Finding Freedom from the Familiar
<p>In 1979, at age 16, Hollis Robbins found herself enrolled at John Hopkins University. Though she was there as part of a program for girls who excelled in math, she signed up for a humanities lecture class. In that day’s class, drawing upon the epic of Gilgamesh, a guest lecturer expounded on the theory of “mimetic desire,” or the idea that we borrow our desires from other people. Unbeknownst to her, the speaker was none other than famed anthropological philosopher René Girard. Yet, Hollis disagreed. In her opinion, culled from reading stories such as those of Herman Melville and Charles Dickens, people actually like “very strange things.” They are drawn to things that are different from themselves.</p>
<p>Today, as a professor of literature, her conviction holds strong, supported by experiences such as teaching Melville’s <em>Moby-Dick</em>. She finds that contrary to present-day despair about their “slow attention spans,” students want to reach across centuries to worlds unfamiliar from their own.</p>
Epic of Gilgamesh; the philosophy of René Girard; Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
1979
<a href="https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/meet-the-fellows/hollis-robbins/">Hollis Robbins</a>, Johns Hopkins University
robbins-finding-freedom-from-familiar
Response to a response
I was in my English class and we were talking about humanities moments for extra credit. We talked about <a href="http://humanitiesmoments.org/moment/robbins-finding-freedom-from-familiar">a woman who disagreed with the "mimetic" effect</a> and she claimed that people have a desire to be different. I agree with this idea but I also believe that each human has a purpose in this world. Each individual is born with a burning desire inside of them to fulfill this purpose and live their lives to the absolute fullest. This gives me hope that one day each individual will discover something that makes them feel alive each day and causes them to live with purpose.<br /><br /><em>Curator's note</em>: This contribution refers to the Humanities Moment "<a href="http://humanitiesmoments.org/moment/robbins-finding-freedom-from-familiar">Finding Freedom from the Familiar"</a> by Hollis Robbins.
Hollis Robbins
The Humanities Moment "Finding Freedom from the Familiar"
10:30 am Feb, 21 2018
Jacob, Johnston 20 years old. College student at Texas A&M University
response-to-a-response