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"Fictional Diaries and Archives ",,"My humanities moment happened when I read a book for school written in the form of a diary. Even though it was fiction, it showed me how diaries and journals can be useful for historical knowledge. As someone who now goes to archives to read ""dead people's mail,"" I appreciate how fictional accounts such as the one I read in grade school can teach kids about historical empathy, how history is recorded, and how these personal experiences of the past are important for future knowledge. ","Carolyn Meyer","Mary, Bloody Mary",,2004,"Abigail Shimer, 25, Ph.D. Student ",,,,,,fictional-diaries-archives,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"NHC Graduate Student Summer Residency ","Archives,Diaries,Empathy,Meyer, Carolyn",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/18/494/notebook-1840276_640.jpg,Text,"Graduate Student Residents 2021",1,0
"A Play and New Perspectives",,"In the summer of 2018, I took a trip to England where I had the opportunity to truly explore the city of London for the first time. One night during my stay, I visited the National Theatre where I saw the play Translations by Brian Friel.
Set in a small Irish town in the 1830s, the show follows the story of a rural headmaster and his sons. One son helps his father educate members of their rural community while the other joins British Royal Engineers to anglicize maps of Ireland. During this time, British officials sought to replace traditional Gaelic names with British equivalents, asserting the Empire's control over Ireland's past and their future. The show touches on the importance of language and culture by shifting back and forth between the perspectives of the British Engineers and the Irish community, allowing the audience to see the story from both sides. The different characters were unable to communicate with those who did not speak their native language, leading to intensified tension and frustration.
As I watched the actors portray this story, I found that everything about the play- the book, the acting, the direction- forced the audience to reckon with the detrimental realities of the past and empathize with the Irish communities and the British officials that the fictional characters were based upon. As a member of the audience, I felt the frustration of the Irish community members; I felt their pain as they watched the names of their roads, lakes, and buildings being replaced; I felt satisfaction as the community joined together to resist the infiltration of British authorities and protest colonialism. The play also emphasized the perspective of the British soldiers sent to the town to serve their empire and the feeling of obligation and duty that accompanied their actions.
To me, one of the most important aspects of the humanities is being able to invite an audience, a reader, a listener to experience a perspective that is different from their own and potentially alter the way they view the world. The play I watched that night in 2018 exemplifies this purpose as it presented an important story, based on true events from the past, in a way that encouraged audience members to suspend their biases and think about life through a different point of view. As a budding historian, Translations encouraged me to find and highlight historic moments in a similar way within my own work.","Brian Friel",Translations,,"Summer 2018","E.N.K. Robbins, 26, Ph.D. Candidate",,,,,,play-new-perspectives,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"Empathy,England,Friel, Brian,History,Ireland,Theater",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/18/448/auditorium-86197_640.jpg,Text,"Graduate Student Residents 2021",1,0
"Make Today Beautiful ",,"At the beginning of my journey, I never would have imagined ending up here writing this paper. Through all of the ups, downs, and turnarounds, lessons have been learned the hard way. No matter what is going on in life, there is always something to be taken away. Coincidences don’t happen. Everything has a reason, a learning curve, a seed, that if taken care of properly, will flourish into an abundance of beautiful growth. One person in particular has helped me keep my mind and soul nourished: Mr. Rogers.
Throughout 895 episodes of wisdom, only being able to watch a few, changed the way I go about everything (NPR). He always illustrated who we ought to be: a caring, compassionate, loving, accepting, patient, gentle, kind human being to all whom we come in contact with, even if they are rude. There was never an excuse to raise his voice or to get angry, but he taught us to appreciate their point of view. “Everyone’s special in this life. Everybody you meet has something special to give and receive” (9). No matter how the interaction between another goes, he appreciated their worth because there is good in everyone if you look for it. Even if people are wrong, good still exists inside, we must find that good, and let them know they are loved. “You are a very special person. There is only one just like you. There's never been anyone exactly like you in the history of the earth, and there never will be again. And people can like you because you’re you” (19). Once again, he shows us our worth. Mr. Rogers reminds me, us, that we are unique.
Generosity can never be overdone. Mr. Rogers modeled the importance of saying ‘thank you.’ “Thank you. Two of the best words we can ever learn. In fact, ‘thank you’ is a way of saying ‘I love you” (31). He always had a way with words. His gentle, yet powerful statements embedded themselves into my mind. Our friendly neighbor, Mr. Rogers also exhibited that helping is loving. Small acts of help can brighten someone's day, even if it’s just with a smile. One of his neighborhood friends, from the land of make believe, Aber, said, “When anybody’s in trouble, we try to do what we can” (49). When we love ourselves, we can love others more fully and when we do that, we can do anything. We can become everyday heroes. And the more we can contribute, the more we can see the needs of others. “There are many helpful people in this world, aren’t there? The more you grow into a helpful person yourself, the happier you’ll find this world of ours is” (51). Magically, Mr. Rogers knows how to ease one’s mind. I have found that the more we love, the more we care, the more we realize how many happy people are out there.
Beauty is found everywhere. Everyday beauty such as the birds chirping a melody or the moon shining down on us. “Wondering and marveling is never a waste of time” (105). Taking a deep breath of air to admire the clouds, listening to the wind brushing against the leaves, and hearing the crickets chirp can help us feel peace; connecting to nature lets us feel at home. Taking time to see, helps you and me to slow down so we can realize what is truly important. It takes us from the worries of the world and puts us at peace with the world.
You see, everyone is our neighbor. “Everybody’s different. And there are some things about everybody that are the same. That’s what’s wonderful. That’s what helps us to understand each other. That we’ve got some things inside of us that are the same as somebody else’s. We’re all human beings” (115).
Thus, Mr. Rogers opened my heart and mind to see everyone with a new pair of eyes; to have a continual desire to love and help them appreciate their worth. Daily, his example makes me know I am unique, I am enough, and people can love me for who I am. His example is one to always follow because you can never love enough. All of the lessons he taught will never be forgotten because he is my everyday hero, an ordinary man with a soul full of grace.
Works Cited
Rogers, Fred. Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Clarkson Potter, 2019.
Burns, Asia Simone. “Mister Rogers Still Lives In Your Neighborhood.” NPR, NPR, 18 Feb. 2018, www.npr.org/2018/02/18/584669284/mister-rogers-still-lives-in-your-neighborhood.",,"Mister Rogers' Neighborhood ",,,"Graci Mills, 18, High School Student ",,,,,,"make-today-beautiful ",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"My English teacher, Miss Layton. ","Empathy,Mister Rogers' Neighborhood,Rogers, Fred,Television Series",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/386/Fred_Rogers_late_1960s.jpg,Text,,1,0
"Purple Heart, Purple Prose",,"Griswold recalls how a childhood encounter with a sentimental, “middlebrow” poem about a dog and a veteran (which makes her cry to this day) tapped into wells of empathy. She explains how such responses to aesthetic experiences, so often downplayed in academic inquiry, deserve our sustained attention—and even respect. ",,"“They Called Him Rags,” by Edmund Vance Cooke, featured in The Best Loved Poems of the American People",,,"Wendy Griswold, professor of sociology, Northwestern University",,,,,,wendy-griswold-purple-prose,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"",,"2017–18 Fellow","Books & Reading,Cooke, Edmund Vance,Emotional Experience,Empathy,Felleman, Hazel,Middlebrow Culture,Poetry,Sentimentalism,The Best Loved Poems of the American People,They Called Him Rags",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/8/291/War_Dog_Training_in_Britain_C_1940_D442.jpg,"Moving Image","National Humanities Center Fellows",1,0
"The Fault in Our Stars and my Dad - Living through Leukemia in my Dad's shoes",,"Between the years of 2012-2014, the book The Fault in Our Stars written by John Green was one of the most popular books and films for teenagers. The book was such a hit Hollywood decided to make it a film, and they did a great job sticking to the original novel.
This novel is about two teenagers named Hazel and Augustus going through cancer and struggling to get through it until they meet each other through a support group, consisting of many other young cancer patients. My humanities moment happened in 2014 when my friend introduced to me this book. This included staying up all night, each night until I had finished reading the book so I could watch the film. At the age of 19, my dad had stage 4 Leukemia. This book always leaves me feeling emotional as it makes me think of my dad and all the battles he had to go through. Cancer is the hardest battle to fight and I’m so grateful that my dad, even though he was so close to death, continued fighting to survive. Without my dad, me or my siblings would not be here today. This novel is similar to my dad’s story because like the teenagers in the novel, they were fighting for their lives each day and going through lots of chemo and battling depression.
To read the novel and watch the film gave me a better understanding of what my dad’s life looked like from his shoes, living his everyday life being once a cancer patient. It was laying in a hospital bed all day, eating the same foods, being sick and exhausted all the time, and taking so many medications that didn’t seem to help. It made my dad feeling depressed because he couldn’t do much from being so sick, similar to the character Hazel and her story. When my dad got sick, he lost his friends because they thought they can no longer hang around him or weren’t wanting to support him. The character Hazel had similar troubles like my dad and was always sad and alone, rereading the same book and watching the same tv shows, that is until she met Augustus from the support group that she was forced to go to because of her parents.
If there is one gift I could give to my dad in the past, it would be to watch this film (not the story because he doesn’t like to read). I think watching this film would have gave my dad hope to know that he isn’t the only one fighting cancer and the characters Hazel and Augustus as well as millions of other teenagers in the world understand what he is going through.",https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ffrNqDDyEgLPHj5IMLH6OMcedcAki7mNHeRVFKKol10/edit?usp=sharing,"The book The Fault in Our Stars by John Green",,"The year 2014 in my living room reading the book / watching the movie.","Cheyenne, 18 years old, living in Utah, a senior in high school",,,,,,the-fault-in-our-stars,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"12th grade English Teacher, Mrs. Layton!","Books & Reading,Bountiful, Utah,Cancer,Empathy,Fathers & Daughters,Film Adaptations,Green, John,Illness,Students,The Fault in Our Stars,Young Adult Literature",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/284/5886223907_9b8e22c9c4_o.jpg,Text,,1,0
"“This is Water”: Finding Empathy in the Banalities of Daily Living",," I was first introduced to David Foster Wallace’s “This is Water” in a Language and Composition class. Our textbook was full of examples of rhetoric, categorized by topic. “This is Water” was originally a Commencement speech given at Kenyon College in 2005. A shortened version was transcribed in my textbook which I had to analyze and write about for my class. In reading DFW’s words I found a perspective that resonated with me and one that the world is often starved of. The speech opens with an anecdote about fish swimming in the ocean. Two young fish are asked by an older fish, “How’s the water?” and one young fish turns to the other and says, “what the hell is water?” Wallace uses this story to point out that often, like fish in the ocean, we’re not aware of what surrounds us. As humans each of us are predisposed to be self-centered, because our own thoughts and needs come to us much more urgently than anyone else’s. In the tedium and banality of “day-in, day-out” life we begin to see the strangers around us in traffic or at the grocery store as obstacles and annoyances rather than recognizing them as people whose reality is just as vivid and important as our own, with triumphs and tragedies of similar magnitude.
My favorite part of the speech is DFW’s perspective on freedom. While there are many ways to feel “free” (money, power, success, beauty, etc.), “the really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline and effort, and being able to truly care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad, petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom.” It’s easy to submit to our “default setting” (DFW), unknowingly considering ourselves to be the center of the universe, “lords of our own tiny skull sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation”. Our kingdoms do need some of our attention, you do need to focus on your own needs and ambitions. But to see the “water” around you as an annoyance or not to see it all, to forget about the billions of other mind kingdoms walking around, perhaps anxiety ridden kingdoms or dyslexic ones, maybe some are very similar to your own, is to miss out on connection that is uniquely human and beautiful.
I find it crucial to remember that the people wrapping my cheeseburger or standing in front of me in the self-checkout line or stopped next to me at a light, all have dreams and fears and insecurities and pains and joys, and maybe they’re battling mental illness or training for an Iron Man or their favorite color is orange like mine or they’ve just found out that they’re pregnant or they’re struggling to learn English. The point is that none of us are alone on this planet, and sometimes it just takes getting out of our own heads and looking at the water.
",,"""This is Water,"" a speech by David Foster Wallace",,"My junior year of high school.","Avery, 18, Student",,,,,,this-is-water-banalities-of-living,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"In my English class, through Mountain Heights Academy.","Books & Reading,Commencement Speeches,Empathy,Kenyon College,Students,This Is Water,Wallace, David Foster",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/281/DFW.jpg,Text,,1,0
"The Only Person of Color in the Room",,"
At 95, Betty Reid Soskin is the oldest active U.S. Park Ranger. Having lived through wars, racial segregation, and other turbulent times in our history, she says empathy and world peace are possible through the humanities.
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 California Humanities: We Are the Humanities.
",,,"California Humanities",,"Betty Reid Soskin, U.S. National Park Service Ranger","Standard YouTube License",,,,,betty-reid-soskin-us-national-park-ranger,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"",,,"African American History,American Civil War & Collective Memory,Ancestors,Collective Memory,Empathy,Historic Sites,Historical Memory,History,National Parks & Reserves,Peace,Race Relations,Slavery,United States Park Rangers,Women's History",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/5/56/1985_ribbon_cutting_African_American_Park_Ranger.jpg,"Moving Image","California Humanities: “We Are the Humanities”",1,0 "Placing Our Family in the Story of America",,"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 Little House on the Prairie books helped him process and understand his family’s place in America.
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 California Humanities: We Are the Humanities.
",,"Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder","California Humanities",,"John Cho, actor","Standard YouTube License",,,,,john-cho-little-house-on-the-prairie,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"",,,"Actors,Books & Reading,Children's Literature,Empathy,Families,Immigration,Literature,Little House on the Prairie,United States History,Wilder, Laura Ingalls",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/5/51/statue_of_liberty-800.jpg,"Moving Image","California Humanities: “We Are the Humanities”",1,0 "Spreading the Love of Libraries",,"Librarian Deborah Jung describes the moment she discovered libraries and the riches they offer, which fueled her passion for opening the world of literature to children. For Jung, finding a library as a child was like “going to heaven.” The beauty of Madeleine L’Engle’s writing introduced her to the world of science fiction, a genre that thematizes acceptance, empathy, and humanity. More recently, as a reader, Jung has turned to literature about immigration. As a school librarian, she strives to choose books—especially those that feature African American and Hispanic characters—in which students may see reflections of themselves. ",,"A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle",,,"Deborah Jung, Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District",,,,,,spreading-love-of-libraries,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"",,,"A Wrinkle in Time,Books & Reading,Empathy,L'Engle, Madeleine,Librarians,Libraries,Multicultural Education,Science Fiction,Vocation,Young Adult Literature",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/4/43/library-960x590.jpg,"Moving Image",Educators,1,0