Van Gogh and Me
Last November my grandmother was visiting and wanted to do something fun. Instead of fun, my mother dragged us to the traveling “Beyond Van Gogh” exhibit that was in Salt Lake City at the time. As we entered this big warehouse where the exhibit was located, my fears seemed to be confirmed. I walked along a winding path with backlit, large-canvas reproductions of Van Gogh’s paintings with excerpts of letters written between Vincent Van Gogh and his brother Theo written over top of the paintings. For me, because I have a visual field cut and other sensory processing issues, it was painful and overwhelming to look at. The backlighting of the artwork made every detail pop and screamed for my attention. So everything smeared together and my brain could not process anything. I did everything I could to avert my eyes as I felt myself slowly becoming overwhelmed and on the verge of melting down.
I did notice that not everything in this room was yelling at me. In between these paintings, there were various empty picture frames invisibly suspended from the ceiling. As people, including myself, walked by, we all became the subjects. I became part of the artwork for a fleeting moment as I was framed within the borders. Then, once I turned the last corner, I entered a dark room with projections of moving color on the wall and floor. I went from being the one who moved around stationary pieces of art into a stationary person watching as the brushstrokes of color and light moved around me and swallowed me whole. As my mind and senses adjusted to this new reality, I entered a huge warehouse-sized room, projections of Van Gogh's work enveloped me on all sides. I was completely immersed in all the colors and details. Music written about Van Gogh or his works was gently playing in the background. For me, it was like a reverse fishbowl effect. Instead of feeling alone and exposed while something stared at me, I was a natural being that was happily swimming amidst the wonder around me. As I watched colors and paint strokes slowly morphing one painting turned into another, for the first time, art moved me in ways I never experienced before. By magnifying details that I would never normally see, I finally understood why art is so powerful. I watched his artistic process from start to finish as sketches were recreated and deconstructed before my eyes. I did not know about his work as a portrait painter, but seeing his side-by-side gallery of his many subjects, including himself, showed such an incredible imagination. This was the first time that I felt art really move me. Van Gogh’s artwork is so powerful and now I understand why his work lives on today. Visiting the “Beyond Van Gogh” exhibit has made me rethink what is possible. Please do not tell my mom that she was right and that I had so much more than fun.
Works Cited: “The Immersive Experience .” Beyond Van Gogh Salt Lake City, 2 Dec. 2021, vangoghsaltlake.com/.
"Beyond Van Gogh" traveling art exhibit
November 2021
Julia Reardon, Mountain Heights Academy, Utah
van-gogh-and-me
Global Education Beyond the Classroom: Engaging the World through Scholarship
For many years, I have challenged myself to advocate for global education and international studies across the world. I have read many books, travelled on my own, and engaged with other people about culture, traditions, and politics. I have formed relationships that connect people across a host of competing ideologies, religion, and beliefs that sometimes conflicted with my own thoughts. However, these contradictions challenged and inspired me to keep pursuing research and unlock such contradictions by participating in a host of scholarship competitions around the world. I have competed with thousands of scholars and researchers to earn opportunities for scholarships and funded programs. I am on a global quest to visit 10 countries and gain a variety of my own Humanities Moments. I have been face-to-face with a WWII Japanese soldier who believed his mission was his destiny, visited North Korea clandestinely to understand how the South felt about the war, learned about the travails of a Filipino family because of the influence of the Spanish conquest on their culture, seen the desperate experiences of the Bantu folks in Soweto in post-Apartheid who still struggle to find their identity and culture, and seen the eyes of our students when they sit among others in an International Competition during the World Animation Championship for Children in Greece. Each of these events triggered my Humanities Moments and will always continue to inspire and challenge me to also keep mentoring our students to do the same.
Travel through the Fulbright Program, the South Korea Foundation, the Rotary Foundation, the European Union, the Toyota of North America Foundation, and the Institute of International Education
1986-2021
Dr. Conrad Ulpindo
global-education-beyond-classroom
Enjoy Your Life
Hong Kong is a prosperous and fast-paced city. Last month, i went to Peng Chau, which is an outlying island, to get away from the stress of the city. There are some residential districts on the island, but it is different from other outlying islands such as Lamma Island and Cheung Chau. Most tourists would choose to go to Lamma Island or Cheung Chau because there are more spots for tourists to visit. However, I think Peng Chau is a spot off the beaten path. Most people don't see the beauty of it. When I arrived at Peng Chau, it was already around 5 o'clock. There were some elderly people sitting in chairs and chatting with their friends or enjoying the scenery. This scene was really incredible because most of the citizens in Hong Kong are busy working and studying. I wandered around observing what people were doing. I discovered that they was enjoying their life and weren't doing things in a hurry. An hour later, I sat down to watch the spectacular sunset. The beauty of the sunset is indescribable. The trip to Peng Chau let me get a close-up of myself. Most of the time, I just stay at home and watch YouTube or concentrate on studying. I seldom slow down and enjoy my life, but after visiting Peng Chau, I've found that I spend more time with my thoughts.
Peng Chau, Hong Kong
2021
Anna Chan, 18, Student
enjoy-your-life
Preserving Tradition and Embracing Change
This was my fourth trip to Georgia since 2016 and each trip I have noticed a slow-and-steady increase in the amount of "western" influence in the city. From one year to the next, hotels- huge skyscrapers in a city of modestly tall buildings- are being built with seemingly no regard for the traditional architecture of the ancient city. To me (and truthfully, many of my Georgian friends share similar sentiments), these buildings are massive eyesores that break-up a beautiful, low cityscape that is not only the view from the balcony of the house in which we stay, but also seen from all over the city. This has an impact on me because I contextualize the city's expansion and economic growth within the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union three decades ago. Since the collapse, this small but vivacious country has seen civil war, invasions and annexations from foreign adversaries, and a multitude of diplomatic relationships developed with countries both previously in and out of the Soviet bloc. The context and the subsequent developments have ushered in a new era in Georgia- one where there are no foreign powers at the helm of their government. One in which Georgia is in control of their own future for the first time in a long time.
As you travel in the city and beyond, you can see a host of influences from the Soviet era and of western countries. However, what remains clear is a strong Georgian tradition. You can travel in Tbilisi or even venture out into more rural villages and find feasts, toasts, celebrations, similar driving patterns, urban planning, architectural influences and more. All of this is to say that the architecture of their capital is one example of the tension between preserving tradition in Georgia and in welcoming innovation and change into the fold. You see it in other ways, too: social developments, cultural developments, and even the fact that the Georgian alphabet, spoken and written language is almost completely isolated to this small country of about 3.5 million people, with most people speaking at least one other language, sometimes even two or three. I feel as though I am witnessing a critical point in the development of the modern state of Georgia.
This beautiful country has welcomed me several times in the past five years with warm hospitality, friendship, delicious food, unique and incomparable experiences, all within a changing physical and cultural landscape. I have learned an immense amount about different subcultures of Georgians, what the people as a collective share and cherish, and how they've fought for their independence as a nation and a people. Their traditions are cherished, yet they are turning a new page and ushering themselves into a more modern era. I look forward to seeing the continued preservation of the traditions while also seeing the innovations they welcome.
Architecture in Tbilisi, Georgia
Summer 2021
Maggie, 29, High School Social Studies teacher
preserving-tradition-embracing-change
Artifacts at the Museum
Recently, I've found myself longing to take advantage of the Smithsonian Museums that are so conveniently located ten miles northeast of my home- maybe it's because such destinations were closed for a long period of time due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I figured that I might as well take advantage of these attractions re-opening and welcoming guests. Only a select few Smithsonian venues have opened their doors and so I decided to visit one that I've always enjoyed in the past, the Freer Gallery of Art. The Freer Gallery of Art boasts an impressive collection of art from East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Islamic world, and the Middle East. The collections range from the late Neolithic period to the modern era- there is certainly plenty to see. One of the main attractions located in the Freer Gallery is the <em>Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room</em>. This is a beautifully decorated room that serves as a lasting example of aestheticism. Despite the beauty and enveloping nature of the Peacock Room, I found my humanities moment in other places within the museum. <br /><br />My humanities moment came to me while viewing pottery, porcelain, ceramics, paintings, and sculptures from East Asia and South Asia. The connections to be made between cultures in India, China, and Korea, simply by identifying the similarities and trends in the artifacts seemed endless. Whether it was a ceramic-making technique or the spread and artistic display of Buddhism that could be traced across civilizations- regional interaction was present. Part of being a Social Studies teacher is facilitating the process of students making connections through the examination of regional interactions across time. Making those connections helps students be more globally-minded citizens.
Freer Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
July 17, 2021
G. Lee, 33, Social Studies Teacher
artifacts-museum
Scotland the Brave and The Flower of Scotland: A Wee Moment with Huge Impact
We tend to remember "firsts" in our lives. Hopefully we recognize the importance and value of experiences as we live through them. My first travel overseas was as an undergraduate on a semester study abroad to Stirling University in Scotland. It was absolute magic! All the experiences associated with travel - language, food, smells, conversation, relationships, sounds - were amplified because it was my first experience like this. I recall the side trips to Orkney, Portree, London, Bath, and Edinburgh equally to the moments on campus as a student studying history and education in another nation. In Scotland I discovered soccer, Caravaggio, William Wallace, scotch, hiking, history, music, other people and, most importantly, my self. Traveling overseas as a student is an experience that is hard to replicate in another part of your life. I tried, by working in another country for six years, but the student experience provides a unique moment in time that can't fully be recreated later. I encourage students in college to make this experience of their college career. Some fear they will be missing something by leaving. You won't.
And I remember that semester as if it happened yesterday and is happening now.
Stirling, Scotland
1994
Craig Perrier, 48, Social Studies Curriculum Specialist and Adjunct
scotland-brave-flower-scotland
The Day I Knew I Was Going to Teach History
In what has become a defining moment of my entire life, my first true humanities moment provided clarity and direction for my future in the midst of all things awkward about being a middle school student.
Doing well in school was a safety net for me. The excitement of learning new things and the validation that came with "good grades" and being a teacher's pet type person were anchors in a time of social and hormonal upheaval and a family move the summer before 8th grade. If I was going to be at a new school, at least I knew I would do well in my classes, (failing math for a grading period, not withstanding, I mean, this isn't my "math moment," it's my humanities moment). My 8th grade US History and language arts teacher, Mrs. Batsford, was young and energetic, and seemed to genuinely like us and think we were fun humans. Now, after teaching 9th graders for 20 years, I know just how special that was. But it was the creativity with which Mrs. Batsford presented content that really created my humanities moment.
One day while studying the Civil War, Mrs. Batsford had us spend an entire class period constructing a "city" out of empty milk cartons. She gave us no context or explanation for this craft project, just set us to work. The next day, our city was complete and laid out on a large table. She came out from behind her desk and I watched in shock as she climbed up on top of the table wearing big laced-up boots with her early 90's long floral dress. Without a word, she began stomping all over our milk carton city with her big giant boots, flattening every single little crafted square while we watching with our mouths hanging open. Her destruction complete, she daintily got back down from the table and said, "that's what happened during Sherman's march to the sea."
I was floored. I couldn't believe a teacher would behave in such a demonstrative manner and do something that seemed so brash, just for the purpose of helping us understand something. In that instant I knew that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to help students learn history with a little drama and a lot of storytelling. I began on a path that day, that has guided my steps from 8th grade to now, a 21 year veteran of teaching history. Later I learned that Mrs. Batsford's dramatized version of razing cities to the ground was not quite the real story of what happened during that episode of the Civil War. That never diminished the importance of this moment and what it showed me about how people can connect with history. She made me want to learn more. And that is certainly a legacy worth striving for.
8th grade US History class
1991
Kim Karayannis, FCPS Social Studies teacher
day-knew-teach-history
Facing History is Not a Walk in the Park
I recently returned from a two week mini "Grand Tour" of Europe. The last stop on our itinerary was the Bavarian capital, Munich. As a World History teacher, I had to sign up for the Third Reich walking tour of the city. Along the two hour walk, we saw many significant sites like the Nazi Headquarters, Dodger’s Alley, and Hofbrauhaus. However, the most remarkable moment for me was actually the very end of the tour.
As we stood in Marienplatz, the last stop on our journey, our guide asked if we had any questions. The ten of us looked around at each other and remained silent, except for one man who asked, “How is Nazi history taught in German schools?” Our tour guide explained that when he was in high school in the 1980s, he learned about Nazi history for about two weeks. After a tumultuous year, teaching online during the pandemic, I only had about two weeks to teach most units which spanned hundreds of years, rather than a few decades. He added that his children who are currently in school spend about two months learning about the Nazi period. Additionally, every student in Bavaria is required to visit Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp in Germany.
I was in awe listening to how the German education system teaches the darkest period in the country’s history. I thought about how I learned about slavery in the US when I was a student. I grew up in Northern Virginia, an area rich in Civil War sites and mansions owned by slaveholders. However, our field trip to Mount Vernon in 1st grade and trip to a Civil War era mansion in 4th grade completely ignored the lives of the enslaved people who lived and worked on the grounds. Then I considered how controversial teaching accurate history in the US has become, especially the last few years. I reflected on how I taught. I try to provide students with a more detailed understanding of often oversimplified topics like slavery, colonialism, and imperialism but was I doing enough? What perspectives was I missing?
Germany’s commitment to providing a thorough and accurate understanding of one the most inhumane and difficult topics to teach motivated me to improve upon my instruction for the upcoming school year. I hope to reframe many units to highlight the experience of the oppressed and those who tried to enact change, rather than focusing on the elite who fought to maintain control.
Third Reich Tour in Munich
July 2021
Natalie Glees, 25, teacher
facing-history-not-walk-park
Inspired by Activism
It was my first day of observations at the school I now teach at. The day had progressed as a typical day and I had the chance to observe two World History 1 courses. After those classes my mentor teacher got into a conversation with two administrators about the events they were expecting for later that day. There was a planned student walkout in response to the school shooting in Parkland, Florida which had happened a month before.
Students of all ages across the country had coordinated what became the first student-led movement for gun control. I was inspired by the students for elevating their voices and creating a platform to stand up and demand that action be taken. I was also inspired by the teachers and administrators of my school who wore shirts in support, helped to answer questions for confused students, and supported any and all of the students who participated in the walkout.
These students were willing to stand up and say they have seen enough and can not sit idly by as more and more of these tragedies occur. The reason I got into teaching was to work with students like this and I hope to be able to inspire some of them. Everyday I get more and more inspired by these students.
Student Protest
March 14, 2018
Josh Britton, 25, High School Teacher
inspired-activism
Learning to Differentiate
I grew up in suburban Ohio and I knew from an early age that I wanted to experience more of the world than the mall. In high school, I applied for a student exchange program and desperately wanted to go to Argentina. Surprise -- I was accepted into the program, but selected for Japan. Not just Japan, but a very (very) small town in rural southern Japan. I was the first foreigner that most of the residents of Ogi (the name of the town) had ever seen and I literally could stop traffic while bicycling to school each morning. I certainly wasn't in Ohio anymore.
In the course of the school year that I spent in Japan, I attended school in an unheated, uninsulated school building in which students learned by listening and repeating what the teacher told them; no room for creative thought. I witnessed a student who had dozed off in classics class (learning 1,000 year old poetry written in archaic Japanese) get hit by the teacher with a book to the head -- and no one said anything. I lived in the home of a local sake producer who grew the rice and made the barrels used to age the sake. I attended a Shinto wedding and a Buddhist funeral. I learned how to participate in a tea ceremony, how to create ink paintings, and how to avoid getting hit too hard in kendo class.
It was all strange and difficult and hard to understand until that one day that I came face-to-face with a lesson in stereotyping and sweeping generalizations. Coming back from the movies with my friends, one of them asked me casually how I was able to differentiate amongst my friends in the United States. I was taken aback and, at first, thought I misunderstood the question, but no, my Japanese friends thought "we" all looked alike -- tall, blond, and blue-eyed! (I am tall, but not blond and my eyes are hazel colored.) And, there, on the other side of the world at the young age of 17, I learned that we are all very much alike in our prejudices and that to truly know another person means to get beyond the physical characteristics and meet the person on the inside.
Exchange Student Program
1975
Jim Wagner, 64, History Teacher
learning-differentiate
The Shoes
We (my mother, father, sister, and I) were travelling in Poland (where my mother's family is from). One of the places we visited was Auschwitz.
Every year I teach about World War II including the Holocaust. I share photos from my travels with my students throughout the school year, but it is something I was not able to photograph that chokes me up every year. The shoes. There is a large room, really more of a warehouse, with what looks like a large aquarium along one side (glass floor to ceiling). It is mostly (and used to be) full of shoes. Over time the shoes have begun to disintegrate and settled, making the number look smaller than what they represent. Knowing that it was common for individuals to have only one pair, maybe two pairs, of shoes means that every pair represents a person. You can talk about the sheer number of people who died in the Holocaust, in World War II, but those are abstract and sometimes too large to comprehend. But the shoes make those numbers real - real people, real families, real lives lost...maybe people my mother's family knew or lived near or went to school with. People who were removed from their homes, put on trains, sorted when they disembarked, stripped of their possessions and identities and murdered. Every year when I talk about this with my students, I have to pause and collect myself. And every year I hope that I am providing a sense of the personal into our history class so they don't ask the question "why are we learning about this?"
Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum
2008
Rebecca Watt, Social Studies Teacher and avid traveler
One Ship Connects Generations
On the morning of March 17, 2008, I called my grandmother as I was getting ready to board the Queen Mary. I remember telling her - "I am next to your ship!" I sent photos to my mom to share with her and she was looking at them while we were still on the phone. My grandmother couldn't believe that she was looking at "her ship" again. That is when my humanities moment happened. In that moment, grandmother and granddaughter were connected in a way that they hadn't been before. Minutes later, I stepped on board for the tour, standing on the ship my grandmother immigrated to the United States on.
My grandmother immigrated to the United States from Port Glasgow, Scotland in the early 1950s. She has shared many of her own memories with me over the course of my lifetime, and some she has kept close to her heart. I remember learning about Ellis Island when I was in elementary school, coming home and asking her about her experience coming to America. Ellis Island was closed as an immigrant processing station, so she had no memories of that, but she always talked about the ship she came here on - RMS Queen Mary. The ship was built in her hometown of Port Glasgow. Both her father and grandfather worked on it, her father as an electrician and her grandfather as a carpenter. It was christened in 1934, a month after she was born and 21 years later, it was the ship she sailed to America on- a one-way ticket in hand.
The Queen Mary is currently used as a floating hotel in Long Beach, California. Having had the opportunity to explore the ship, I was able to connect with my ancestors. Not only my grandmother who set sail on it, but also her father and grandfather, people I would never know, but who felt part of me as I encountered their work. While there, I also learned about the role that the RMS Queen Mary played in shuttling troops across the Atlantic during World War II. This is all part of my history and one of the most significant humanities moments that I have experienced.
RMS Queen Mary
2008
Kathleen Stankiewicz, 39, High School History Teacher
one-ship-connects-generations
The Solace of Libraries
For as long as I can remember I have found peace in libraries. Just the idea of them makes me smile. My earliest memory of being in a library is from when I was a young child, around four years old, in the town of Franklin, Tennessee. The War Memorial Public Library was housed in a historic Victorian house in the downtown area of what was then a small city of about ten thousand people. I remember walking into the main room and seeing a large, dark-wood desk occupied by a matronly librarian who greeted me with a friendly smile. I remember that the children’s books were in a room to the right, which was filled, floor-to-ceiling with closely spaced shelves of books and the worlds they contained. It smelled old in there and was always kind of dark, with light entering mainly through the large windows on one side of the room. This lent an air of mysteriousness and I always felt like I was on an adventure, an intrepid explorer alone among the aisles of books that dwarfed me. I remember being a little anxious and maybe even a little frightened, but I loved the feel of the books in my hand. The excitement of getting to choose a pile of them to take home, as many as I could carry, was stronger than my fears. I felt empowered.
When I reflect on it now, I realize that these trips to the library must have been just as important to my mother as they were to me. She was and still is a voracious reader, and was always in the middle of numerous books, which were scattered throughout the rooms of our house. I have always admired her ability to pick one up and read a few pages in the interstices of her busy day, grasping onto moments of escape wherever she could find them as an effectively single mother, nursing student, and homemaker in the early 1970s. There were four of us and I was the “baby” by six years, which meant that I was privileged to spend time with her and do things that she didn’t have the time to do with my older brothers and sister, who were all spaced a couple of years apart. While they were in school, we sometimes got to do special things like going to the library.
Sitting alone among the stacks, pulling a book off the shelf to see what was inside, reading some of it right there to see if it was worthy of taking home to read again and again…I still get the same excitement from it today as I did when I was four years old. That same profound sense of peace and possibility comforts me every time I enter a library, and I still do it every chance I get.
1973
Lauren Eastland, 52, PhD Candidate, University of California, Davis
solace-of-libraries
Le Magic School Bus
No, it wasn’t the real Magic School Bus from the books and TV. But one of my most poignant humanities moments did happen on a bus. And I did learn a lot from it. And, yes, the bus was French.
I grew up in Arizona in a monolingual family. I studied French in my last years of high school because I needed it to graduate. I loved it. I loved it more than I loved any other subject ever before. So much so that I majored in French and History in college. I aced my French classes. Then I started taking Spanish and Italian. Languages came really easy to me. Growing up with a brother who had known he was going to be a pilot from the age of five, I thought that maybe I had finally found ‘my thing’.
In 2010, I took a job opportunity to move to Lyon, France as an English Teaching Assistant through a bilateral program between French and American embassies. I arrived and had the normal struggles adjusting to a new city and to how quickly people spoke French. I left the U.S. with my straight A grades and the language in my mind as a bunch of binary code of 0s and 1s that could be pulled out of my mind to fit any situation.
Except for the bus.
About two thirds of the way into my one year contract was when I had my humanities moment that still serves as a reference today. As is required in a French memory, I was on my way to meet my friends at a cafe and was running late. I was speed walking through the main square in the center of town growing more and more anxious about being late, proof that I was still not as French as I had liked to think. As I was rushing, getting my heart rate up, and tensing up all of my muscles to try to walk even faster, I noticed an idle bus facing the general direction I needed to go. As I walked up to the door, the driver opened it and I came gusting into the bus out of breath.
In the process of making eye contact with the driver, I asked in French, ‘Does this bus go to [name of cafe’s street]?’
The bus driver sat up straight and looked at me for an extended moment before saying very seriously ‘Mademoiselle, we say hello to each other first. We don’t just ask. So, let’s begin again. Bonjour Monsieur.' His attempt to instruct me on how to be polite can be very easily considered rude, but that didn’t faze me because I had already felt the weighty guilt of making cultural missteps.
The bus didn’t go where I needed to go, so I got off and the driver drove on. I was very late to meet my friends. However, I stood on the street corner for a minute or two thinking about what happened. I thought about how I took my knowledge of the French language and framed it in my American habits of often being quick and in a rush. I began to realize the real world of language and cultural competence is just as important, if not more important, to learning a language. There are different styles of formality, salutation, turn-taking, interactions with strangers, etc. It wasn’t just the 0s and 1s that my French degree gave me. There were also 3s, 8s, 5s, and maybe even a few exclamation points mixed into the code. It was a rich world of human interaction that was accessed by travel. This has led me to language and its social implications. This has led me to sociolinguistics and researching language and belonging. So, this magic school bus did actually end up taking me somewhere I needed to go and it got me there just in time.
Travel
2010
Ashley Coogan, 34, PhD Student in Linguistics & Applied Linguistics, Arizona State University
le-magic-school-bus
Rebecca: The Novel & its Various Adaptations
Alfred Hitchcock's adaptation of Daphne DuMaurier's <em>Rebecca</em>
Primary School
Alexis Lygoumenos, PhD student, actress under the stage name Alexis Nichols
rebecca-novel-adaptations
Day of the Living Dead
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.
A cemetery
Summer 2020
Kendyl M, Schmidt, 34, PhD Student
day-living-dead
Do Migratory Birds Also Have to Leave Their Friends Behind?
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.
<em>Ein is for Nest</em> by Nour AlBrzwy and Tory Brykalski
Monday, June 28th, 2021
Tory Brykalski, 34, gradate student and anthropologist of emergency eduction
migratory-birds-friends
Finding Meaning Under the Stars
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.
2008
Deepan Rajaratnam, Ph.D. Candidate
finding-meaning-under-stars
Quotidian moments
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.
2020
Amber Pitt, 35, Ph.D. Candidate in Art Education, University of Georgia
quotidian-moments
La Fiesta de La Tirana: Integrating Spirituality, Corporality, and Tradition
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.
A religious festivity in Chile
July 16, 2013
Fernando Alvear, 36, PhD Candidate in Philosophy and Graduate Instructor, University of Missouri
la-fiesta-de-la-tirana
Finding Shelter in the Past
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.
Photographs of Petra
Fall 2019
Jonathan Correa, 31, Ph.D. Candidate
finding-shelter-petra
The Library
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.
The University Library
Summer 2020
Katie Ireland Kuiper, 29, Ph.D. Candidate
the-university-library
Renting with Romans
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.
Papyrus Fragment
June 2018
Jacob Brakebill, 27, Ph.D. Candidate
renting-with-romans-papyrus
<em>GROUP</em> and Individual: Cultivating Spaces of Expression
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.
<em>GROUP</em>
Summer 2021
Joanna, 30s, Ph.D. Candidate
group-and-individual
I Write Therefore I am
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.
2016
Abena Boakyewa-Ansah, 28, History Ph.D. Candidate
therefore-i-am
The Raisin's Sojourn
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.
"The World in a Raisin," a meditation
During my third trimester of pregnancy, aged 30
Vanessa Madrigal Lauchland, 35, Ph.D. Student, Latinx History
raisin-sojourn
What You Don't Like Can Still Guide You
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.
<em>300 </em>(2006)
2007
Emily, 32, American Studies Ph.D. Student
what-you-dont-like-can-guide-you
Homegrown
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.
Carey Kelley, 44, Ph.D. candidate, University of Missouri
homegrown
Humanities Moment(s)
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.
Sólveig Ásta Sigurðardóttir, 31, Ph.D. candidate
humanities-moments
Random Research Gems
I’m deep in research for an article, searching through the National Library of Wales’s digital archives of the South Wales Echo newspaper for coverage of a specific coal mine explosion. Yes, there is a search function, but it turns out that computers don’t always correctly process the words in scanned documents (no surprise there!), so I am going issue by issue, within certain parameters. The monotony of clicking into an issue and then clicking to each page to scan it, fumbling with the zoom feature so I can actually read the headlines, is broken when I stumble across “Fun For Christmas. Conundrums” in the December 25, 1880 issue. This is clearly not relevant to my article, but I’m curious about these conundrums. <br /><br />My favorite: “What vegetable is dangerous on board an ironclad? – A leek; because a little leak will sink a great ship.” Note: an ironclad is a nineteenth-century warship. Why is this my favorite, you might ask? Because we have that same joke today! Remember the official trailer for <em>Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2</em> (I haven’t seen the movie so I can’t reference that)? “Aaah! There’s a leak in the boat!!!” Switch to a shot of an anthropomorphic leek sitting in the boat. It amazes me how some things can change so much in 140 years, but apparently a love of food puns is not one of them. <br /><br />I make it to the February 5, 1881 issue before my eye is drawn once again to an article not related to coal mine explosions: “Grand Display of the Borealis”. It’s a short article, so here it is in full: “The plains of Llanbyther were on Monday evening lighted up with brilliant coruscations. The arch of a long bank of cirrus formed a back-ground, from which fan-like beams expanded to the zenith; the chameleon colours of the Aurora being, by a double reflection from the fleecy clouds, bent to the earth with a brilliancy that dimmed the light of the stars and rendered print easily readable.” <br /><br />I don’t know about you, but that shift from the soaring language of “brilliant coruscations” (I had to look up that word) and “fan-like beams” expanding to the “zenith” to the quotidian “rendered print easily readable” makes me laugh every time. Both the conundrums and the article have me scrambling haphazardly out of my research rabbit hole because I have to share them immediately. I interrupt whatever my husband is doing to read them to him; I text screenshots to my family and friends. <br /><br />These are the random research gems that may not ever make it into whatever I’m working on, but who cares? They make me smile and laugh; they bring me joy and demand I share that joy; and they put the human back in the humanities when it has lost its humanity in the looming idea(l) of the objective researcher.
Issues of the South Wales Echo newspaper from 1880 and 1881
April 17, 2021
Emily Beckwith (she/her), 31, Ph.D. Student in British Literature, University of Georgia
random-research-gems