2
30
405
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/18/503/milky-way-1023340_640.jpg
615e0ad76cddc10eefced13eb3fa911f
Dublin Core
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Title
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Human and Galaxy
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Pixabay
Identifier
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human-galaxy
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
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graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
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Referrer
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GSSR
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Contributor
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Taylor McClaskie, Musicologist
Date
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2020
Source
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"The Earth Worm Also Sings"
Description
An account of the resource
In the final days of 2020 I, like many others, was feeling disconnected. Disconnected from my friends, my passions, and even myself. As a part of my research on sound, music, and environmentalism I came across a poem by composer, performer, and sound artist Pauline Oliveros. In her poem "The Earth Worm Also Sings" Oliveros lays out her understanding of the universe as made of and connected through sound: living, dying, and the afterlife are sonic. For Oliveros, all of existence is based in sound and vibration. “The Earth Worm Also Sings” is a 165-line stream of consciousness poem in three sections: First, Oliveros explores the sonic world of the mind, body, life, and death; Second, Oliveros describes a meditative journey in which she imagines an “alternative self, tiny enough to journey inside” the “acoustic universe” of her own ear; And finally the poem ends with a short coda which repeats material from the first section, bringing the reader full circle. Throughout the work Oliveros explores the sonic nature of the universe, a universe that is made of and connected through sound. In her holistic worldview, mind and body are connected to the cosmos through sound and vibration, and it is Deep Listening, a practice of listening to all things at all times, that allows us to access that connection. Through Deep Listening we can be returned to “the source of all beginning,” which is “abundance, fecund creativity, brilliant spark, sounding pulse, life unending.” “The Earth Worm Also Sings” encapsulates the potential depth of Deep Listening, a practice which goes beyond mere “listening” and ties one to the very essence of the universe.
In a time when I was feeling disconnected from the things that made me feel like myself, "The Earth Worm Also Sings" helped me to feel grounded while reminding me that I am a part of something larger than I could ever imagine. At the most fundamental level, Oliveros describes herself as a “community of musical cells” each of which “[sing] the song of its musical structure.” Oliveros’s sounding and listening selves function cyclically, regenerating through listening to their own sound. She writes, “I was born here to hear all my cells through my cells.” In "The Earth Worm Also Sings" Oliveros expresses a way for me to sonically connect to myself, both through listening to the sounds of my body and the sounds of my imagination. After I feel grounded in my own mind and body, remembering that my sonic self is a part of a larger sounding and listening cosmos has provided comfort in days of disconnection and isolation. Listening to the world around me, to the sounds of chirping birds, to the slam of car doors on the street, to laughter coming from my neighbors apartment, connects me to my place. Even the sounds I cannot hear—the sounds of Boethius's "musica mundana," the music of the spheres—connect me to a greater whole.
Title
A name given to the resource
Internal and External Connections through Listening: Finding Comfort in Pauline Oliveros's "The Earth Worm Also Sings"
Creator
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Pauline Oliveros
Identifier
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internal-external-connections-listening
Connection
Earth
Listening
Nature
Oliveros, Pauline
Poetry
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/18/502/7222967796_a8e3815f98_o.jpg
0df5733fb49f47b243d8d02fea7bc8ff
Dublin Core
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Title
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Portrait
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portrait
Source
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Matt Phillips
Dublin Core
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
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graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Referrer
For internal use only, for tracking and metrics.
NHC GSSR
Dublin Core
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Contributor
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Matt Phillips, English Lecturer
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<em>Native Son</em>
Description
An account of the resource
I first encountered Richard Wright's <em>Native Son</em> from an admittedly privileged point of view. I included it as part of the comprehensive exams required for my PhD in English literature. I had read Wright's <em>Black Boy</em>, so I was acquainted with his style and profound depiction of the American south. <br /><br />Wright is a major literary figure, so of course he belonged on an exam list. But I couldn't have been prepared for <em>Native Son's</em> captivating, visceral portrayal of Bigger Thomas's plight. Wright depicts the events that surround and subdue Bigger Thomas in a way that illuminates how extant societal structures continually oppress and disadvantage young black American men. The sequence of seemingly unstoppable and harrowing events that snowball as the novel progresses offered me unprecedented access into a world of experience that I, a white male, could never know otherwise. <br /><br />Together with <em>Black Boy</em>, <em>Native Son</em> shows how outmoded racist ideologies inform many facets of America's southern and northern communities. Experiencing it was not a happy moment, but a moment that remains with me each day as I and so many others do what we can to reckon with racial injustice in our country.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard Wright's <em>Native Son</em>
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wright-native-son
Creator
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Richard Wright
Literature
Native Son
Privilege
Racial Justice
Wright, Richard
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/18/501/tombstones-3031047_640.jpg
bbb5ac02624257be51a4a923e2462bcf
Dublin Core
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Title
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Cemetery
Source
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Pixabay
Identifier
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cemetery
Dublin Core
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
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graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
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.
Dublin Core
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Contributor
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Kendyl M, Schmidt, 34, PhD Student
Date
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Summer 2020
Source
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A cemetery
Description
An account of the resource
As someone with a profound interest in and curiosity about death culture, I was very excited when visiting family last summer I had the opportunity to visit several cemeteries outside of Denver, Colorado. Headstones can tell us so much about the past and I am endlessly fascinated with them as rich sources of material culture, and taking the time to visit them instills within me a sense of connection to peoples, places, and times that feel so out of reach and foreign. One cemetery in particular, located in an abandoned-ish mining town, gave me more pause than usual. I was caught off guard by just how... active this cemetery is. There were so many gifts left throughout the cemetery, many more than I am used to seeing, particularly where the headstones have been so worn and weathered as to be nearly indecipherable. As I worked my way throughout the cemetery, which had been built into the landscape and not the other way around, I found countless children's toys, coins, and even small works of art left as tokens of respect for those who had passed long ago. This experience instilled in me the notion that the connections that exist between the living and the dead are very real and that our humanity brings us together, with brief fleeting moments and offerings facilitating the very real exchanges between the past and the present for which so many long.
Title
A name given to the resource
Day of the Living Dead
Identifier
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day-living-dead
Connection
Death
Gravestones
Humanity
Material Culture
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/18/500/HM_Birds_Image.jpg
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Migratory birds
Identifier
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migratory-birds
Dublin Core
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
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graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Referrer
For internal use only, for tracking and metrics.
NHC Graduate Student Summer Residency
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Contributor
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Tory Brykalski, 34, gradate student and anthropologist of emergency eduction
Date
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Monday, June 28th, 2021
Source
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<em>Ein is for Nest</em> by Nour AlBrzwy and Tory Brykalski
Description
An account of the resource
This is an image drawn by an unschooled refugee child living in a camp in the outskirts of Chtoura, Lebanon. She is from Syria but has lived in Lebanon her whole life. In this image, we see "the human" in the form of the home/structure she herself has had to leave behind, as well as in the figure of the bombs/chemicals that caused her home to no longer be inhabitable. Like the migratory birds of our lesson -- the White Crane Syrians call Abu Sa'ad (the Father of Joy) -- she views the past not as something that has been lost to her forever, but as something that returns, in cycles. Whereas for the Abu Sa'ad of Syria's skies, the trees of Ghouta return in cyclical patterns according to the season of their flight, the children of Syria return to their homes in the cyclical patterns of their dreams. Scents also evoke memories of return, which the painter here evokes with her finger prints. I was moved by the child's use of her own hands and fingers to evoke scent and affect -- of roses, bombs, fear, and hope.
Title
A name given to the resource
Do Migratory Birds Also Have to Leave Their Friends Behind?
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
migratory-birds-friends
Children
Children's Literature
Lebanon
Refugees
War
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/18/498/nathan-anderson-L95xDkSSuWw-unsplash.jpg
66221d44a1430f42be15e6e72e4247b3
Dublin Core
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Source
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Photo Credits: Photo by Nathan Anderson (2017), https://unsplash.com/photos/L95xDkSSuWw
Title
A name given to the resource
Night Sky
Identifier
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night-sky
Dublin Core
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
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graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Referrer
For internal use only, for tracking and metrics.
Graduate Student Residents 2021
Dublin Core
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Contributor
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Deepan Rajaratnam, Ph.D. Candidate
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2008
Description
An account of the resource
I have always loved space. This love is why I earned an undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering. Fittingly, stargazing with friends was one of my favorite, albeit infrequent, diversions from the routine of life. Leaving behind the piles of engineering homework and bright lights of the city, I loved venturing out to a park or field where we could find a decent spot to lay down and look up at the stars. On a cool, brisk night, we would bring blankets to settle into a cozy spot for a few hours. We didn't bring any music or snacks, we just simply looked at the stars. Sometimes we talked. Sometimes we were silent. Occasionally, someone would excitedly point to a shooting star for others to see before it quickly disappeared.
Our conversations always seemed more meaningful during these excursions. Looking at the stars for a few hours changes one’s perception of pace and time. Even though stars move incredibly fast, from our perspective, they look almost stationary - a welcome contrast to the often-breakneck pace of school and work. This respite offered us a chance to just be in serene silence or talk about things that deeply mattered to each of us - family, relationships, inspirations, goals, and more.
Such conversations were fitting given the response stargazing can elicit. Looking up at the innumerable stars before me, I was often struck with a sense of wonder and smallness. What was my place in relation to this infinite but still expanding universe (yes, it is infinite but still expanding - crazy right?). There were so many stars, planets, and even galaxies, but just one me. Did my work, my education, or my life matter in relation to the vast cosmos? Does our common work to build a just society have meaning? Did any of this make an impact on a universe set into motion 13.7 billion years ago by a literal cosmic explosion?
This was a humanities moment. Looking at the stars had provided me with a set of questions not answerable by the hard sciences. I had been exploring my passion of space through subjects such as orbital mechanics and astronautics, but the questions of meaning that the stars elicited eventually led me to pursue Theological Studies at the graduate level.
In the course of these studies, theology not only provides me with a framework to explore these questions of meaning, but also with a critical lens through which to approach other challenging relational questions: What is my responsibility to others, society, the environment, and the common good? What is our societal obligation to the most vulnerable in light of racial injustice, inequality, and the other pressing challenges of our context? Theology enables critical conversations around these complex questions of relationship. In an infinite, expanding cosmos, there is nothing more meaningful than these questions of relationship.
Title
A name given to the resource
Finding Meaning Under the Stars
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
finding-meaning-under-stars
Awe
Common Good
Discovery
Meaning (Philosophy)
Relationality
Stars
Theology
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/18/497/runnel_walk.jpg
2750babc5f6e5f99c306fd63867fd977
Dublin Core
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Title
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Runnel Walk
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runnel-walk
Dublin Core
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Referrer
For internal use only, for tracking and metrics.
NHC Graduate Student Virtual Summer Residency
Dublin Core
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Contributor
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Genevieve Guzmán, 37, PhD student
Date
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June 2021
Source
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<em>W;t</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Late this spring, my foster dog Sally unexpectedly died. I should’ve known she had cancer, but I not a veterinarian, and I didn’t think to apply Occam’s razor to the growing list of her ailments. She came to me rotund with extra weight, and over the course of eight months, lost so much that her beautiful tawny fur hung off her in ripples. She started to stumble into walls, and the short trip to the front yard left her breathless. One Sunday in May, she had a seizure, and I knew something was terribly wrong. All the way to the emergency room, her heart beat steadily under my palm, but within the hour, the critical care vet had diagnosed anemia, severe muscle wasting, and metastatic cancer. I was bereft. I let her go. <br /><br />I’ve had chronic fatigue syndrome for over fifteen years, and for my comprehensive exams in English literature, I put together a list of twentieth-century illness literature. It’s not a death list, but narratives in the cancer section often end with that unauthorized coda. I had assumed that <em>W;t</em>, Margaret Edson’s 1993 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, was autobiographical and thus a story of survival, but it is completely fictional, a composite of the playwright’s work in the cancer and AIDS unit of a research hospital while she was in college. The action follows Donne scholar and university professor Vivian Bearing as she enrolls in experimental chemotherapy for stage IV ovarian cancer. From her sick bed in the hospital, Vivian leads us through an analysis of Donne’s <em>Holy Sonnets</em> until she can take us no farther, and then the research intern and head nurse take over to close out the play.<br /><br />Since Sally passed, the netherworld of death has hovered very close, a ghostly afterimage blurring my otherwise vivid existence. I can’t decide which plane of reality is more real: that of life or of death. Not unlike Donne and Vivian, I can’t reckon with the dull, mad fact of absolute oblivion; really I can only handle the relative truth that for now, I must live without my dog. In its split-stage conclusion, <em>W;t</em> poignantly captures this paradox of the human condition. On the spiritual plane, as Vivian’s life slips away, she steps out of bed, disrobing from her hospital gown and bracelet, to reach for the light shining above her; on the physical plane, the research intern confronts his unexpected grief at her loss when he forgets her do-not-resuscitate order and calls in the code team to revive her. The team scoffs at his amateur error and leaves; meanwhile, Vivian has transcended to Donne’s afterlife, wherever it is. I admire this scene for its brilliant use of the dramatic format and Edson’s graceful display of how life goes on even as it ends.
Title
A name given to the resource
Bright Sun Before Nightfall
Identifier
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bright-sun-nightfall
Creator
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Margaret Edson
Cancer
Death
Donne, John
Drama
Edson, Margaret
Grief
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/18/496/casserole-dish-2776735_640.jpg
3f0c7a7b7f0dc30306ee09f7014c7817
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Vegetarian Diet
Source
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Pixabay
Identifier
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vegetarian-diet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Referrer
For internal use only, for tracking and metrics.
Dr. Andy Mink, NHC
Dublin Core
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Contributor
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Taylin Nelson, 28, doctoral student
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<em>Eating Animals</em>
Description
An account of the resource
I rented Jonathan Safran Foer's <em>Eating Animals</em> from the library, at a time in my life when I was searching inwards and exploring my beliefs. I would listen to the audiobook as I drove, and so it was a gradual experience that took place over a month. <br /><br />My experience listening to this book opened my eyes to something which I had subconsciously known about myself all along but had not yet acknowledged. I learned about what it means to eat animals in our industrialized, capitalistic world, and how eating meat is not intrinsically bad, but circumstantially bad when it entails the suffering of animals, the health and disparity of humans, and environmental destruction for the planet. <br /><br />This book opened my eyes to a world outside of my own, and to a conscious awareness of others, that helped me to think in different ways, and believe in a moral cause. I became a vegetarian in 2017, and have centered my academic research on meat and animal studies.
Title
A name given to the resource
This is the Ocean
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Jonathan Safran Foer
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
this-ocean
Animal Rights
Conscientious Objection
Environmental Activism
Environmental Ethics
Environmental Justice
Foer, Jonathan Safran
Vegetarianism
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/18/495/nature-3219116_640.jpg
80bb1e1e38094f1169ee674f7f5575f2
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Three Little Birds
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Pixabay
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
three-little-birds
Dublin Core
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Dublin Core
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Contributor
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Irene Gasarah, Ph.D. Student
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
Fall 2016
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
"Every Little Thing is Gonna Be Alright"
Description
An account of the resource
In the Fall of 2016, I started putting together application materials to begin my Masters program. I had so much anxiety going into the process and a lot of life changing questions– do I want to continue with the theatre? Am I ready to leave my family and study in another country? The longest I had gone without seeing my family was maybe two months in college.<br /><br />One day, while working on my materials and going through the motions, "Every Little Thing Is Gonna Be Alright" by Bob Marley just came to mind and I started to hum the song. I stopped working and played the whole song on my phone before I went back to work. This was a song my mom who died of cancer would sing all the time– and in that moment, I felt her and I felt peace. It felt like she was trying to say something, to comfort me. I could hear her telling me I could do it or that I was ready for the next chapter of my life. <br /><br />I finished my Masters and even went on to enroll in a Ph.D. program. To this day, whenever I feel my anxiety creeping up or whenever I feel myself falling into a dark place, I just sing that song and cry a little. After that, I feel great– a sense of calm and peace just takes over. It is not a magic wand that makes the challenge disappear– however, it provides me with little moments of calm and clarity to solve the problem. (And knowing that it is like my special time with my mother makes it even better.)
Title
A name given to the resource
It Really is Gonna be Alright...
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Bob Marley
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
really-gonna-be-alright
Comfort
Connection
Family
Marley, Bob
Music
Nostalgia
Song Lyrics
Songs
-
http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/18/494/notebook-1840276_640.jpg
346088b946a69efbcd00f51f0de7c3f6
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Diary Entry
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Pixabay
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
diary-entry
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Referrer
For internal use only, for tracking and metrics.
NHC Graduate Student Summer Residency
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Contributor
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Abigail Shimer, 25, Ph.D. Student
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2004
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<em>Mary, Bloody Mary</em>
Description
An account of the resource
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.
Title
A name given to the resource
Fictional Diaries and Archives
Creator
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Carolyn Meyer
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fictional-diaries-archives
Archives
Diaries
Empathy
Meyer, Carolyn
-
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0937bd6d7c3e772aa8906b1eb022bbdb
Dublin Core
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Title
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Wings
Identifier
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wings
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
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graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
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National Humanities Center
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Richard Daily, 32, Ph.D. Candidate
Date
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2008
Source
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"10,000 Days (Wings, Part 2)"
Description
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"It's time now
My time now
Give me my,
Give me my, Wings"
Having grown up in a particularly religious family, one that didn't encourage listening to rock music, hearing Tool's brilliant lyrics and masterful musicality struck a cord from the first song I heard. However, their song "10,000 Days (Wings, Part 2)" that shook me to my core.
On the quad at the University of Redlands, I would belt out songs in the warm night air, when the campus was quiet save the echoes of my voice. So when I really listened to "10,000 Days" and sang the lyrics into the darkness, I was rapt with emotion; I felt the message in the song. While the song is about the lead singer's mother, her piety, and her passing, the singer demands that she receives her wings. The somber tones and religious metaphors caused my voice to tremble as I sang the tune. Tears welled as the fast paced tempo, ethereal guitar, and driving drums demanded my presentness in the moment.
I remember this moment so vividly because I was at a turning point in my relationship with religion, sexuality, and life. This song opened up a pathway to healing myself and defining those relationships on my own terms. I didn't have to ask for freedom, I could demand, "Give me my wings!"
Title
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Give Me My Wings
Identifier
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give-me-my-wings
Creator
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Tool
Family
Freedom
Independence
Music
Religion
Tool
-
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Children's art
Identifier
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childrens-art
Dublin Core
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
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graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
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Residency
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Amber Pitt, 35, Ph.D. Candidate in Art Education, University of Georgia
Date
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2020
Description
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A note I wrote from April 16, 2020
From my dining room table: My two children, ages four and six, have now been at home for 35 days. Aside from waving to neighbors from our driveway and driving by a friend’s house to shout “Happy Birthday!” from the car window, they have not seen or spent time with family members, teachers, or friends.
As I write this reflection, thinking about the intersections of parenting, research, and what I would write about for this first humanities moment, I look back through photos of all of the art work my children and I made together this past year. Photos of drawings, yard signs, letters, and baby chickens in the skirts we made and decorated for them using cupcake holders (yes, that’s a thing). I have been thinking for a long time about how parenting and research are integrated together, long before the COVID-19 pandemic, and now sitting here looking at these photos of fairy houses, sun prints, and posters we made for neighbors, it seems more relevant and prescient than ever.
Madeleine Grumet (1988) posits, “Theory grows where it is planted, soaking up the nutrients in the local soil, turning to the local light” (p. 14). For myself, theory and research are planted in the intersections of motherhood, teaching, artistry, and care. They overlap and intertwine until one cannot be understood without the other. My research can not help but turn towards my children, as well as young learners in my community, especially during this uncertain time in which we’ve found ourselves. As a researcher and parent, my biggest fear is that in this wait for the return to “normalcy” we will miss the quotidian happenings that are packed with nutrients for growth and light.
In my mind, the quotidian moments of this past year, specifically the sharpened memories of making art with my kids at home, is one great, big humanities moment- a pause to refocus on what matters. I do not wish to glorify any parts of this horrible pandemic, which has affected so many and changed lives forever. However the pause, quite literally from my dining room table, and the experience of making intentional art with my kids on a daily basis was something that had been missing for quite some time. Grumet explains, “The dining room table became the locus of this research not because its design was conducive to meditations on eidetic form but because of its proximity to the lifeworld being carried on in the adjoining kitchen” (p. 5). During my time as a doctoral student, I felt that success in my academic career came with the price of failing as a mother. Although I’ve been writing and teaching about the importance of art education for many years, it was quite often neglected at home. Before the pandemic, there were many days my dining room table was (hypothetically) empty, our lives too busy to come together in this space to sit, talk, learn. But, during the days of shelter-in-place, my table truly became the locus of my life, my heart, my research. It was covered in books, art supplies, worksheets, Play-Doh, lunch: the materials of our lives. I found myself trying to be fully present to these lifeworlds, to both the human and non-human things we are surrounded by. What lessons were learned from our time making art together around our table, and how are we changed from these experiences?
Nel Noddings (2013) argues that “It is important for the young, in addition to being cared for, to see and assist in the genuine caring done by adults” (p. xiv). The more practice we all have in caregiving, the more likely it is for us to not only develop a method of caring and empathy but to also transfer this care to others. I found that intentional art-making, together, can be an act of care and empathy. I understand more fully how art-making can give young learners a language to express themselves during uncertain times, and how making art together opens up space for relationships to grow and conversations to be had.
Navigating the intersections of parenting and doctoral research is hard work and not without its share of failure. However, I feel challenged to continue to centralize myself to the lifeworlds carrying on around me, even as we move towards a return to “normal”. My hope for myself, and the reader, is that we take note of and show care for these quotidian moments we may have been overlooking for so long, even if it is something as simple as making a portrait out of leaves and flowers. These opportunities can be rich with opportunities for building relationships and finding beauty in the everyday.
References:
Grumet, M. (1988). Bitter milk: Women and teaching. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.
Noddings, N. (2013). Caring: A relational approach to ethics and moral education. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Title
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Quotidian moments
Identifier
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quotidian-moments
Art
Children
COVID
Family
Parenting
Quarantine
Research
-
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Balconies with flag
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balconies-with-flag
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
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graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
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NHC
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Contributor
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Gilberto Garcia, 35, Ph.D. student and language instructor
Date
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2011
Source
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"Latinoamerica"
Description
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"Latinoamerica" is a song from Calle 13. When I first heard this song I realized how important music is for identity in the construction of culture itself. Back in those days, I was studying for my first Masters degree in Spanish Literature and I was taking a class in literary criticism. We were focusing on essentialism at that time and I thought how as Latinos we can be identified as a whole group but at the same time, we are really different and how we may conceive ourselves while we empower our differences to create unity. I really identified with that song. Every time I listened to it, I got very emotional. This can be representative of Latino history. The song is a mixing between Spanish and Portuguese, which represents Latin America in real life.
Title
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"Latinoamerica"
Identifier
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latinoamerica-song
Creator
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Calle 13
Cultural Identity
Latin Americans
Literary Criticism
Music
Songs
-
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c2b92cd98d68760de8df92e28b3c3f58
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Bisham Abbey
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bisham-abbey
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
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graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
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NHC summer residency
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Frankie Urrutia-Smith, Graduate Student, 24
Date
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March 2019
Source
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All Saints Bisham
Description
An account of the resource
There she was. Powerful and maternal, she claimed her place at the head of her family, teaching from an open book while her husbands slept elsewhere. We finally "met" more than 400 years after her death and burial in this medieval church, and friends of mine who saw my pictures there wondered about my joy at standing in a tomb.
I spent several years studying the life of a 16th century English noblewoman, Lady Elizabeth Cooke Hoby Russell. When I finally traveled to England as a senior undergraduate researcher, I thought I knew everything there was to know about her, but I was wrong. In England, I saw how her signature changed through time, and how she forged relationships with others through physical writing. I felt her personality in the pages of documents that she wrote or dictated in a way that printed sources could not communicate. I witnessed her devotion to her family when I saw other funeral monuments she had designed. I even crept through her house while people downstairs prepared the great hall for a wedding, which her portrait would look down on as it had countless times before.
But nothing compared to the experience of looking at Elizabeth in the funeral monument of her own design. There, I finally encountered her legacy as closely as possible to the way she had intended. After 400 years of consistent flooding from the Thames, it is unlikely that her physical remains are still in the crypt or even identifiable, but it was almost as though I could feel her presence anyway.
That experience in a quiet countryside chapel has changed the way I think about how we craft our legacies, and it cemented in my mind the idea of historical subjects as people that we are just trying to get to know.
Title
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Pleased to Meet You, Lady Elizabeth
Identifier
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lady-elizabeth
Creator
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Lady Elizabeth Cooke Hoby Russell
England
Family
Gravestones
Monuments
Nobility
Poets
Royal Courts
Women
-
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3cb323ad13b1b32f4451e4da34e72562
Dublin Core
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Title
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Virgen del Carmen
Identifier
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virgen-del-carmen
Dublin Core
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
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graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Referrer
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I will participate in the 2021 Summer Residency
Dublin Core
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Contributor
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Fernando Alvear, 36, PhD Candidate in Philosophy and Graduate Instructor, University of Missouri
Date
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July 16, 2013
Source
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A religious festivity in Chile
Description
An account of the resource
In the middle of the Atacama desert there’s a small village called La Tirana, with a regular population of around 1,200 inhabitants. The village has a few streets, some modest houses made of sun-dried bricks and tin roofs, a cemetery, and a small church. What’s interesting about this place is that each 16th of July, its population increases up to over 500,000 people, who gather in the biggest religious festivity in Chile, called “Fiesta de la Tirana.”
Eight years ago, while still living in Chile (my home country), I was invited to join one of these organized groups, called bailes, who visit this village as their annual pilgrimage. The bailes are composed by people from many different places, encompassing not only the north of Chile but also some of Bolivia and Perú. Its members usually come from challenged socioeconomic segments of the population. Their colorful dances and upbeat music have different origins: some dance moves are inspired by Inca’s worship of the sun and the Aymara’s veneration of the Pachamama. Some of their outfits incorporate elements of the clothes of old servants, miners, and enslaved peoples. The music that the bailes dance is a fusion between indigenous rhythms, African beats, Spanish music, and even classical music. During one week, the village is flooded with music, dance, and color.
The main goal of the bailes is to dance in front of the sacred image of the Virgen del Carmen, patron saint of Chile. The dance represents the bailes’s unique way to connect to the divinity. Believers ask God for protection and health, express their gratitude and devotion, and promise to come back, thus continuing the tradition.
As an outsider, it’s easy to see this practice merely as another case of religious syncretism. Given that the dances do not follow the strict guidelines of the roman rituals of the Catholic church, the practice has not always been accepted, and some have even claimed that it dangerously borders with idolatry. None of this matters to the people of the bailes, of course, who manage to keep alive a tradition that connects their inner spirituality with the divinity, through their community and culture.
What impressed me in my visit was the way the people of the bailes connect their everyday life with the pilgrimage, the dance, and their faith. Everyone has a reason to dance: some to give thanks for their newborn, some to pray for their projects and plans, some to make sense of the grief of the loss of a family member, others to request a better future for their loved ones. This led me to wonder about my own reasons for being there. Was I there to study them? Was I there as a tourist, to take pictures and to post them on social media? Beyond the lights of the spectacle, I learned that authentic religious experience is inseparable from authentic human experience. The more we learn about divinity, the more we learn about our own transcendence and significance. The closer we get to our reality, the closer we get to unravel the mystery of divinity.
The bailes’s faith and devotion showed me a deep sense of identity and authenticity, hard to find in our globalized culture. Far from alienating, religious faith seems to be for them a way of life that preserves their identity and culture, allowing spirituality and corporality to express each other on every dance move. I can only hope to live with that deep sense of reverence and respect to my culture as they do.
Title
A name given to the resource
La Fiesta de La Tirana: Integrating Spirituality, Corporality, and Tradition
Identifier
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la-fiesta-de-la-tirana
Chile
Cultural Identity
Dance
Faith
Pilgrimages
Religious Festivals
-
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Zeppelin record
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zeppelin-record
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
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graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
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The NHC Website and Summer Residency Orientation
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Contributor
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Frank Lacopo, 27, Ph.D. Candidate in History, Penn State University
Date
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High School
Source
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Led Zeppelin, "Ramble On" (1969)
Description
An account of the resource
Sometimes I wish I could say that a great novel or an experience with an especially gifted teacher or professor lit a spark for the humanities in me. Certainly, many novels and teachers planted seeds that I can identify and surely many more that I can’t. For me, that singular moment came in the form of the Led Zeppelin song “Ramble on.”
And it was in one of the moments of struggle that come more than occasionally to obsessive nerds. How could teenage me sound more like Jimmy Page on guitar? Exactly like him?
I had to understand all the people and tools who contributed to Led Zeppelin’s music. What allowed them to make the sounds they did? Jimmy Page used a Supro amplifier – all but impossible to find. A Fender Telecaster guitar – a little easier. Most of the time, I couldn’t afford the equipment, but I could afford wood and parts for a guitar that got pretty close. More opportunities to learn every intricacy that made the sounds on those albums and, particularly, on this song.
I had to learn everything.
What made them want to write that lyric? What gives this song or that album its atmosphere? Old American blues classics filled the early albums, most of them ripped off and virtually unacknowledged for decades. Better learn those blues scales! Other songs like “Stairway to Heaven” almost certainly plagiarized from the white American band Spirit, the subject of a recent lawsuit. So I had to learn everything I could about Spirit, just for context.
And then there was “Ramble On:”
Mine's a tale that can't be told, my freedom I hold dear
How years ago in days of old when magic filled the air
‘Twas in the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair
But Gollum and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her
What?
Mordor? Gollum?
Like the Peter Jackson movie?
…Oh there are books, too.
Guess I had to read those.
How un-classically educated of me. To understand Led Zeppelin, one must understand J.R.R. Tolkien. Not the other way around.
And an entire pseudo-medieval world opened to me. From Tolkien came Beowulf. Then the German classes. The Latin classes. And a semester in Great Britain to study the Middle Ages in an appropriate setting. A senior thesis and then an article on the medieval English Church. All done with “Ramble On,” “Stairway to Heaven,” “Misty Mountain Hop,” and so many other songs bouncing around in my head. Past and present came to me via a detour in the 1970s, courtesy of Atlantic Records.
To a white American kid with deep interest in the history of the “West,” it almost seemed like Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Jon Bonham were making the sounds I wanted to hear. Maybe even the sounds I was supposed to hear. Why was it so easy to hear that very mythical, very white world that resided somewhere between Tolkien’s imagination and the stage of Madison Square Garden? How could I even attempt to minimize the blatant plagiarism, often entirely uncredited from the Black artists? We all mimic, we all copy, right? The humanities, after all, demonstrate this. Tolkien ripped off Beowulf. Shakespeare could be derivative.
But for Zeppelin, how lucrative that mimicry was. Extractionary even. As I entered graduate school, I started to wonder whether I was complicit in something. The song “The Rover,” overlooked as a masterwork of the electric guitar despite being the second song on side one of the band’s most ambitious album Physical Graffiti, may be autobiographical in this sense. Written about an early modern privateering ship of the same name:
Oh how I wonder, oh how I worry, and I would dearly like to know
I've all this wonder, of earthly plunder, will it leave us anything to show?
And our time is flying, see the candle burning low
Is the new world rising, from the shambles of the old
Was this the real Led Zeppelin? The colonial plunderer masking as medieval romantic? Had I been enjoying the results of their plunder while living in a fantasy? Was Led Zeppelin, intentionally or not, telling a sad story about lies we tell ourselves as we sit atop so much plunder? Turns out asking those questions is even more uncomfortable from a neogothic university building that – like “Ramble On,” represents and contains some gilded version of a pure Western past full of wonder, excellence, passion, and even glorious danger. Was this how Led Zeppelin seemed easily to contribute to my identity while I had to investigate intentionally Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Otis Rush, whose songs and ideas I was really hearing under Zeppelin’s gilded, white, commercial veneer? Gollum and Gandalf were out in the open and yet fictional. The real person Howlin’ Wolf was somehow silent despite his very name, which demands explicitly to be heard.
My humanities moment, hearing and wondering about the lyrics to “Ramble On” was a “turning point,” to use a tired historian’s phrase. But my memory of that moment and my recurring reflection on it have taught me more than any single point in time ever could. Frankly, humanities moments can occlude as much as they illuminate. Unqualified enthusiasm for anything is rarely a Good Thing, and any feeling of rootedness in a romanticized version of the Middle Ages while selectively disregarding the labor and the accomplishments of nonwhite artists certainly falls on the more dangerous end of a spectrum. Humanities moments can be dangerous. They can distort and mislead. But they can be revisited through the texts that sparked them and through memory itself. They must be criticized. They have to be questioned. Only then can we learn from them. They can remain a source of inspiration, but never as simple, pure, mythical as at the instance of their occurrence.
Many times I've lied, and many times I've listened
Many times I've wondered how much there is to know
Title
A name given to the resource
Ramble On
Identifier
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ramble-on-zeppelin
Creator
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Led Zeppelin
Artistic Inspiration
Led Zeppelin
Music
Song Lyrics
Songs
-
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c8ffec972647bceb5c58a309ba8926db
Dublin Core
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Title
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Petra
Identifier
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petra
Dublin Core
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
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graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
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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For internal use only, for tracking and metrics.
I am participating in the NHC's GSSR program this Summer.
Dublin Core
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Contributor
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Jonathan Correa, 31, Ph.D. Candidate
Date
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Fall 2019
Source
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Photographs of Petra
Description
An account of the resource
I discovered Petra late in life, and yet, my initial impression of it holds a perennial place in my memory. Growing up I was always fascinated by the civilizations of the past. This fascination eventually turned into my career of choice as a literary scholar of the Middle Ages. As such, I was always interested in ancient manuscripts, artifacts, history, and architecture. In fact, visiting medieval castles and other sites when I travel has become a tradition I keep close to my heart.
As I move through these spaces I can imagine the different functions that the structure served, and I can picture events that transpired or could have possibly transpired within them. I have the knowledge to make these kinds of educated guesses. But when I discovered Petra, I was awe-struck in a distinctive manner.
I should mention, however, that my appreciation of Petra has only been mediated through photographs and other images. I have never visited the site myself. And yet, even in photographs, my reaction to this marvel of previous civilizations is nothing short of sublime. And my reaction is not from a technical point of view, since I am a terrible photographer and would not be able to assess an image's artistic value or the artist's skill (as I always say, I was born to be in front of the camera, not behind it).
Returning to Petra, however, I must say that modern-day Jordan is not a place I was familiar with (and I still have much to learn about this place and its rich history). But it was ironically my lack of familiarity with the place that sent me into my curious journey. As this person was sharing with me images of this structure carved into the rocks, my mind went in a million directions, trying to piece together the when, why, how, and for what queries concerning this ancient marvel. I have done my homework since then, and do know more about the site, but my honest awe at the site has stuck with me through the often disenchanting journey of learning about something.
As I imagine the people that called this place home back in the day, as I think of the ambition that led an artist to imagine this place, what this rock cliff could be, as I imagine people burrowed in, living inside of the rock, I can only be amazed at what humans can achieve.
Title
A name given to the resource
Finding Shelter in the Past
Identifier
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finding-shelter-petra
Ancient History
Archaeological Sites
Architecture
Architecture Appreciation
Jordan
Petra
-
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Library stacks
Identifier
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library-stacks
Dublin Core
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
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graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
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.
Dublin Core
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Contributor
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Katie Ireland Kuiper, 29, Ph.D. Candidate
Date
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Summer 2020
Source
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The University Library
Description
An account of the resource
Growing up outside Atlanta, Georgia, my dad and I would spend hours at the local library, requesting and checking out the full limit of books allowed. We often had to ask forgiveness for misplacing many books. Fast forward to summer 2020:
Last summer will forever be imprinted in the collective memory. After the lockdown from COVID-19, my university library unlocked its doors once again. I was brought back to a place that can transport us anywhere- through all the multitude of resources within those bounds. The library is an amazing place that provided/s comfort in a troubled time; I remembered a childhood with many hours spent there and am reminded of the power of the humanities. I lost and found my borrowed books once again. The library is a space where I move and look outward, where I cross boundaries. Cataloguing the impact of the humanities is no small task, and the influence is far beyond a lifetime, encompassed well in the beauty of a local library.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Library
Identifier
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the-university-library
Collective Memory
COVID-19
Family
Libraries
-
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d0d0a4b06ceb7ad917fd90ae0ea411dc
Dublin Core
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Title
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Papyrus
Identifier
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papyrus
Dublin Core
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
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graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Referrer
For internal use only, for tracking and metrics.
National Humanities Center Summer Student Residency
Dublin Core
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Contributor
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Jacob Brakebill, 27, Ph.D. Candidate
Date
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June 2018
Source
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Papyrus Fragment
Description
An account of the resource
During a summer seminar at the University of Illinois, I got the opportunity to attend an optional session on papyrology, the study of reading ancient materials written on papyrus. The sample we were examining that day was a small fragment no longer than about five inches long. It wasn't a significant text or piece of literature at all. It was a lease agreement for weaving looms, and in reading that, I stood back and it just clicked fully that this was a real person with their own hopes, fears, and dreams. They existed, they ran a business, they mattered to someone in a very tangible way.
In Classics, there's a very real sense of being caught up in the lives of great men who did extraordinary things, but it's a very different and all the more personal feeling to, essentially, have the "What do you do for a living?" small talk with someone whose name history doesn't remember.
Title
A name given to the resource
Renting with Romans
Identifier
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renting-with-romans-papyrus
Ancient History
Ancient Rome
Classics
Material Culture
Papyrology
-
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Virtual meeting
Identifier
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virtual-meeting
Dublin Core
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
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graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Referrer
For internal use only, for tracking and metrics.
I first heard of Humanities Moments as a participant in the GSSR in the National Humanities Center.
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Contributor
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Joanna, 30s, Ph.D. Candidate
Date
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Summer 2021
Source
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<em>GROUP</em>
Description
An account of the resource
In preparation for teaching online during the 2021 summer semester, I have been thinking about how much group discussions are transformed by digital platforms. In reflecting on the vulnerabilities that are required for students to discuss challenging topics (particularly feminist activist work) I was wondering how students will respond when they find themselves isolated in different physical spaces, but working together to create a community online. I often discuss these questions with my fellow teachers, and I received a recommendation to watch a short web-series titled <em>GROUP</em>. <br /><br /><em>GROUP</em> is a fictionalized portrayal of a group therapy session, in which the audience gets to witness how communication and relationships develop between the different group members. The show’s dialog is largely improvised and its premise is based on an adaptation of <em>The Schopenhauer Cure</em> by Irvin D. Yalom. The topics of discussion between the group members vary, but many sessions circle back to larger questions about the human condition and the value of free expression of emotion that “can’t be expressed in polite company.” What does it take to really communicate about and self-monitor emotions rather than speaking in terms of assessment or observation to one’s own reactions (meaning, already moving on to the next step of analysis)? <br /><br />Despite the show’s therapy setting, it sparked my thinking about the level of intimacy involved in all small group discussion. I connected the moments of hesitancies that many of the show’s characters experienced to what I have witnessed students reveal in individual self-reflections regarding their classroom discussion experiences. I also wondered about how different emotions drive student responses to the topics that they are learning about, and how students can better respond to intellectual challenges (both from the classroom materials and from their fellow classmates). <br /><br />This reflection is guided by the following core question: what is the potential for students’ opening of their minds to theory, to alternate forms of knowledge about how the world world, if they are able to first process their own emotional responses? The web series tackles both in-person and Zoom therapy settings, and it really helps to drive home the vulnerabilities of communicating in a shared physical space. Furthermore it elucidates how connections are built based on physical presence. On further reflection about the evocative nature of <em>GROUP</em>, it seems to me that developing a culture of trust and vulnerability in the classroom is dependent also on de-centering the authority of the teacher and understanding how the exploratory potential of learning is built on the foundation of community relationships. <br /><br />I think this Humanities Moment relates back to my own experiences as facilitator of learning in the classroom, in that I think folks experience the most meaningful forms of learning or self-exploration when there is enough space to balance self-expression with group accountability.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>GROUP</em> and Individual: Cultivating Spaces of Expression
Identifier
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group-and-individual
Group Discussion
Learning
Self-Realization
Teachers & Teaching
Therapy
-
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Notebooks
Identifier
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notebooks
Dublin Core
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Referrer
For internal use only, for tracking and metrics.
NHC Summer Residency
Dublin Core
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Contributor
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Abena Boakyewa-Ansah, 28, History Ph.D. Candidate
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016
Description
An account of the resource
I have been writing in notebooks ever since I was young. In elementary school I wrote stories about the adventures of characters I'd imagined after watching and reading X-Men, dreaming of a world where the impossible was possible. By the time I was a teenager, reality became captivating so I wrote about my own life, using the pages as a way to process the world around me, and to understand my changing self. What I hoped for; things I didn't understand; people I wanted relationship with. Slowly but surely, I became known for my love of writing in notebooks and people began to give them to me as gifts. As I received more and more I slowly built a mental specification for what the perfect notebook was to me: its smell; the thickness of the paper; the way it was bound.
Then, in 2016, at the age of 23, I moved to the US, alone, to enroll in my Ph.D., and I was bombarded with newness. New school culture, new social culture, new religious culture, new people and ways of communicating. While the rush of being somewhere new was thrilling, it was also overwhelming. I needed to process my new life, my mind needed space to write about the world I was encountering, the stories I would tell, the stories that were making me a different version of myself every day.
Prior to my departure from Edinburgh, Scotland, a friend of mine gave me a notepad at my leaving party, a beautiful gift that I knew would be so very useful during that moment in my life. A hard-backed notebook with playful illustrations of kids toys parading across a dining table. It was whimsical and special, and nothing like any I would typically choose, but for some reason it was the perfect notebook for me.
Months after receiving it, I finally opened it and began writing. I wrote and I wrote, everyday, about the things I saw, heard, and learned about this new world that no one from my prior 23 years of life was privy to. As Charlotte Brontë famously said: "I'm just going to write, because I cannot help it." Where I felt lost in translation with people from home and my new home, this notebook became a gift of belonging within myself. The art on the cover made me smile and remember how loved I was, as well as reminding me of the courageous creativity that can be unlocked when we put pen to paper.
This notebook became the place I learned what I loved about my new life; it reminded me that I contain multitudes and am allowed to evolve and grow. I learned that writing, art, whimsy and play, could be pathways to understanding, embracing, and even falling in love with the unfamiliar.
Title
A name given to the resource
I Write Therefore I am
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
therefore-i-am
Acclimation
Cultural Diversity
Writing
-
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Young child
Identifier
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young-child
Dublin Core
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Referrer
For internal use only, for tracking and metrics.
NHC virtual residency
Dublin Core
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Contributor
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Brandy, Graduate student
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
mid-1980's
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
a Kliban cat cartoon
Description
An account of the resource
My humanities moment comes from a cartoon by American B. Kliban. My mother had a kitchen towel with the image on it, and it had been in my kitchen for as long as I could remember. When I was young, pre-kindergarten, it was one of my favorite things in the house. The image on the towel is a cartoon: a single panel image of a fat, black-and-grey tabby cat sitting on a barstool playing a guitar, singing a song about how much he loves to eat “mousies.” The cartoon feline resembled our real-life cat, Max, and I was astonished how these two cats, who looked almost exactly alike, ended up in the same house - what were the odds??
Besides the cat itself, the cartoon has four lines of song. I had my mother sing the kitty song approximately 500 million times, as young children do when they have a favorite song. The best part was the last two lines, which went into thrillingly graphic detail about how, exactly, this cat eats the mice, including which body parts to start with. When I heard the song, I felt both shock and like I was getting away with something - children are not supposed to learn about things like this! I was both delighted and horrified that my mother, who was a VERY nice lady and very good at all the things mothers are supposed to do, would intentionally expose me to such violence.
Singing the song on this towel was the first time I ever remember being conflicted about something. It forced me to grapple with what I perceived to be an inconsistency. To me, the following sentences by themselves were all true, but when you line them up, they couldn’t possibly all be true at the same time:
My mother was a good mother.
Good mothers didn’t talk about nibbling on small animal’s feet.
My mother repeatedly sang me my favorite song about nibbling on small animal’s feet.
To make matters even worse, polite girls did not sing about gruesome things, yet here I was, continually requesting it! What did that say about me? Eventually, I would learn that there are many different ideas about what “good” mothers and “polite” girls do. I learned that even if you were labeled one thing, it was ok to act in ways that might be unexpected, and that it was sometimes ok to transgress the limits I thought were there.
Title
A name given to the resource
Naughty Kitty
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
naughty-kitty
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
American B. Kliban
Cartoons
Children
Family
Mothers
Songs
-
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Picking grapes
Identifier
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picking-grapes
Dublin Core
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Referrer
For internal use only, for tracking and metrics.
NHC Graduate Student Summer Residency
Dublin Core
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Contributor
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Vanessa Madrigal Lauchland, 35, Ph.D. Student, Latinx History
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
During my third trimester of pregnancy, aged 30
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
"The World in a Raisin," a meditation
Description
An account of the resource
When I was small I loved to lay on the floor with my cheek pressed against the course green carpet. To observe how the tiny green fibers meshed with blue one and white ones, and how my breath made them sway like a tiny forest. I remember wondering who wove that rough forest and if they knew that it would live in our home.
When I was thirty, I ate a raisin. I don’t particularly like raisins so I was pleased to eat just one. Or, rather, pleased to eat no more.
"Give it a little squish. Feel its resistance or acquiescence against you fingers; note its stickiness. Looking at it, think about who else has looked upon the raisin. Trace its journey."
And so I journeyed with my little raisin across my home, back to the market, into the picker’s basket, onto the vine. So many hands. Living so many lives.
I practiced “The World in a Raisin” daily, reading the meditation and finding new paths that the raisin took. Fostering gratefulness, I remembered my grandfather’s hands that worked so hard in the fields to keep me out of them. I saw connections across the globe to people working to supply oil that would eventually grease the wheels of the trucks that ferried our little raisin to market. I felt it nourish the baby in my belly and so connect my innermost being to the reaches of the world.
The raisin did not offer an answer to the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, but it did offer a path. It awoke that childhood curiosity and paired it with empathy—connecting tiny fibers of life across oceans, inside homes, and throughout time.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Raisin's Sojourn
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
raisin-sojourn
Food
Meditation
Mindfulness
Pregnancy
-
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Dublin Core
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Title
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The Sun
Source
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Pixabay
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
sun
Dublin Core
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Referrer
For internal use only, for tracking and metrics.
2021 NHC Summer Graduate Student Residency
Dublin Core
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Contributor
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Bridget H., Ph.D. student
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1988-1992
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<em>A Raisin in the Sun</em>
Description
An account of the resource
The sixth grade stands out for me as one of those important milestones in life. As an adult, I have numerous precise moments of recollection where a memory is so vivid it feels as if I can recall every word and emotion. Our school was a small neighborhood Catholic school with a tragic past. In the late 1950s, the school burned down, and ninety-five people lost their lives. <br /><br />My experience as one of the few kids in the neighborhood who did not attend public school was nuanced. I never thought much about my identity outside of being the girl who went to Catholic school. My neighborhood was majority Latino and Black, and Chicago was and remains a largely segregated city. I saw white people at school and on television and Brown and Black people in my everyday life. I never noticed that the people I watched on tv shows and working in my small Catholic school did not represent my life or the lives of the people I knew. <br /><br />That all changed when Mrs. Maureen Hart started her teaching career in my sixth-grade class. I could share countless stories about Mrs. Hart's dedication to teaching and her desire to really make a difference in the lives of her students. Still, this particular moment is about our sixth-grade production of <em>A Raisin in the Sun</em>. We spent weeks preparing. We watched the 1961 movie adaptation, we read the script, and we designed the set. We learned all about Lorraine Hansberry and her groundbreaking accomplishments. We learned that the original play was set in Chicago and that Hansberry herself was a Chicagoan. The information made our production even more important. After all, we had to do justice to Chicago's own playwright. <br /><br />Studying and preparing for that play brought a profound sense of pride and ownership. I fell in love with the characters and all of their imperfections. It was the first time I experienced black characters who were flawed and proud on paper and in film. The struggles of the world around them were not the focus of the story. Family and kinship were central to the plot. When I finished the play, I clearly remembered a profound sense of knowing that I had a place in the world. My stories, although not heroic or regal, mattered and was worthy of praise and notoriety.
Title
A name given to the resource
Why Representation Matters
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Lorraine Hansberry
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
why-representation-matters
A Raisin in the Sun
African American Authors
African American Literature
African American Women Authors
Chicago, IL
Family
Hansberry, Lorraine
Kinship
Representation
Teachers & Teaching
Theater and Drama
-
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Greek soldier
Source
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Pixabay
Identifier
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greek-soldier
Dublin Core
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Dublin Core
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Contributor
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Emily, 32, American Studies Ph.D. Student
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2007
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<em>300 </em>(2006)
Description
An account of the resource
I don't remember much about going to see <em>300</em> except that I left the theatre with an uneasy feeling. Something didn't sit right about the way the characters were portrayed. My father was a high school film teacher, so I had been given the tools to analyze a film's ideology and meaning, but this was the first time I really did it by myself. <br /><br />I recognized the way the Spartans could easily be replaced with Americans, and that the Persians were kind of meant to be Al Qaeda or the "evil" Middle East. The film was a fantasy for a post 9/11 United States audience. And it didn't end there. I was actually most struck by the way the Persians were queered in the film, and the Spartans were the peak of heterosexual hyper-masculinity. I began to think: How would this film affect the way people view current events and, more importantly, other people? What are the stakes here? <br /><br />Suddenly I understood the importance of meaning-making and what studying the humanities was all about. I talked about the film to anyone who would listen for weeks: "Don't you see how this film conflates queerness and femininity with evil?" and so on. I felt such urgency about it. It was a major turning point for me in understanding how ideas are disseminated and perpetuated. It was somewhat of a dark experience, but one that changed my life forever. <br /><br />When I got to grad school and began to learn about hegemony, power, and ideology I always went back to <em>300</em> in my mind. It's how I learned to make sense of these vital concepts. As I grew up I learned that many critics had seen the same things I had seen in the film, and that my ideas were not nearly as novel as I thought in my youth. This just further cemented my desire to pursue this kind of work. Now I study American Studies and I focus on film and how Americanness is depicted and designed. So I guess it turns out that even the works of humanities that you don't like can change your life for the better and help you find your path.
Title
A name given to the resource
What You Don't Like Can Still Guide You
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
what-you-dont-like-can-guide-you
Ancient History
Cultural Awareness
Film and Movies
Stereotypes
War
-
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77644925148f7cf3277cb3ccb4d36a5f
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Library Bookshelf
Source
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Pixabay
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
library-bookshelf
Dublin Core
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Referrer
For internal use only, for tracking and metrics.
NHC Graduate Student Summer Residency
Dublin Core
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Contributor
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Bailey Boyd, 32, Ph.D Candidate
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<em>Matilda</em>
Description
An account of the resource
I cannot remember who first introduced me to the work of Roald Dahl, but it is his books that sparked a lifelong love of reading for me. I grew up as the only girl between two brothers and our house was peppered with sports equipment; our calendar was controlled by games, practices, and tournaments. We all played sports, and I was frequently the only girl on the boys’ baseball teams, in the age division, and for a long time, in the league. Off the field, I loved school, reading, and arts & crafts. So, at times, I felt a little different or out of place. Like most kids, I often wondered how to act or how to be. <br /><br />I can’t remember now exactly when I read Dahl’s <em>Matilda</em>, but I remember identifying with the storyline about a young girl who felt out of place and who found comfort in stories. She was young, but was smart; she was independent and self-sufficient. She read books far beyond her age. Eventually, she learned she could control objects with her mind and she used these powers to outsmart the terrible people around her. In short, she became a hero. <br /><br />It wasn’t that our situations were the same that I felt an affinity with Matilda – I certainly wasn’t surrounded by terrible people as she was – but I think it was because she, too, felt a little different and she too, liked to read. I loved reading before <em>Matilda</em>, but I think that story made me feel like reading could lead to superpowers. She wasn’t a boy with a cape; she couldn’t scale buildings or fly; she didn’t have some extraordinary strength (and to be fair, it wasn’t the reading that gave her her superpowers, but that is what stuck with me). Rather, she had a library card and some quiet time and a few people that believed in her. So, it was also <em>Matilda</em> that made me feel that reading curled up in the back of the school bus or sitting out recess to finish a book wasn’t something to be embarrassed of, because that’s what she did. I wanted to have the mountains of books she did; I wanted to read everything she had. <br /><br />Now, I am sure I haven’t read everything Matilda did and I have been privileged to have had no real terrible things or people to overcome personally, but one part of her story did resonate. I did stumble into some superpowers. From reading stories, I learned empathy and kindness, connection and perspective, humility and humanity. I could hear stories from other people who were not me, who did not grow up in the world I did, who did not express their stories in the same ways as I would. It isn’t only children’s books that did this and continue to do this for me, but back then, Roald Dahl and so many others started it. <br /><br />These days, I mainly read and write nonfiction. I love how language creates moments and images; I love how writers make words live together on the page. I now study essays & poems, but sometimes I still think of them as kinds of stories. And I still think reading them (or listening to them) leads to those superpowers of connection, compassion, and humanity. <br /><br />But my connection with this children’s book goes beyond that, because it has also taught me why representation is so important. All young people should be able to see themselves in a story, to have that moment of realization, identification, and inspiration. Everyone deserves to see themselves as the hero, no matter their age, gender, race, class, sexual orientation, or disability. No matter if they read themselves in a book, hear themselves in a song, or find themselves in dance, theater, or the fine arts. The ability to see glimpses of our own stories in others is important, because I think it prepares us to be open to other stories completely different than ours. For me, it started with <em>Matilda</em>. And as an adult now, I am still a woman who loves to read and who still believes in its superpowers.
Title
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Reading and its Superpowers
Creator
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Roald Dahl
Identifier
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reading-superpowers
Books & Reading
Children
Children's Literature
Dahl, Roald
Identity
Literature Appreciation
Representation
Self-Realization
Superheroes
-
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Storm at Sea
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storm-at-sea
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Title
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
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graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
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NHC Graduate Student Summer Residency
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Philip Gilreath, 32, University of Georgia Ph.D. Student
Date
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2021
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<em>The Tempest</em>
Description
An account of the resource
When I think “humanities moment,” this song from William Shakespeare’s <em>The Tempest</em> pops into my head. It’s almost too fitting: “Full Fathom Five” is such a momentary diversion in the play—a random and beautiful intrusion to the plot. The song seems interested in how we process death—something I have been doing a lot lately. These are the words to the song: <br /><br />Full fathom five thy father lies; <br />Of his bones are coral made; <br />Those are pearls that were his eyes: <br />Nothing of him that doth fade <br />But doth suffer a sea-change <br />Into something rich and strange. <br /><br />A tree spirit named Ariel uses this song to get the attention of Ferdinand, a prince who has recently crash-landed on the island Ariel shares with a magician named Prospero. At this moment, Ferdinand believes that his father, the king of Naples, has drowned in the storm. The prince thinks he’s the only survivor, and Ariel sings to him, to get his attention, but also to offer a kind of consolation for his drowned father. <br /><br />The image the spirit describes—a human body mutating and transforming into coral and pearls, is one of the most beautiful images I have never seen. You have to imagine it: when you see The Tempest on stage, you hear Ariel’s description, but this otherworldly transformation is something that can only really exist as a poetic description (or maybe really good computer graphics). <br /><br />The other thing about the song that strikes me is its futility: try using these lines on someone grieving the death of a parent and see how far they get you. At the same time, this moment tries to give voice to forms of life outside of humanity as it attempts to explain something precious and important, not just about life, but art. Death is inevitable, and imagination, though it can never make up for that fact, does fascinating things when it tries. <br /><br />The last thing I’ll bring up is the way this song, which makes visible a new and strange transformation, becomes visible in other media: Julie Taymor interprets the song in her 2010 film adaptation of <em>The Tempest</em>; Jackson Pollack has a painting named “Full Fathom Five,” and Beck, back when I was a teenager, titled his break-up album <em>Sea Change</em>, an allusion to the weird expressions we give to grief. These artworks show us that, while a human body can’t really transform into coral and pearls, one poetic moment can transform into another.
Title
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New and Strange: Thinking About Transformation Through Shakespeare
Creator
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William Shakespeare
Identifier
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new-and-strange
Adaptation
Drama
English Literature
Shakespeare, William
The Tempest
Theater and Drama
-
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986d94c99ee0f1917376882fad32e171
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Crown
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Pixabay
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crown
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
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graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
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NHC Graduate Student Summer Residency Program
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Angeline Morris, 25, Ph.D. Student
Date
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2013
Source
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<em>The Hollow Crown: Richard II</em>
Description
An account of the resource
One night during my first semester of undergrad, I flipped on PBS on my tiny dorm room TV to watch <em>Richard II</em>. Or, half-watch, I should say – I was still convinced that I could multitask, so I was also reading one of my history textbooks. As I nursed a cup of black tea and highlighted what was probably entire pages of that book, I would look up occasionally to see Ben Whishaw’s performance. My memories of the event are a little hazy (that’s what I get for multitasking, I suppose), but I can recall the ephemerality of the blue, gold, and white color palette, the powerful emotions captured in the cast's performance (especially during Richard's deposition), and the brilliant ways the cast played off each other, especially Whishaw's Richard and Rory Kinnear's Bolingbroke. <br /><br />I also distinctly remember watching Whishaw write “Richard II" in the sand, only for it to be washed away by the waves, and thinking how amazing it was. I did eventually sit down and watch <em>Richard II</em> without distractions (and on a better TV), but that first viewing shaped the way that I approach Shakespeare. Without that performance, I wouldn't have become interested in <em>Richard I</em>I, and I wouldn't have become a graduate student studying early modern drama. My fascination with Whishaw's performance led to my undergraduate senior seminar paper and helped to shape part of my Master's thesis; I have no doubt that it will influence my dissertation, as well. <br /><br />Most importantly, it changed how I think about plays and performance. I had always thought of Shakespeare’s plays as texts to be performed, but watching <em>The Hollow Crown</em> was the first time I realized just how much performance can bring to the text, as well. Whishaw’s writing on the sand, for example, isn’t in the text of Shakespeare’s play, but showing Richard's name being washed away provides a clear image of the fragility of Richard’s kingship. Now, when I open up Shakespeare (or any other drama, for that matter), my first thought is always “how would someone stage this?” In my own research, I focus on these questions of performance (both by the characters in the text and actors on a stage); I want to know how to bring those nuances and details to life myself – to help others see the powerful emotions that these plays can provoke, just as <em>The Hollow Crown</em> did for me.
Title
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The Power of Performance
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power-performance
Creator
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William Shakespeare
Adaptation
Drama
Early Modern Literature
Emotional Experience
Performance
Shakespeare, William
-
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5197ae354345ee72bf4310699aefcdcd
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American Neighborhood
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american-neighborhood
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
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graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
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NHC
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Carey Kelley, 44, Ph.D. candidate, University of Missouri
Description
An account of the resource
My wanderlust took me to many places around the world where I experienced humanities moments at nearly every turn, but my hometown is where my relationship with the humanities was born.
My childhood in a small town in New Hampshire was steeped in history. Impressive 19th century buildings and covered bridges painted the backdrop of my formative years and the hours of my days were measured by the ringing of Revere bells.
Sarah Josepha Hale also hailed from the same town. Hale wrote, published, and advocated for women’s education, but is most commonly known for her nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Our lives were separated by over a century, but our childhood homes were only separated by a driveway and as a result she often came to my mind.
Hale’s life sparked my curiosity about what role women played in American history and how they influenced their world despite the restrictions society placed on them. The constant reminder that women do make history helped foster my interest in the humanities.
Title
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Homegrown
Identifier
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homegrown
American history
History
New Hampshire
Songs
Women's Rights
-
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Classroom
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Pixabay
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classroom
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
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graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
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National Humanities Center
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Sólveig Ásta Sigurðardóttir, 31, Ph.D. candidate
Description
An account of the resource
During my hours of online teaching this year, I have repeatedly tried to bring myself back to my first encounters with the Humanities classroom. As an enthusiastic first-year student in comparative literature, I was excited to learn about art and culture from authors and specialists in cultural history and to be trained in the study of specific authors, styles, and genres. <br /><br />I had always been drawn to folklore and been curious about how narratives helped to make sense of the world. My learning had at least always been aided by narrative, the more vivid the details the better. For example, it was much easier to remember geographical information, say the name of the farm, Miklibær, if you knew the 19th-century story of the ghost, Sólveig who haunted the local priest, Oddur. Or the name of the region Ódáðahraun if you knew the lullaby "Sofðu unga ástin mín" about the mother who had fled poverty into the dangerous highlands and was singing to her child in hiding. <br /><br />When I made it to the humanities classroom it took me by surprise how it was not simply a place where meaning was mediated but a place in which I was trained to investigate how “meaning” takes place. I was both exhausted and thrilled by invitations to investigate how meaning is grounded in culture, relations, histories, and language in all its shapes and forms. In one of my first assignments in a class on Icelandic poetry, I received a comment from a teacher encouraging me to go “deeper” with my interpretation. She encouraged me to follow my own analysis, to try out what felt like a radical idea at the risk of being “incorrect”. Her comments were probably standard advice she gave to all her students, something she wrote on the endless papers that needed grading but for me, it was a formative moment of recognition of my voice and ideas. <br /><br />While the content of the poem escapes me (I think it was about feminism and potatoes) I can recall the feeling of that instructive moment and its effect on my journey as a reader and thinker lingers. Still to this day I remember the thrill of literary analysis, how we followed the teacher as she dissected poems, plays, and novels and somehow she made the students feel like they were necessary contributors to the study. Students brought different insights to the discussion and the teacher showed us how to see surprising connections between cultural texts. It felt like the possibility of meaning was both grounded in the teacher’s scholarship but also the exchange between the people gathered in the room. Through this process, the authority of knowledge started to feel slippery, which was a powerful exchange, especially in a university setting. It felt to me that the collective search for the answer to our questions required vulnerability from the teacher but also every student willing to participate in the conversation. It felt like we were not only discussing literary materials but also always debating how we should discuss them. What do we see on the page? What is missing? Where do we begin in our interpretation? With the author? Her environment? Essentially, how do we see? But also, how did the text even make it to us, the readers? Who preserved it? Why does that matter? <br /><br />I specifically remember how powerful it was to encounter feminist analysis, postcolonial and critical race theory, and to have access to new vocabularies to talk about power relations across time and space. The vocabulary of their insight even brought me closer to my original fascination with folklore, and I began to see the stories of my childhood not just as entertainment but as markers of power. Why were there so many ghost stories of young poor women that were haunting men of a higher class and stature? Could these stories tell us something about how colonialism conditioned gender and class relations in 19th century Iceland? <br /><br />In these encounters with the approaches of the humanities, or "humanities moments" it felt like we in the class were not just discussing an individual poem or story but our relations to, well everything. These memories of deep learning in the classroom continue to inspire my own practice of teaching. And while "thrill" is not necessarily an apt description for every one of my own classes the possibility of these humanities moments is something that continues to inspire me.
Title
A name given to the resource
Humanities Moment(s)
Identifier
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humanities-moments
Comparative Literature
Discovery
Feminism
Folklore
Humanities Education
Icelandic Literature
Learning
Relationality
Teachers & Teaching
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Louvre
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louvre
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
Identifier
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graduate-student-residents-2021
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Dublin Core
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Lindsey Waldenberg, 31, Public History Ph.D. Student
Date
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2009
Source
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<em>Venus and the Three Graces Presenting Gifts to a Young Woman</em>
Description
An account of the resource
In 2009, when I was a freshman in college, I went to France and Germany at the end of a year-long seminar exploring the emergence of European nationalism after 1848. As I majored in History and Art History & Archaeology, this class was right up my alley, so to speak. And not to mention, we traveled to Paris and Berlin! <br /><br />Naturally, we spent one day exploring the Louvre museum. I was ecstatic to see some of the world's most revered works of the art. I now had the opportunity to see with my own eyes the very pieces that I had spent hours studying and analyzing. One of the first pieces I sought out was a work by Sandro Botticelli--I believe it was <em>Venus and the Three Graces</em>. I stood there mesmerized and soon realized I was crying. <br /><br />Something clicked for me that day. Perhaps it was the fact that this fresco had survived centuries and, despite its cracks, continued to inspire awe and contemplation. These figures still conveyed such beauty and grace. For me, it was the realization that these works, whose reproductions in textbooks seemed so two-dimensional, were tangible items created by human hands and genius. I carry that understanding and respect with me today, especially as I handle artifacts in museums and archives or read original primary source documents.
Title
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Human Grace
Creator
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Sandro Botticelli
Identifier
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human-grace
Art
Art History
Art Museums
Botticelli, Sandro
Emotional Experience
Europe
Louvre Museum
Material Culture
Travel