
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2012
Source
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A visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Description
An account of the resource
It was not my first time in The City, but it was my first time visiting the Met. The Metropolitan Museum of Art's reputation stretched out wide before it for a young man from the West Coast. I had long been interested in art, and I knew that the Met had one of the best collections in the world. I had missed a previous opportunity to go a few years back, and I wasn't going to do so again. My sister, a friend, and I took a train up to Fifth Avenue, and soon were outside the museum's broad, colonnaded entrance.
My interest in the medieval period had only recently begun at that point. When I saw in the catalogue that the museum had an extensive collection of European arms and armor, I couldn't resist. We walked through the classical Egyptian section, admiring the tiny-carved Lapis lazuli figures. We paused for pictures amid the ruins of the Temple of Dendur, which stood in the middle of a small reflecting pool. Beyond that, we finally entered the arms and armor section.
Amid all the impressive examples of late medieval and early-modern craftsmanship, one piece in particular stood out to me. It was a large sword with a broad, angular blade (see attached picture of the same sword in the Art Institute of Chicago, where it was on loan in early 2020). The surface, while pitted slightly, was remarkably unmarred and smooth other than an inscription near the hilt written in Arabic. The sword as a whole had a simple elegance. Though the crossguard had little horn-like curls at the ends, it was otherwise unadorned. It had the appearance of a practical tool, precise and deliberate. It looked heavy but somehow also quick.
I was intrigued. I began asking all sorts of questions about the sword: Where had it come from? Who made it? Why was there an Arabic inscription on what was clearly a western European sword? Searching for those answers gave me my first taste of the interconnected Mediterranean world which would later become my obsession. The sword is thought to have been made in Italy, either in Brescia or Milan. From there, it was taken to the isle of Cyprus, at the time ruled by the Lusignan Kings, successors to the long-lost Crusader States. Then, sometime around 1419, it was presented as part of a diplomatic gift from Cyprus (along with many other weapons) to Sultan Shaykh al-Mahmudi, whose name is contained in the inscription. The sword, and many others like it, are one of many pieces of physical evidence for the extensive networks of connection which joined the various corners of the Mediterranean together in the medieval and early-modern world.
Though I have never handled the original (or its twin, rediscovered in Texas in 2014 by Sotheby's), I have had the opportunity to handle a modern reproduction which was made based on detailed measurements and mimics the sword almost exactly. It is a marvel of engineering. The sword's geometry and design makes it wonderfully balanced, so that, though it weighs almost 4 lbs (which is very heavy for a sword of this type), it feels light enough to wield in one hand. The tremendous skill which would have gone into the design and fabrication of that weapon made me question my received wisdom about the superiority of the modern world, and eventually to question the very meaning of "modern" at all.
The questions that this sword inspired have had long-lasting effects on the course of my continuing academic study and interest in the middle ages, and it is still an inspiration to me today.
Title
A name given to the resource
A Sword From Italy by Way of Alexandria
Identifier
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sword-from-italy
Armed Forces
Cultural Exchange
Cultural History
History
Italy
Material Culture
Medieval History
Metropolitan Museum of Art
-
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53379f4f966892e57c1d69ef8527827e
Dublin Core
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Title
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Image of Aurora Borealis
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image-of-aurora-borealis
Dublin Core
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
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graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
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Referrer
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NHC GSSR
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Contributor
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Emily Beckwith (she/her), 31, Ph.D. Student in British Literature, University of Georgia
Date
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April 17, 2021
Source
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Issues of the South Wales Echo newspaper from 1880 and 1881
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I’m deep in research for an article, searching through the National Library of Wales’s digital archives of the South Wales Echo newspaper for coverage of a specific coal mine explosion. Yes, there is a search function, but it turns out that computers don’t always correctly process the words in scanned documents (no surprise there!), so I am going issue by issue, within certain parameters. The monotony of clicking into an issue and then clicking to each page to scan it, fumbling with the zoom feature so I can actually read the headlines, is broken when I stumble across “Fun For Christmas. Conundrums” in the December 25, 1880 issue. This is clearly not relevant to my article, but I’m curious about these conundrums. <br /><br />My favorite: “What vegetable is dangerous on board an ironclad? – A leek; because a little leak will sink a great ship.” Note: an ironclad is a nineteenth-century warship. Why is this my favorite, you might ask? Because we have that same joke today! Remember the official trailer for <em>Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2</em> (I haven’t seen the movie so I can’t reference that)? “Aaah! There’s a leak in the boat!!!” Switch to a shot of an anthropomorphic leek sitting in the boat. It amazes me how some things can change so much in 140 years, but apparently a love of food puns is not one of them. <br /><br />I make it to the February 5, 1881 issue before my eye is drawn once again to an article not related to coal mine explosions: “Grand Display of the Borealis”. It’s a short article, so here it is in full: “The plains of Llanbyther were on Monday evening lighted up with brilliant coruscations. The arch of a long bank of cirrus formed a back-ground, from which fan-like beams expanded to the zenith; the chameleon colours of the Aurora being, by a double reflection from the fleecy clouds, bent to the earth with a brilliancy that dimmed the light of the stars and rendered print easily readable.” <br /><br />I don’t know about you, but that shift from the soaring language of “brilliant coruscations” (I had to look up that word) and “fan-like beams” expanding to the “zenith” to the quotidian “rendered print easily readable” makes me laugh every time. Both the conundrums and the article have me scrambling haphazardly out of my research rabbit hole because I have to share them immediately. I interrupt whatever my husband is doing to read them to him; I text screenshots to my family and friends. <br /><br />These are the random research gems that may not ever make it into whatever I’m working on, but who cares? They make me smile and laugh; they bring me joy and demand I share that joy; and they put the human back in the humanities when it has lost its humanity in the looming idea(l) of the objective researcher.
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Random Research Gems
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random-research-gems
British Empire
Cultural History
Journalism
Newspapers
Research