“I was dragged, kicking and screaming, to a van Gogh exhibition”
I get chills thinking about it even now, because to have this extraordinary storyteller explaining to you what was going on at that point in van Gogh’s life—what this meant to him, what it should mean to us—but still leaving the whole painting open to individual interpretation, it was really something that, to me, was quite profound.
In what I believe was the latter part of the 1980s, I was dragged, kicking and screaming, to a van Gogh exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum. And for the first time in my life, I wore one of those machines around my neck, where you listen to headphones and you hear somebody describe what it is you’re going to see. It was a brand-new experience.
The narrator was the then-director of the Metropolitan Museum, Philippe de Montebello, and at the introductory part of the exhibit, I was really struck by the quality of what he was saying. It was so well written that it really bordered on being fine literature.... As we went from room to room, his storytelling, and the visual impact of my seeing these extraordinary paintings by this extraordinary, troubled person, made an impact on me that I still think about, probably, every month.
There was a new richness in what I saw, but also a level of insight into what van Gogh had done that magnified to a great degree the impact that it had on me. Looking back on it, coming at a part of my life where I had been underground for a long time, as a law student, and then as a young lawyer, it pulled me back into the knowledge that there was this greater, more interesting world out there; one to which I owed a lot more attention. From then on, I dedicated myself to making sure that I was going to live a life that was more rich.
I get chills thinking about it even now, because to have this extraordinary storyteller explaining to you what was going on at that point in van Gogh’s life—what this meant to him, what it should mean to us—but still leaving the whole painting open to individual interpretation, it was really something that, to me, was quite profound.
Vincent van Gogh
An exhibit of Vincent van Gogh's paintings
C. Allen Parker, General Counsel, Wells Fargo & Company
allen-parker-van-gogh
The Streets of New York Are Like a Library
In this video submission, artist Carter Thompson discusses how a recent exhibit on the Harlem Renaissance revealed some of the fascinating history of the century-old building in which he lives and helped him feel a connection across the decades with those who lived in the neighborhood before him.
Thompson describes how his sensibilities as an artist are informed by the stories of those who have walked the same streets, or seen the angle of the light in much the same way. He also notes how the humanities help us to bridge differences wrought by time and vastly different life experiences, and to find the common threads of our shared humanity.
An art exhibition on the Harlem Renaissance
Carter Thompson, artist and designer
new-york-is-like-a-library
Fathers and Sons
In this video, Scott Gartlan discusses his reaction to seeing Arthur Miller’s 1947 play <em>All My Sons </em>and seeing deep connections between the play’s narrative and his own life story. He goes on to reflect on the power of storytelling to bridge generations and personal circumstances.<br /><br />Witnessing the performance of Miller’s play was a “flashbulb moment” that deepened Gartlan’s appreciation of “what art can do in representing life.”
A performance of Arthur Miller's play <em>All My Sons</em>
Scott Gartlan, Executive Director, Charlotte Teachers Institute
fathers-sons
Eyes on the Prize
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.
Kamille Bostick, Vice President, Education Programs, Levine Museum of the New South
eyes-on-the-prize
What Happens When We Share Our Stories?
Teacher Theresa Pierce discusses how the accumulation and sharing of personal narratives help generate individual moments of realization among students as they also help build a sense of community. <br /><br />Books, maps, and works of art consistently facilitate connection and shared experiences among Pierce’s diverse group of students. For example, Marjane Satrapi’s graphic autobiography <em>Persepolis</em> moved one young woman to reflect on her own family’s narrative. This communal sharing of stories helps Pierce’s students to realize that the world “isn’t a bubble” but a “huge interconnected thing.”
<em>Persepolis</em> by Marjane Satrapi
Theresa Pierce, Rowan County Early College
sharing-stories-fostering-understanding
From Los Angeles to Guadalajara
Craig Watson, former director of the California Arts Council, reflects on the storytelling aspect of the humanities and the time he spent as a teenager in Guadalajara exploring public spaces painted with murals. He notes how people in the humanities help translate and open our eyes to what’s magical and unique about a place.<br /><br />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>.
Orozco, José Clemente; Rivera, Diego
Painted murals by José Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera
California Humanities
Craig Watson, former director of the California Arts Council
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craig-watson-from-la-to-guadalajara
Making the World Bearable
<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>
California Humanities
Malcolm Margolin, author, publisher, and founder of Heyday Books
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malcolm-margolin-making-the-world-bearable
Writing is My Activism
<p>Luis Rodriguez, Poet Laureate of Los Angeles in 2014, explains how his love for books and libraries rescued him from a life of trouble. He notes that through books, he discovered more about people and their lives, which encouraged his interest in writing about injustice and activism.</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>
California Humanities
Luis Rodriguez, Poet Laureate of Los Angeles in 2014
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms">Standard YouTube License</a>
luis-rodriguez-writing-activism
A Timeless Description
As humans, we naturally feel connected to those with the same blood and Burl and Phyllis were even closer than “regular” aunts and uncles. Burl was my grandfather’s brother and Phyllis my grandmother’s sister. When they both developed Alzheimer’s and eventually passed away it was of course upsetting, but in addition to the loss of family I lost the opportunity to understand their history. I was just in high school developing my love of the humanities, and I had so many questions about Burl's experiences in WWII. Then my mother handed me his scrapbooks. Humans often look for a connection to not only their families history, but how their families connected to the history of the world. This was that moment for me.
I feel robbed that I did not get the opportunity to ask my Great Uncle Burl what it was like to train in North Africa or share stories of being at the Duomo in Florence. I was a young teen when he passed, and he did not share the horrors he saw as part of the 316th Medical Battalion in the liberation of Italy. Then as an adult, I received the precious gift of his scrapbooks, which have given me a little insight. One particular annotation on the back of a photo caught my eye. Among images of young men in uniform going from the desert to mountains and snow, there was one of a destroyed building. On the back Uncle Burl wrote, “This was someone’s home at one time, I hope this never happens in the states.” I feel this description is timeless. No matter what is going on in the world humans make decisions on whether to take action or not, but we always hope the bad does not find its way to our homes and family. Burl was lucky and made it back to marry his love Phyllis, and be a second grandfather to me.
As humans, we naturally feel connected to those with the same blood and Burl and Phyllis were even closer than “regular” aunts and uncles. Burl was my grandfather’s brother and Phyllis my grandmother’s sister. When they both developed Alzheimer’s and eventually passed away it was of course upsetting, but in addition to the loss of family I lost the opportunity to understand their history. I was just in high school developing my love of the humanities, and I had so many questions about Burl's experiences in WWII. Then my mother handed me his scrapbooks. Humans often look for a connection to not only their families history, but how their families connected to the history of the world. This was that moment for me.
A family scrapbook
2015
<a href="http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/education-programs/humanities-in-class-guide-thinking-learning-in-humanities/">Elizabeth Mulcahy</a>
timeless-description
Things Usually Turn Out Alright
<p>Esther Mackintosh explains how a single letter from her father offered solace during an especially trying period of her life.</p>
<p>As a graduate student facing an uncertain future, Mackintosh took refuge in her father’s written words, which described his own challenges as a newly married farmer during the Great Depression. His letter concluded with a question posed to his daughter: “Would it help you to know that things usually turn out alright?” Thanks to her father’s words, Mackintosh, herself a scholar of stories, could contextualize her own unfolding narrative in light of her family history.</p>
Esther Mackintosh, President of the Federation of State Humanities Councils
esther-mackintosh-things-turn-out-alright
Abu’s Afsanas
Oral history—one of the oldest humanities.
My Abu (‘father’ in Urdu) is my favorite storyteller ... I grew up with stories of his childhood in India and later in his life: he and his best friend, Shafi, climbing neem trees in Puna; them trying to get back at a bully, but having their elaborate plan—with one of them crouching behind the bully while the other pushed him over—completely backfire (getting beat-up for a second time!); them tapping people’s heads from atop a wall as the clueless souls walked by not knowing what just happened; traveling by boat from India to Zanzibar, where my uncle was stationed on the hill opposite from the Sultan’s palace; stories of my grandfather, a famous detective who headed up the investigation of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi; my father coming to ‘America’ in 1959 as a Fulbright scholar to study engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and witnessing the burgeoning Civil Rights movement ... These were the stories that shaped me, my worldview, and piqued my interest in studying history ... And I haven’t even gotten into my mother’s stories of growing up in Peru! (N.B.: ‘Afsanas’ are short stories in Urdu.)
Abu
Oral history—one of the oldest humanities
Over the course of our lifetimes
<a href="http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/humanities-in-class-guide-thinking-learning-in-humanities/">Omar H. Ali</a>, 46, Historian
abus-afsanas
Seeing Fellini’s <em>Amarcord</em> Was the Greatest Cultural Moment of My Life
Looking back, Doyle reflects that <em>Amarcord</em> was there, in the back of his head, “nudging” him in his own creative work as a writer. Though he can never “really pin it down,” seeing the film remains “the greatest cultural moment” of his life.
In this video, author Roddy Doyle describes the experience of seeing Fellini’s <em>Amarcord</em> for the first time as a boy in Dublin. Growing up in Ireland, at that time a strict Catholic country, it was revelatory for him to see the religion ridiculed in the subversive comedy-drama. The combination of the beautiful and the grotesque mesmerized the young Doyle, who found the film “a great antidote” to the strict environment of his own religious high school.
<em>Amarcord</em> by Federico Fellini
<em>Amarcord</em>
1974
Roddy Doyle, author
roddy-doyle-fellini-amarcord
Story-Making and the Fault Lines of American Capitalism
This documentary film prompted historian Edward Balleisen to reflect on the powerful and protean role of storytelling in the American imagination, specifically in the realm of modern capitalism. An appreciation of the humanities may provide us with a deeper understanding of the shape-shifting role that stories play in the economic realm. This understanding, in turn, may serve as a compass as we, in Balleisen’s words, “navigate” the world around us.
<p>Several weeks ago I had occasion to watch the new documentary, <em>Betting on Zero</em>. This fascinating film presents several interlinked stories, all related to the founding and growth of Herbalife, a multi-level-marketing company that sells nutritional supplements, weight loss concoctions, and the “business opportunity” to distribute these products. Among the narrative threads:</p>
<ul>
<li>the basic business model of this enterprise, which depends on the perpetual recruitment of new salespeople (this task is facilitated by revival-style meetings in which the company’s leading pitchmen and women preach a prosperity ethos, a faith that identification with the company and enthusiastic hard work will generate product sales and recruitment of new sellers, regardless of one’s background);</li>
<li>Herbalife’s subsidiary strategies of sponsoring sports teams and paying for a wide array of celebrity endorsements;</li>
<li>the attractiveness of Herbalife’s prosperity gospel to immigrant communities in the US, and especially Latinos;</li>
<li>increasing suspicions among journalists and some members of the investment community about Herbalife’s business practices, which have struck many who have examined the company closely as akin to a pyramid scheme;</li>
<li>a now five-year-long effort by a prominent hedge fund investor, Bill Ackman, to short Herbalife stock (convinced by intensive research that the company’s pyramid-like dependence on the recruitment of new sales agents doomed it to eventual collapse, Ackman not only bet hundreds of millions of dollars against Herbalife, but orchestrated a series of public attacks on the company’s methods and valuation);</li>
<li>the vigorous defense of Herbalife by its executives, including its longtime CEO Mark Johnson, along with billionaire investor and long-time Ackman nemesis Carl Icahn;</li>
<li>growing opposition to Herbalife by some activists within Latino communities, such as Chicagoan Julie Contreras, along with disgruntled former sales agents who felt they had been ripped off, culminating in public campaigns and lawsuits; and</li>
<li><span>a slew of investigations by regulatory authorities, including a Federal Trade Commission inquiry that led to a 2016 settlement with Herbalife, imposing a $200 million fine on the company and requiring far-reaching reform of its business practices in the US;</span></li>
<li>the extraordinary growth of Herbalife abroad, especially in the gargantuan markets of India and China, which may blunt the impact of the FTC settlement.</li>
</ul>
<p>At issue in <em>Betting on Zero</em> is the primary question of which story about Herbalife would stick, whether with its sales agents, throughout the communities in which it operated, within the financial markets, or in courtrooms and regulatory agencies. What would become the prevalent, even official story about Herbalife’s purposes, practices, and impacts? Was the firm a vehicle for social and economic uplift, a mechanism for individuals with minimal education and social capital to build a proprietary business that would deliver the American dream, even make them wealthy? Or was it an especially cruel confidence game that separated the vast majority of its sellers from initial capital investments, and, even worse, turned them into recruiters who ensnared fellow community members in a losing proposition? This debate has been and remains a hotly contested one.</p>
<p>After watching this cinematic engagement with a contentious recent episode in the annals of American consumer capitalism, I found myself coming back again and again to a single scene. A few years into the battle waged by Bill Ackman, the camera zooms in on Herbalife CEO Mark Johnson as he addresses a sports stadium filled with Herbalife acolytes. Portraying the company as inevitably beset by establishment naysayers out to destroy Herbalife and the avenues of opportunity that it provided, Johnson proclaimed that he and the Herbalife family would fend off its enemies. The multi-level marketing firm, Johnson explained, would always “seize the narrative.” That might mean shining the public spotlight on hardworking, charismatic Herbalifers who had recruited so many other sales agents that they had ascended into the company’s Millionaire Team. Or proclaiming that in the household where Johnson was raised, the abiding parental message stressed the importance of “integrity” to sustain “trust.” Or reframing the motives of a financial operator like Ackman, implying that his short position undercut any arguments or analysis that he might put forward about the company’s mode of operations. Johnson offered a brash forecast of narrative dominance—that Herbalife would identify the narrative high ground, occupy it, and hold it against all comers.</p>
<p>This declaration struck me so forcibly in part because one rarely sees such candor about the role of stories and story-telling in the hurly burly world of American capitalism. Surrounded by insiders, Johnson was willing to pull back the curtain on how corporations approach public relations in the broadest sense—not just through the messages of advertisements and endorsements, but through the wider management of reputation and popular belief.</p>
<p>The comment from Johnson also resonated for me because it encapsulates so much of my own work as a historian of American law, policy, and business culture. For a quarter-century, I’ve been writing about fault-lines in American capitalism, the zones of instability created by an economic system depending on widespread trust in economic counterparties. For much of the 1990s, I focused on the legal, social, economic, and cultural problems posed by business failure in the nineteenth-century—those dislocating moments when the era’s firms could not pay their debts. Since then, I have been wrestling with the American flim-flam man (and woman), chasing after alleged and actual business frauds from the early nineteenth-century to the present, as well as investigating the shifting institutional responses to the problem of marketplace deceptions.</p>
<p>Stories, of course, help to grease the wheels of modern capitalism. Would be entrepreneurs construct them as they seek to persuade friends and relatives, banks, or venture capital firms to supply them with the funds they need to launch businesses. Advertisers dream up fantasies to convince consumers that some good or service truly offers a crucial need or fulfills some deeply felt want. Even without the prompting of some crisis or scandal, corporate public relations departments construct tales about corporate origins and the essential elements of a firm’s business culture, all to foster employees’ identification with their employer and customers’ identification with the firm’s products or services. In recent decades, business executives have spun yarns about their heroic contributions to financial results to justify gargantuan pay packages. For more than a century now, societies have also confronted a host of meta-stories about the workings of capitalism, such as descriptions (or forecasts) of the business cycle’s predictable arc, moving from growth to boom to bust and recession.</p>
<p>Hardly any of this story-making and telling goes uncontested. Savvy investors and lenders do not uncritically embrace the projections of those who seek after capital and credit. In competitive markets, firms challenge each other’s marketing narratives, as do consumer watchdogs and the business press. Labor unions usually offer a very different take on a company’s history and practices from that laid out by management. The same surely goes for social activists and journalistic muckrakers who seek to expose the negative consequences of corporate activity, whether for workers, consumers, or the environment. At least occasionally, stockholders express qualms about the munificence of executive compensation. And even if there is broad consensus about how to describe the business cycle, politicians and pundits hardly have achieved consensus about how much government can or should seek to moderate its swings. These opposing groups usually tell very different stories about the impacts of counter-cyclical monetary and fiscal policy.</p>
<p>The business narratives prompted by moments of failure or alleged deception tend to have an especially great urgency about them. For the proprietors, managers, and operators caught in the eye of a given storm, they involve questions of social standing, legitimacy, legal liability, economic future, even personal honor. They turn on interpretations of personal motivation, as well as understandings of the social norms, cultural values, and legal standards that structure economic exchange. And they have a collective dimension. As individual stories of bankruptcy and fraud multiply in a given era, they draw on prevailing macro-stories with familiar plotlines. As those macro-stories evolve in new circumstances, they can also help to establish reform agendas that seek to reconfigure social norms, cultural values, and legal standards.</p>
<p>To make these rather abstract points more concrete, consider the following primary sources, each involving a determined effort to “seize the narrative” about a specific enterprise facing existential threats.</p>
<p>The first source comes from a New York City bankruptcy case under the 1841 National Bankruptcy Act, the subject of my first book, <em>Navigating Failure: Bankruptcy and Commercial Society in Antebellum America</em> (2001). This short-lived legislation (Congress repealed it in 1843, just thirteen months after it went into operation) gave individuals the chance to petition for a discharge from their debts. Doing so required that petitioners offer a comprehensive list of their assets (most of which they would have to surrender to the federal court where they applied for relief) and their debts (which, if they successfully navigated the legal proceedings, they would no longer have to pay). One can infer a story of failure from this snapshot of property holdings and financial obligations, but such fragmentary evidence poses lots of interpretive challenges. One can of course dig for other relevant evidence about specific paths to insolvency. Occasionally, moreover, petitioners voluntarily offered a fuller account of their troubles as part of their bankruptcy filings. Such moves represented, at least in part, attempts to take out insurance against any counter-stories from creditors, who possessed the right to lodge formal objections to the granting of a bankruptcy discharge, or against eventual misconceptions by lawyers and the judiciary.</p>
<p>The document in question comes from the voluntary <a href="https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/site-dev/wp-content/uploads/pattison-bankruptcy-petition.pdf" title="Pattison bankruptcy petition">bankruptcy petition of Granville Sharpe Pattison</a>, a New York City physician who found himself ensnared in complex and allegedly fraudulent land deals during the “mania” of the mid-1830s. Not content to offer up just a list of assets and debts, Pattison offered a detailed story that placed his insolvency in the context of the general asset craze that took hold in the run-up to the Panic of 1837. Describing himself as “excited by the spirit of speculation,” the doctor recounted his eager purchases of Illinois town lots and stock in a copper mining company on the basis of false claims about their value. Sometimes he paid by liquidating other assets. More frequently, amid the heady atmosphere of boom times, the transactions rested on his mere promises to pay in the future.</p>
<p>Pattison further explained that he could not raise challenge the legality of his debts in court, because the sellers had immediately transferred his obligations to “innocent third parties.” He also assured the court that he had never indulged in any “extravagance, having always lived within his income.”</p>
<p>Most importantly, Pattison insisted that he might have avoided insolvency had he been willing to look out only for himself, since he subsequently sold most of the property “to English capitalists at immense advances.” But once he discovered that the sales rested on outright misrepresentations, he claimed that “he spontaneously cancelled all the contracts of sale ... without having been asked to do so,” despite the fact that doing so left him unable to make good on his own debts. As Pattison described his thinking, he would rather “be a Bankrupt in fortune” than allow “the shadow of a suspicion ... [to] rest on the uprightness and rectitude of his character.” Even the handwriting that produced this self-exoneration told a story of sorts, conveying a firm, clear penmanship that invited trust from readers.</p>
<p>The next two sources come from twentieth-century entrepreneurs who confronted highly publicized allegations of business fraud, each of whom received some attention in my most recent book, <em>Fraud: An American History from Barnum to Madoff</em>. Edward Lewis, a key figure in Chapter Six of <em>Fraud</em>, developed a cluster of businesses from his early twentieth-century base outside Saint Louis, including a subscription magazine that targeted rural women, a mail order bank, and a correspondence university. His legal troubles began with administrative fraud orders that damaged his core businesses and eventually led to criminal mail fraud proceedings. Glenn W. Turner, who makes a cameo appearance in Chapter Ten of <em>Fraud</em>, ran multi-level marketing schemes in the early 1970s that offered self-help literature/records and cosmetics, as well as opportunities to make income through recruitment of sales agents. His businesses attracted civil actions by a slew of state Attorneys General, as well as the Federal Trade Commission.</p>
<p><a href="https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/site-dev/wp-content/uploads/order-number-ten-excerpt.pdf" title="Lewis, Order Number Ten, excerpt"></a> Though separated by more than six decades and pursuing different businesses, the two businessmen adopted similar strategies in the effort to shape public perceptions and deflect allegations off fraudulent behavior. Lewis vigorously defended himself through his magazine, political and journalistic allies, and an eventual book, published in 1911, <em>Order Number Ten: Being Cursory Comments on Some of the Effects of the Great American Fraud Order</em>, which collected a series of editorials from Lewis’s <em>Woman’s Magazine</em>. I include here <a href="https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/site-dev/wp-content/uploads/order-number-ten-excerpt.pdf" title="Lewis, Order Number Ten, excerpt">the text of the fraud order against Lewis</a> that he placed at the beginning of the volume, the publisher’s preface, Lewis’s “Introductory,” one illustration conveying popular skepticism toward new ideas, his “Afterthoughts,” and a hard-sell recruiting plea at the back of the volume for book agents to market a related volume. These excerpts hit many recurring themes in the narratives offered up by alleged fraudsters: the difficulty of distinguishing economic deception from enthusiastic promotion at the forefront of innovation; the tendency of powerful, entrenched interests—in this case, the Post Office—to discredit competitors that threatened their position; and declarations of deep affection for those investors and customers who stood by him despite unjust persecution.</p>
<p><a href="http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/fullsize/glenn-turner-better-your-best-1000.jpg" title="Turner, Better Your Best"></a> Glenn W. Turner similarly expended considerable effort to convince the public that he, in the words of his authorized biographer, was a “saint” rather than a “con man.” I offer here <a href="http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/fullsize/glenn-turner-better-your-best-1000.jpg" title="Turner, Better Your Best">the text from the back cover of Turner’s 1975 promotional album</a>, “Glenn W. Turner SPEAKS OUT: ‘You Can Better Your Best.’” In this concise marketing pitch, Turner put forward a common rendering from American entrepreneurs of all stripes—the remarkable rise from difficult circumstances—as well as the persistent theme of uplift through a mutualistic sharing of opportunity to others who lack advantages.</p>
<p>The authors of these such stories themselves depended deeply on humanistic modes of thought and action. They put forward arguments, evoked sentiments, and sought to influence public opinion and/or official decision-making through personal accounts that drew on widely shared metaphors, tropes, and narrative arcs. For Granville Sharpe Pattison, the voluntary narrative of honorable failure may not have been necessary, since no creditors appeared to challenge his version of events. For both Edward Lewis and Glenn Tucker, tales of innovative striving helped their inveterate investors and customers keep the faith, but lacked punch with officialdom. Each had business empires upended as a result of legal actions; each ended up doing stints in jail as a result of criminal fraud convictions.</p>
<p>We are storytellers and consumers of stories, all of us, and not just in the realm of culture or family or other social relations or politics, but also in our economic and legal lives. The sharpest conflicts within modern capitalism turn in large measure on contending efforts to seize the narrative. Granville Sharpe Pattison, Edward Lewis, Glenn Turner, Michael Johnson, Julie Contreras, Bill Ackman and countless others have crafted stories in order to shape agendas, define the realm of the possible, assign blame or credit, justify or undermine, move themselves and others to action. These endeavors may not accord with all or even most of the relevant facts. They do not always manage to attain the highest narrative ground, nor hold it against all the counter-stories pressing up the slopes of our collective culture. But they reflect our essential nature as story-making, story-telling, and story-craving beings, who inevitably construct narratives to render our world intelligible.</p>
<p>This basic humanistic insight is crucial for clear-eyed understandings of how modern societies have handled thorny problems such as bankruptcy or business fraud. Indeed, this insight is crucial for making sense of wider questions about how modern capitalism works, who enjoys the fruits of its bounty, who has to bear its risks and costs, and how its mechanics and outcomes accord with our sense of justice.</p>
<p>Recognition of this essential perspective also can make us savvier consumers and investors, more thoughtful workers, professionals, managers, owners, and retirees, and more deliberative citizens. If we understand the ubiquity and power of stories in the economic realm, we will be better armed to identify them, to evaluate their basis in fact, and to appreciate their emotional pull. And that level of understanding can only help us as we navigate the complexities of a capitalist society.</p>
<p>For those interested in additional reading about story-making and its impact on how we make sense of the history of economic life (and the past, present, and future more generally), see:</p>
<ul>
<li>William Cronon, “<a href="http://www.williamcronon.net/writing/cronon_place_for_stories_1991.pdf">A Place for Stories: Nature, History, and Narrative</a>,” <i>Journal of American History </i> 78 (1992): 1347-76.</li>
<li>Per Hansen, “<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/572609/pdf">From Finance Capitalism to Financialization: A Cultural and Narrative Perspective on 150 Years of Financial History</a>,” <i>Enterprise & Society</i> 15 (2014): 605-42.</li>
<li>Frederick Mayer, <i><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/narrative-politics-9780199324460?cc=us&lang=en&">Narrative Politics: Stories and Collective Action</a></i> (New York, 2014).</li>
</ul>
Ted Braun
<em>Betting on Zero</em>
June 9, 2017
Edward J. Balleisen, professor of history at Duke University
balleisen-story-making-fault-lines-american-capitalism
The Second Shelf and Beyond
In elementary school, Kathryn Hill itched to move beyond the first shelf of the library books. When she finally reached the second shelf, a new world awaited her: biographies of historical figures. The lives of women such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, and Dorothea Dix led her to understand that history was all about stories. She realized that her own life “needed to be about something”—and that it could be.
Biographies of historical figures such as Harriet Tubman and Dorothea Dix
Kathryn Hill, President, The Levine Museum of the New South
kathryn-hill-second-shelf
Learning to Sing Stories
<p>Juan Felipe Herrera, a performance artist, activist, and U.S. poet laureate in 2015, recalls how his third-grade teacher’s compliment on his singing voice led to his lifelong belief in using his voice to encourage the beauty in the voices, stories, and, experiences of others. He goes on to speak about the power of the humanities to warm communities, create peace, and, move hearts.</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>
Juan Felipe Herrera, performance artist, activist, and U.S. Poet Laureate in 2015
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<em>Hamilton</em> and the Performance of Poetry
<p>Thomas Scherer describes two related encounters which speak to the power of hearing poetry performed aloud. The first is an explanatory talk and poetry reading by the great literary scholar M. H. Abrams at the National Humanities Center; the second is hearing Lin-Manuel Miranda discuss his award-winning rap musical, <em>Hamilton</em>.</p>
<p>Across generations, cultural divides, venues, and artistic voices, the power of lyric poetry to capture and convey powerful feeling is undeniable. And when poetry is performed and embodied, “brought to life” if you will, its capacity to create change is palpable.</p>
M. H. Abrams, Lin-Manuel Miranda
Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical <em>Hamilton</em>; M.H. Abrams' <em>The Mirror and the Lamp</em>
Thomas Scherer, Consultant, Spencer Capital Holdings
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Don’t Buy Into A Single Story
I encourage everyone to watch novelist Chimamanda Adichie’s 2009 TED talk “The Danger of A Single Story.” Adichie uses her personal experiences to illustrate the importance of sharing different stories about people. She warns of the consequences of a single story and how it can rob people of their dignity, create stereotypes, and make difficult the recognition of our equal humanity.
Adichie’s talk made me ponder current events and how many American politicians and leaders are attempting to create a single story about immigrants and others. One, in particular, is the group of Central American migrants fleeing danger and desperate situations for a new life in America. The president and others are painting them as criminals who are trying to invade the country. This is dangerous. It’s a seemingly hateful attempt to fan the flames of division and stoke the fears of his supporters. Adichie says, “show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.” She continues “power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.” Imagine if the first story told about this group of migrants was that many are mothers and fathers who desire safety and security for their families. Doing so would change the narrative entirely. To insist on only negative stories, those in power are attempting to dehumanize migrants and encourage Americans to believe that migrants are in no way similar to them. These views are extremely dangerous and can result in violence against an entire group of people.
I hope Adichie’s talk will encourage more people to not buy into a single story told about others. And in doing so, recognize that all people are informed and shaped by many stories. This is needed always, but especially in current times.
Chimamanda Adichie, author of <em>Half of a Yellow Sun, Americanah, </em>and other works
“The Danger of the Single Story,” a TED talk by Chimamanda Adichie
2018
Olympia Friday, Digital Engagement and Marketing Coordinator, National Humanities Center
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The Power of Myth
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.
"The Power of Myth" (PBS television series)
1988
Ron Eisenman, public high school social studies teacher, Rutland, Vermont
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The Magic of the Humanities
When I think of my love for the humanities, I think of magic. For me, the humanities offer a glimpse into other realms, worlds filled with wonder, excitement and adventure. Perhaps nothing encapsulates the pure joy that the humanities represent to me as well as my forays into Narnia as a young child. C. S. Lewis’s magical land of Narnia was the first of many worlds I explored alongside my parents and younger sister. When I was small, my family did not have a television, so after dinner reading was our most entertaining pastime. I remember my parents taking turns reading through <em>The Chronicles of Narnia</em>. My daddy would perform different voice for each character—accents included. It was great fun! My sister and I would sit enthralled for hours (or what seemed like it), begging for “just one more chapter.” <br /><br />For us, it was not just a book—it was an entire world that we brought to life together in our middle-class kitchen in plain old Plano, Texas. <em>The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe</em> made us long for Christmas and shiver with cold, even in the hot Texas summers. We begged for Turkish Delight; the descriptions of the delicacy tested the limits of our childish imaginations and we wanted to taste it for ourselves. One day, daddy came home from work and brought us a box filled with the delectable sweet so we could experience Edmund’s temptation alongside him. We were unimpressed. In my memory, the texture is wrong and the taste pales in comparison to the way Turkish Delight had tantalized my imagination—it was like the inside of a jelly bean: bland, fruity—a little slimy. I remember thinking it would definitely take something chocolate and gooey (not fruity and slimy) for me to betray my siblings as Edmund had done. <br /><br />My sister and I fought over the relative merits of each novel. My favorite was <em>Prince Caspian</em> (I liked that Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy reprised their roles in the book and even at that age I was a sucker for a Prince and an under-dog rebellion), hers was <em>The Horse and His Boy</em>. For Christmas, the year after my parents finished reading through all seven of <em>The Chronicles</em>, they gave us the whole series of recorded books on tape. We listened to them so often that I think I still have the majority of <em>Prince Caspian</em> memorized. Indeed, for me—to a certain extent—the magic of Narnia is indelibly linked in memory to the magic of Christmas, each filled with happiness, family, and lots and lots of food. Reading <em>The Voyage of the Dawn Treader</em> had me dreaming about spiced wine. As a child, of course, I could not experience this particular delicacy from Narnia, but I recall the first Christmas that my daddy made it for us. Even as adults, the experience took me back to Narnia. We still drink it around the holidays and reminisce about those good old days adventuring with the Pevensies, King Caspian, and Reepicheep the mouse. <br /><br />I still often think of quotations from the books—they come to me, like magical mantas, perfect little bits of encouragement in my everyday life. One of my favorites is from <em>The Silver Chair</em> and perfectly sums up my beliefs about why we should study the humanities. A little bit of background: Puddleglum, a marshwiggle from Narnia, is (as his name would suggest) a glum old chap. On his adventure with two human children, they get caught in a witch’s underground realm. She casts a spell on them to make them forget the beauty and magic of the world above, of the stars, and the sun, and even the great Lion and King of the Woods, Aslan himself. In a truly heroic soliloquy, Puddleglum defends the idea of storytelling and the power of imagination, arguing against the witch’s claim that everything he believes is a lie: "Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things-trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say" (Lewis 182). <br /><br />The implied question at the end of this quotation is what keeps me coming back again and again to the power of story. Is the world as dull a place as most people believe? I cannot believe that. It is important in this scenario that the story Puddleglum has told the witch about the world above is true, just as there is a bit of truth in all of the things that we, as scholars of the humanities, study: the histories, and the paintings, and the stories. Many may tell us that what we do is not important—but the humanities matter. They speak to the essence of the human experience, to the beauty (although broken) of our wonderful world, and in <em>The Silver Chair</em>, C. S. Lewis wrote a compelling apology for the magic of the humanities. <br /><br />Lewis, C. S. <em>The Silver Chair</em>. New York, HarperCollins, 1953.
The Chronicles of Narnia
18 Years Ago
Nina Cook, 26, Graduate Student at Rice University
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<em>Bite Me!</em>- A Florida Humanities Moment
People frequently talk about being haunted. Usually by spirits, both by the friendly Casper types and the decidedly less friendly Poltergeist types. Sometimes people are haunted by bad decisions. This is a spectrum too. Some must repeatedly face the time we developed a temporary and acute stutter during an eighth-grade presentation. While others face a scarier specter born of a truly terrible decision, like buying a monitor lizard as a pet. Perhaps one of the most pervasive and long-lasting hauntings of all is that of our hometowns. We swear that we’ll leave it forever. Pack our bags and only talk about home to family and in the occasional childhood anecdote while we live somewhere exciting and exotic. This attitude was especially pandemic to my hometown of Orlando, FL.<br /><br />You see, Florida is often presented as an exciting place for people to visit. And they do, by the millions. Everyone eventually comes to Florida, at least for a while. To quote Jerry Seinfeld: “My parents didn’t want to move to Florida, but they turned sixty and that’s the law.” <br /><br />To offer a few examples of this phenomenon: The spiritualists founded the town of Cassadaga, FL (which still has a major spiritualist camp). Jack Kerouac bought a house in Orlando to quietly read and write. Laura Ingles Wilder briefly came to the state for her health. Ernest Hemingway, on the other hand, famously came to stay. He went so far as to buy a house and began a long line of six-toed cats. The cousins of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (grandchildren of Alexander II) came to South Florida after the Revolution. One even became the three-time mayor of Palm Beach. Florida is a holiday and a safe house. It is where people come to escape—they escape the grind of daily life, illness, political prosecution, revolutions, icy winters, writer’s block, and sometimes even the law. <br /><br />In these imaginings, Florida then is understood as a land where people bring "culture." The locals are people who supposedly accept "culture." This view is pervasive, and many (including me in my teenage years) believed this. It was for this reason that my friends and I dreamed of leaving Orlando and go somewhere where things happened. It all changed one afternoon, thanks to a rather unexpected humanities moment. <br /><br />How I got the book in the first place is part of its random charm. In 2005 or 2006, Tom Levine—a local fisherman, author, and “character”—showed up in my parents’ two-person CPA business in Orlando, FL. Levine periodically sells his books business-to-business or in farmers’ markets in Central Florida, using his charisma and humor in equal measure. My parents declined to turn their office into a small-scale bookstore but did buy a couple of his books—including Bite Me! I, a twelve-year-old girl who didn't fish, was clearly not the intended audience. And yet, I quickly came to love this book. <br /><br />Tom Levine’s <em>Bite Me!</em> is an admittedly unusual choice for an inspirational book. It’s a slender collection of essays about Levine’s travels. Described in one paper as “Part Hiaasen, part Hemingway,” Levine writes to celebrate nature, critique the overdevelopment of “paradise,” and of course to support his fishing expeditions. On the surface, his book <em>Bite Me!</em> is a humorous take on his journeys around the world. But what truly struck my interest was his deep and open love for the natural world of Florida. Levine articulates a clear argument for preserving our natural splendor. Not for tourists to ogle on vacation, but because the swamps, coastal wetlands, and pinewoods of Florida were innately valuable and worth saving—just as much as any mountain, scenic alpine lake, or rocky beach. It changed my relationship with my surroundings, I started thinking of Florida as a place within the world rather than a suburb outside of it. <br /><br />This new appreciation, in turn, led me to investigate my state’s history, environment, and literature. I started reading in earnest the works of Zora Neale Hurston, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Carl Hiaasen, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, and others. I realized that there was a cacophony of voices in the state who all have painted a full picture of Florida as a strange and special place that doesn’t need others to determine its worth. That the land and its many peoples are historied and important, and that Florida's troubled past and diverse actors deserved consideration. The land they lived on transformed from a boring backdrop to a central part of the Flordia story. <br /><br />This radical new point of view ultimately brought me to a MA and Ph.D. on Florida’s colonial past. You can say that Florida has become, to my great surprise, my life’s work. <br /><br />When I moved away for graduate school, I thought I may feel triumphant in realizing my childhood goal of leaving. Instead, I have found myself longing for the woods and beaches I used to traverse. Every time I return to this unexpected book, I feel like I’m with Levine searching the waterways and coastlines of the world to rediscover Florida and an elusive bite. From where I sit today, the ghost of my hometown still sits at my side. It floats around in my thoughts and writing and appears to have settled in for good.
Tom Levine
<em>Bite Me!</em>
2005-2010
Rebecca Earles, 27, graduate student (Rice University)
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