1
30
10
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/13/221/Dinh_Q_Le.jpg
dc52192e544363c9429c9186c72c1507
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Dinh Q Le
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dinh-q-le
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Contested Territory: America’s Role in Southeast Asia, 1945–75
Subject
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A National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute for Teachers
Description
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Taking place from July 16-27, 2018, <a href="A%20National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute for Teachers">this National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute</a> explored modern Vietnam in order to situate the American War in broader spatial settings and longer historical contexts.
Identifier
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contested-territory
Text
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Andy Mink
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Adrian Khactu, High School English Teacher
Date
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July 25, 2018
Description
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There’s a game I like to play in class called “Look At.” We practice our close reading skills by gazing at a picture for 3 minutes and then writing down everything we see (or don’t see) about that image by starting each sentence with: “Look at…” When I first looked at Vietnamese American artist Dinh Q. Lê’s woven photo-collage, “Untitled #9 from Cambodia: Splendor and Darkness,” at the Ackland Art Museum (UNC Chapel Hill), I was struck first by my not knowing: what it was, how it was made, what it represented. On-screen, the image resembles 80’s over-pixelated computer graphics, but in person, it’s a traditional prayer mat woven from strips of two separate photographic images. Look at how colonized cultures are represented. These two images, official photographic records of the Khmer Rouge’s S21 prisoners, who are about to be executed, and a bas-relief of a Vishnu incarnation from the ancient Khmer temple of Angkor Wat, offer polarizing visions of how Cambodia is represented in an American imaginary: the Killing Fields or one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The two images echo questions that we’ve discussed in our National Humanities Center seminar: how are nations memorialized? What are the human geographies represented and reproduced? How are these competing representations contested? Look at Vishnu’s vanished face. When I visited Angkor Wat, I was overwhelmed by the spiritual power standing alongside me, at this nexus of religious histories, the fall of an empire, the way this temple’s physical weight changed the geographical landscape. Look at these missing eyes. The artist has razored out eyes from the S21 prisoners’ faces. They look like my parents’ old document pictures that I once found buried in a dresser drawer. When I visited the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields outside of Phnom Penh, I literally felt physical distress, panic, anxiety. How can the earth retain emotion and memory? Can trauma leave a residue in the earth itself? Look at the dark spaces woven together. Human meets divine. Official record meets folk tradition. Black and white meets color. Modern technology meets ancient carvings. Vishnu’s arms are outstretched: in pain? In embrace? I leave the NEH Summer Institute on Contested Territory with many more questions than answers, but such compelling questions. What does territory in Southeast Asia mean and who controls its expression? How do humans affect geography? How can we read this image through a diverse set of disciplinary expectations? How do we survive a war? And why is this important? This is why the humanities matter.
Title
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Representing Southeast Asia
Creator
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Dinh Q. Lê’
Source
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"Untitled #9 from Cambodia: Splendor and Darkness" by Dinh Q. Lê’
Identifier
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representing-southeast-asia
Ackland Art Museum
Cambodia
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Geography
Khmer Rouge
Museums
Photography
Teachers & Teaching
War
World History
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/8/93/From_the_Mixed-Up_Files_of_Mrs._Basil_E._Frankweiler.jpg
111237518de9fad6f665b1f51083a688
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Title
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From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
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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
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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Title
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Visiting the Art Museum
Description
An account of the resource
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.
Subject
The topic of the resource
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.
Source
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<em>From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler</em> by E. L. Konigsburg
Creator
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E. L. Konigsburg
Date
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1984
Contributor
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<a href="https://mornaoneill.wordpress.com/">Morna O’Neill</a>, age 41, art history professor
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visiting-the-art-museum
Art Museums
Books & Reading
Children's Literature
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Konigsburg, E.L.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Museums
New York, New York
Professors
Sculpture
-
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Abstract Cubes
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Pixabay
Identifier
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abstract-cubes
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
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graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
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NHC GSSR
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Madeline Krumel, 24, Ph.D. Student
Date
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June 2021
Source
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"Baby, Baby" by Louisa Chase (1991). Etching on aquatint.
Description
An account of the resource
This summer, I am working with the Syracuse University Art Museum to create English-specific teaching resources. The goal is to make the museum's collections more accessible to instructors for both teaching and research purposes. The job came with the underlying assumption that artwork is a valuable tool for all kinds of academic or humanistic endeavors: close reading, interpretation, question-asking, theory application, etc. <br /><br />As I dug around in the collection, I came across a piece by Louisa Chase, "Baby, Baby" (1991) and had a breakthrough moment. The abstract work, and Chase generally, uses geometric shapes to shadow or mimic forms--in this case, rectangles and squares to mimic a baby--and chaotic, heavy lines to disrupt the image. The work is striking in itself, but I was inspired by the way in which it perfectly represents the Lacanian idea of the "Mirror Stage." <br /><br />A professor I work closely with describes pre-Mirror Stage identity as the formless, wild, confusing, cloudy, and chaotic experiences of an infant's sense of "self." And Chase's work shows that exactly, without the use of so-called "high theory." I was excited to show my professor, who was equally excited, and I went on to develop an entire module on the "Mirror Stage" and Identity out of paintings, photographs, cartoons, and other artworks of diverse mediums. <br /><br />This module, once completed, will hopefully help to illuminate Lacan's theory by showing how humans find (or construct) their identity via images, representations, objects, and other things on the outside. I'm excited to continue to research the collection this summer to identify other artworks that can help students and scholars achieve understanding, find inspiration, and communicate ideas.
Title
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A Painting, A Baby, and Jacques Lacan Walk into a Syllabus...
Creator
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Louisa Chase
Identifier
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painting-baby-jacques-lacan-walk-syllabus
Art
Chase, Louisa
Identity
Lacan, Jacques
Museum Curatorship
Museums
Psychoanalysis
Teachers & Teaching
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/4/42/Civil_Rights_leaders_marching_in_Washington_D.C..jpeg
8602d72c53967107ca4e66a93e19975f
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Civil rights leaders marching in Washington, D.C.
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Title
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Educators
Description
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This collection features contributions by teachers, education administrators and others involved in teaching at levels K-16.
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educators-humanities-moments
Moving Image
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Player
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<iframe width="640" height="360" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/269216056"></iframe>
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Title
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Eyes on the Prize
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Kamille Bostick, Vice President, Education Programs, Levine Museum of the New South
Description
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Kamille Bostick shares the moment when she first saw the PBS documentary <em>Eyes on the Prize</em> and discusses how the revelations of that film history have contributed to her career and her long interest in history, especially the lives and accomplishments of African Americans.<br /><br />Seeing herself reflected in pictures and stories of African American history inspired Bostick to learn more about the lives and stories of those who came before her. In tandem, an <em>Ebony</em> magazine series and the film prompted two realizations for Bostick: first, the extent to which history matters; second, given how much African Americans have enriched U.S. culture, she “couldn’t not know more” about the history of those she saw depicted. In her own work, Bostick strives to honor and remember the songs, creations, and stories of African Americans throughout the nation’s history.
Identifier
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eyes-on-the-prize
African American History
Civil Rights Movement (United States)
Documentary Films
Ebony Magazine
Eyes on the Prize
Hampton, Henry
History
Journalism
Magazines
Museums
PBS (Public Broadcasting Service)
Storytelling
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/97/calligrapher.jpg
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Calligrapher at the 2002 Smithsonian Folklife Festival
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<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/259889262" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
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From the Silk Road to the National Mall
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen Kidd explains how his involvement with several projects during his time at the Smithsonian illuminated the powerful role of the humanities in cultivating cross-cultural community. One project, which focused on food cultures, celebrated culinary legacies as the owner of a New York Jewish delicatessen passed down the business to an immigrant from the Dominican Republic. Another project considered how the AIDS quilt fostered a sense of community in the midst of a public health crisis. Finally, in 2002 the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, which centered on the Silk Road, attracted a multitude of international participants from countries in the Middle East and Central Asia. In the wake of 9/11 and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan, over one million guests converged on the National Mall to engage with and learn from each other, helping bridge cultures in the shadow of violence.
Date
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2002
Contributor
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Stephen Kidd, Executive Director, National Humanities Alliance
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stephen-kidd-silk-road-national-mall
Cultural Exchange
Festivals
Folk Festivals
Folklore
Food Cultures
Museums
National Mall, Washington, D.C.
Smithsonian Institution
Traditional Knowledge
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/141/cat-statuette-1320x811.jpg
121413a0aee20115407225a7c43662d2
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Title
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Egyptian cat statuette at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Moving Image
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Player
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<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/263566905" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
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“You don’t just run, you run to some place wonderful.”
Description
An account of the resource
<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.
Contributor
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Deborah Ross, U.S. Representative for North Carolina's 2nd District
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deborah-ross-someplace-wonderful
Source
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<em>From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler</em> by E.L. Konigsburg
Art Museums
Books & Reading
Children's Literature
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Konigsburg, E.L.
Lawyers
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Museums
New York, New York
Politicians
Runaway Children
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/12/192/Barbados_Museum.jpg
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Barbados Museum
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barbados-museum
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Virginia Geographic Alliance West Indies Teacher Institute
Description
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A week-long experiential professional development experience for teachers taking place during June 2018 in Barbados
Text
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Andy Mink
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John Skelton, 30, Teacher, Virginia
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
June 2018
Description
An account of the resource
The Barbados Museum and Historical Society is located in a former military prison. Its original purpose of control through force and containment is clear and obvious when I entered the present-day museum. Cannons flank the entrance, a symbol of calculated and brutal violence. The façade is imposing, an intimidating tall arch way designed not to invite but to deter entrance. However, today it is a place of education, a site of liberation for the thousands of stories of people and events in the island’s past. That past for Barbados is incredibly complex. Built on coldly calculated and horrific brutality of agricultural production and subsequent cultural diffusion, the island today grapples with economic, political, and social successes, challenges, and the myriad of geographic factors that influence their narrative to the present day.
Education is critical to Barbadians history and culture. Education was restricted from enslaved Africans, planters viewing an education as catalyst for rebellion. Upon becoming a sovereign nation, Barbados made a social and political commitment to education. Across the island, the pride and commitment to education is obvious. It is the theme that many social-historians touch on as a key marker for its rise in development relative to other island countries that make up the Caribbean. Barbadian planters feared the liberating force of education, Barbadians themselves intertwined economic and political independence with education, and today, many Barbadians put high value on education’s ability to promote the freedom of job opportunity and prosperity on or outside of the island.
This literal former prison’s repurposing into a historic museum was itself a catalyst to understanding Barbados, but also the challenge of the humanities as people grapple with their own past, present, and the connections between them. As people, we look to past individuals and stories and attempt to reutilize or repurpose them to educate, improve, or respond to contemporary and future challenges. This museum, and its reutilization of the prison as a place of confinement to that of freedom is symbolic of that process. Barbados’ past is brutal and complex and, rather than imprisoning that narrative, we must learn and use those real and human truths to promote a better future.
Title
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The Liberation of Our Past
Identifier
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the-liberation-of-our-past
Architecture
Barbados
Education
Geography
History
Museums
Prisons
Teachers & Teaching
Violence
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/13/212/Yasukuni.jpg
74b7570812e79cf10049321b99937818
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Yasukuni
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yasukuni
Dublin Core
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Title
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Contested Territory: America’s Role in Southeast Asia, 1945–75
Subject
The topic of the resource
A National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute for Teachers
Description
An account of the resource
Taking place from July 16-27, 2018, <a href="A%20National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute for Teachers">this National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute</a> explored modern Vietnam in order to situate the American War in broader spatial settings and longer historical contexts.
Identifier
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contested-territory
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Referrer
For internal use only, for tracking and metrics.
The National Humanities Center
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Breann Johnston, Middle School Teacher
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
July 26th, 2018
Description
An account of the resource
Human connection is the most important part of life to me. I really value great relationships and look forward to connecting with new people every chance I get. Obviously, I am not going to have the same views on every single topic as anyone else. I think we make the biggest growth as human beings when we connect with people who have very different perspectives than our own, and we are willing to see things through their eyes. It does not mean that will always lead us to the same conclusion or change our own perspective in any way.
I use the phrase, “life is all about perspective” all the time, but how much the concept of contested territory is related to perspective did not really hit me until Morgan Pitelka was presenting his seminar, “Memory and Commemoration.” He discussed the Yūshūkan War/ Military Museum in Tokyo, Japan and explained that the Japanese people say the museum is a place of memorial for the lost soldiers, while others see it as a place to glorify Japan’s violent military past. There were other strong examples of contested perspectives throughout my time here in North Carolina, but that moment brought it all together for me.
Title
A name given to the resource
Contested Perspective
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
contested-perspective
Connection
History
Museums
Teachers & Teaching
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/15/322/Suffragist_Parade_Image.jpg
1933d47024e4c6c58341c0251d0fb95b
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Women's Suffrage Parade
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https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Suffragists_Parade_Down_Fifth_Avenue,_1917.JPG
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women's-suffrage-parade
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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.
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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GSSR #gradsinthewoods19
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Katie Schinabeck
Date
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2016
Source
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A first person interpreter at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut
Description
An account of the resource
The year 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote in the United States. I don’t think I truly grasped the reality that (white) American women have only had the right to vote for a century until I met a woman living in the year 1876.
I’ll explain. I met Louisa at Mystic Seaport- an outdoor museum in Connecticut. I first met her when I was watching a cooking demonstration in a historic house. Louisa came by and chatted with the cooking demonstrator. Before she left, she invited everyone to join her at the Seamen’s Friends building at 2:00. When she flitted away, the demonstrator said to us conspiratorially, “Louisa is such a nice woman. But be careful, I hear she advocates for women’s suffrage.”
It was a perfect hook. I dutifully arrived at the appropriate building at 2:00. After Louisa’s performance, the rest of the audience left and Louisa and I were alone.
“So, Louisa, I heard you have an interest in women’s suffrage,” I prompted.
“I don’t know where you heard that,” she answered, looking around.
She was good. She pulled me in.
We started up a conversation. She told me about how unfair it was that she couldn’t vote even though she owned property and paid taxes on that property. She also talked about how difficult it was to voice her opinion, much less actively engage in the suffrage movement, in her small town. We talked about women’s suffrage, her life in Mystic, and her past experiences.
My humanities moment came as we finally left the building. By this point I had started to suspend disbelief, and I wanted to leave Louisa with a sense of hope for her future. So I turned to her and told her not to give up on the dream of women’s suffrage. And then I realized that I was being ridiculous. Not because I was acting like I was actually having a conversation with a woman from 1876 (well partly because of that) but because there was a high chance that she would never actually see the right to vote in her lifetime. And that was my humanities moment. The moment when something I knew became something that I knew- white women have had the right to vote for 100 years in the country. Many people of color only gained the right to vote (in all practical ways) in living memory.
This new understanding led to a shift in how I engage in civic life. But before that moment, I was regrettably one of those millenials that didn’t vote because I didn’t think my vote mattered or that I was knowledgeable enough to vote. But since that conversation, I started voting in all levels of elections partly because of the past. I vote now because of how many women fought for me to have this right.
Title
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Votes for Women at Mystic Seaport
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votes-for-women-at-mystic-seaport
Black History
Museums
Women's History
Women's Rights
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http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/8/432/Fish_on_Marchmont_St_[photo_by_MS].jpg
61b4b4d573e548aa1d682ccad0349e66
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National Humanities Center Fellows
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Any contributions from current or past fellows at the National Humanities Center
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This collection includes contributions from current or past fellows at the National Humanities Center
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I am a NHC fellow in AY 2020-21.
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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/.
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Mitra Sharafi, 47, legal historian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Date
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2019
Description
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I live and teach in Madison, Wisconsin, but I usually spend my spring break on a research trip in London, England. On a cold and drizzly day in March 2019, I was walking down Marchmont Street through London's Bloomsbury neighborhood on my way to the British Library. My head was down and I was busy thinking about the documents I would request at the archives, when I noticed what looked like a metal fish embedded in the sidewalk. As I kept walking, I noticed other oversized articles cemented into the walkway: a split coin, what looked like a compass, a winged heart connected to a pineapple, a diamond-shaped plaque with the initials M.S. In one case, a heart was inscribed with "Meriah Dechesne, Born August 8th 1759."
Soon, I came across a sign that explained these objects. These were enlarged replicas of historical tokens that mothers, usually young and poor, left when they abandoned their babies at the Foundling Hospital. The hospital took in babies given up between 1741 and 1954. Today, the Foundling Museum sits on the site, around the corner from the stretch of sidewalk where I noticed these tokens. The mothers were supposed to leave a small physical object with their babies to help them re-unite later, if possible. It was a kind of identification system or secret password. Only the mother and the Foundling Hospital would know that she had left her baby with a metal fish, for instance. As it turned out, reunifications were rare.
On my way to one of the world's most famous collections of paper documents, I was shown another kind of artifact from the past. These metal tokens were mementos of heart-break and loss, of lives spent apart because of poverty and social stigma, and of stories and people that were probably absent from the written records housed three blocks away. The metal fish and its companions were a quiet and understated form of memorial. They were flat, trodden upon by thousands of people every day, plain, and potentially unexplained for most pedestrians. But they created one of the most moving monuments I have ever seen. Because of them, I think about two centuries of desperate mothers and abandoned babies whenever I walk down Marchmont Street.
Title
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The Fish on Marchmont Street
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fish-on-marchmont-street
Architecture
Archives
Historical Markers
Historical Memory
London, United Kingdom
Memorials
Museums