"Dublin Core:Title","Dublin Core:Subject","Dublin Core:Description","Dublin Core:Creator","Dublin Core:Source","Dublin Core:Publisher","Dublin Core:Date","Dublin Core:Contributor","Dublin Core:Rights","Dublin Core:Relation","Dublin Core:Format","Dublin Core:Language","Dublin Core:Type","Dublin Core:Identifier","Dublin Core:Coverage","Item Type Metadata:Text","Item Type Metadata:Interviewer","Item Type Metadata:Interviewee","Item Type Metadata:Location","Item Type Metadata:Transcription","Item Type Metadata:Local URL","Item Type Metadata:Original Format","Item Type Metadata:Physical Dimensions","Item Type Metadata:Duration","Item Type Metadata:Compression","Item Type Metadata:Producer","Item Type Metadata:Director","Item Type Metadata:Bit Rate/Frequency","Item Type Metadata:Time Summary","Item Type Metadata:Email Body","Item Type Metadata:Subject Line","Item Type Metadata:From","Item Type Metadata:To","Item Type Metadata:CC","Item Type Metadata:BCC","Item Type Metadata:Number of Attachments","Item Type Metadata:Standards","Item Type Metadata:Objectives","Item Type Metadata:Materials","Item Type Metadata:Lesson Plan Text","Item Type Metadata:URL","Item Type Metadata:Event Type","Item Type Metadata:Participants","Item Type Metadata:Birth Date","Item Type Metadata:Birthplace","Item Type Metadata:Death Date","Item Type Metadata:Occupation","Item Type Metadata:Biographical Text","Item Type Metadata:Bibliography","Item Type Metadata:Player","Item Type Metadata:Imported Thumbnail","Item Type Metadata:Referrer",tags,file,itemType,collection,public,featured
"Witnessing the Effects of Near-History in Iraq","I did not start my assignment as a Middle East or Iraq expert; rather, my expertise lay more in knowledge of the U.S. military. The book provided a crash course in how the region got to where it was at that point, and it made an indelible impression on my understanding of the Middle East.","I was a newspaper reporter covering the War in Iraq in the late 2000s. My assignment was exciting, but often lonely. I bounced from town to town, usually embedded with the U.S. Army. At the end of a long day, there often was no one to talk to, grab a bite with or even watch a bootleg movie. What I did have, though, was a paperback copy of The Great War for Civilization by Robert Fisk. The book helped describe the near-history events that led to the real-time history I was witnessing on a daily basis. Through thorough research and masterful storytelling, I could better understand how an event decades earlier would reverberate throughout the entire region, setting the stage for what I was witnessing: more than 100,000 American troops trying to hold together a country that had fallen apart, creating a proxy war that drew in interests from the entire region. What I was witnessing firsthand provided the color, but the book added depth of understanding.
I did not start my assignment as a Middle East or Iraq expert; rather, my expertise lay more in knowledge of the U.S. military. The book provided a crash course in how the region got to where it was at that point, and it made an indelible impression on my understanding of the Middle East.","Robert Fisk","The Great War for Civilization by Robert Fisk",,2008,"Scott, 34, former journalist",,,,,,witnessing-effects-near-history,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"Armed Forces,Fisk, Robert,History,Iraq War (2003-2011),Journalism,The Great War for Civilization,The Middle East,Writers",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/87/effects-near-history-960x590.jpg,Text,,1,0
"Why We Always Come Back to Abraham Lincoln",,"Ken Burns describes how lines from a historic speech given by 29-year-old Abraham Lincoln have “haunted and inspired” him for nearly 40 years. Expanding on what is revealed in those sentences, Burns discusses how they speak not only to Lincoln’s basic character and optimism, qualities that proved essential to his presidency. He goes on to note that Lincoln’s words, here and elsewhere, are suggestive of what is best in the American character.
“A handful of sentences” from Lincoln’s 1838 Springfield speech on national security left a deep imprint on the filmmaker’s own philosophy. For Burns, Lincoln’s narrative illustrates how, as a nation, we are “still stitched together by words and, most important, their dangerous progeny, ideas.” Time and again, Lincoln’s eloquence and vision has guided Burns as he enlists documentary film to tell the story of the United States and its citizens.",,"Abraham Lincoln's 1838 speech on national security delivered in Springfield, Illinois",,,"Ken Burns, documentary filmmaker",,,,,,ken-burns-abraham-lincoln,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"",,,"American Speeches,Civil Rights Movement (United States),Documentary Films,Filmmakers,History,Liberty,Lincoln, Abraham,National Security,Optimism,Oratory,Presidents of the United States,Slavery,Springfield, Illinois,United States History","https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/3/24/ken-burns-1800.jpg,https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/3/24/young-lincoln.jpg","Moving Image","Ken Burns",1,0
"Why Americans in Indochina Wars?",,"I misunderstood the Geneva Accords and the reasons behind American involvement in Vietnam. I knew it was in the context of the Cold War but I did not understand why it had to happen and was I to teach a war or a conflict? After Pierre Asselin spoke on the subject and shared a similar map I understood that context was critical and that this was a war for the Vietnamese and a conflict the Americans could not politically shy away from.
The map chosen is significant as it is a Western perspective of a nation with delineations assigned by outsiders. Questions emerged. Where is Vietnam? Who is Vietnam? How could this map possibly tell me the answers.
It was in viewing this map and reflecting on the conversations and lectures from the seminar that I better understand this was a complex situation for a diverse group of people who had to answer difficult questions in the context of the Cold War. Who you claimed to be determined if you were a friend or foe of the United States. If a friend threatened to fall to our enemy, what choice did we have but to act in order to save an ally. As France used the Cold War to gain American support, the North Vietnamese used our own words to defend its independence. It was a time for hard choices, and we made ours: to defend democracy from tyranny of communism.
This moment in history resonated with me because I walked away finally feeling like I understood what various peoples of Vietnam were fighting for and how the United States fit into the narrative.
",,,,"July 1954","Kate Cruze, 35, History Teacher, Greensboro NC",,,,,,why-americans-in-indochina-wars,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"National Humanities Center Summer Seminar","History,Teachers & Teaching,Vietnam,Vietnam War (1961-1975)",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/13/200/French_Indochina_post_partition.png,"Still Image","Contested Territory: America’s Role in Southeast Asia, 1945–75",1,0
"Who is the Hero of Animal Farm?",,"When I was in middle school I came to love history, especially Russian history and Hitler's Germany. This time period intrigued me, plus I learned if I read about communists and Nazis, teachers would leave me alone, and allow me to read. My father recommended George Orwell's Animal Farm while I was in 8th grade. I read the book, and enjoyed it, then moved on.
In ninth grade social studies, I had to read a satire and present it to the class. I asked to read Animal Farm, and gave the worst presentation. But my teacher stopped me and began to ask me questions, especially about links between current events and the book. I was able to make connections.
In eleventh grade, my social studies teacher, Mr. Eldeman, had my class read and discuss Animal Farm. He asked us questions about the book, and one question has stuck with me. Who is the hero of the book? As a class we would present a character, and he would show us why the character was not the hero. We never answered the question. 5 years after I graduated, I ran into Mr. Eldeman, and asked him who was the hero, his response was who do you think? To this day I still do not know the answer.",,"Animal Farm by George Orwell",,"Middle School and High school ","Mary Catherine Keating, 52, Teacher ",,,,,,who-is-hero-animal-farm,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"Professional Development","Animal Farm,Critical Thinking,High School Teachers,History,Novels,Orwell, George,Satire,Social Commentary,Teachers & Teaching",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/334/ed-robertson-eeSdJfLfx1A-unsplash.jpg,Text,,1,0
"When Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb? Is More Than a Trivia Question",,"In the summer of 2006, my best friend and I stumbled upon a book called, Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb. The book summarizes the post-presidential lives of the American Presidents, details their passing and funerals, and finishes with a commentary on each. After reviewing how close many of them were to our apartment in Virginia, we decided to embark on a pilgrimage to the burial sites. What followed has been a decade plus journey throughout the country to the biggest of big cities, New York, to the smallest of small towns, Plymouth Notch, to visit these final resting places.
Each site, like the president memorialized is unique in its own way. Some presidents, like Lincoln, have giant memorials that match their legacies where others, like Coolidge, are the definition of unpretentious. Some, like Washington, are on sprawling plantations. Others, like Van Buren, are in rural cemeteries. This is a testament to the impact that power and privilege play even in death.
Traipsing through countless cemeteries, I have often reflected on the role that memory and memorialization play in our lives. Mixed in with some presidents are people whose stories have long been forgotten or, perhaps worse, were never even told. I wonder: Who are these people? Why are they buried here? What was their life like? Thankfully public historians are actively seeking to rectify this.
When I mention my macabre hobby I inevitably get asked, ""Why?"" The easy answer is that it blends my interest in the presidency and my love of travel. The more philosophical answer? I suppose there is a particular unexpectedness of observing the humanities in a cemetery, yet what is more universally human then death? For it is on these trips with my best friend, other friends, family, and my wife that I have felt the greatest connection to people. Be it laughing with friends on a car trip, eating and connecting with the local townspeople, or meeting and reflecting with other history aficionados.
So who is buried in Grant's tomb? Well, not even Ulysses Grant as he is interred above ground.","Brian Lamb","Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb?: A Tour of Presidential Gravesites",,"Summer 2006","Bradley T. Swain, 38, Social Studies Teacher at West Springfield High School",,,,,,buried-grant-tomb-more-than-trivia-question,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"Professional Development ","Discovery,Equality,Gravestones,History,Memorials,Presidents of the United States,Public Spaces",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/4/527/veteran-1885567_640.jpg,Text,Educators,1,0
"Visiting the Anne Frank House",,"At the age of 16, I had the opportunity to travel to Amsterdam with my family. Even at an early age, I had a genuine interest in history and different cultures of the world, and I had never traveled outside of the country, so I was very excited about this trip.
In our travels through the city, I had many wonderful experiences. I visited several nice restaurants, had seen interesting live performances, and soaked up the culture everywhere I went. I went to the Van Gogh museum and beautiful Catholic churches hidden throughout seemingly regular neighborhoods. The most memorable venture for me, however, was when I went to the Anne Frank house.
I don't think anything can necessarily prepare a person for an experience like that. Sure, one can read about the atrocities of the mid-twentieth century that took place all over Europe - worldwide, really - and one can view photographs online of the reprehensible things that were done to people over the course of that time, but it's difficult to fully comprehend what people were subjected to until you are actually standing in the same space where it all occurred.
Behind a normal-looking, innocuous bookshelf on the top floor in what used to be Anne Frank's father's business, opened up a single space that was approximately 450 square feet in size. For two years, eight people hid in this tiny space from an invader who was determined to find and exterminate people like them. Upon entering that room, I was floored. I couldn't believe that they were forced to live like that - in hiding from murderous tyrants.
I think that's when I realized the power of the human spirit and its will to survive. What lengths could a person be willing to go to simply stay alive and protect the ones he or she loves? I posit that that limit doesn't exist; people will likely do anything necessary to survive. ",,,,2001,"Jared Willis, 34, Student",,,,,,visiting-the-anne-frank-house,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"Amsterdam, Netherlands,Family,Frank, Anne,History,Holocaust,World War II (1939-1945)",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/363/anne_frank_house.jpg,Text,,1,0
"Understanding History as Gossip",,"
Author, educational advocate, and entrepreneur David Bruce Smith discusses a transformational moment in his education, during which a high school teacher showed him the revelatory truth that history, at its core, is a collection of stories and gossip. Smith believes strongly that by presenting history to students as a series of exciting and illuminating stories, we can cultivate a more widespread appreciation for—and understanding of—history’s importance in the next generation of learners.
Curator's note: The Grateful American™ Foundation is dedicated to restoring enthusiasm in American history for kids and adults. Smith holds a bachelor’s degree in American Literature from George Washington University, and a master’s in Journalism from New York University. During the past 20 years he has been a real estate executive and the editor-in-chief/publisher of Crystal City Magazine. He is the author of 11 books, including his most recent title, American Hero: John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States. The Grateful American Book Series for children, featuring historic couples that were partnerships, debuts in the fall with Abigail and John—a joint biography of the Adams's.
",,,,,"David Bruce Smith, Founding Father of the Grateful American™ Foundation",,,,,,david-bruce-smith-history,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"",,"Heidi Camp","History,Teachers & Teaching",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/296/Washington_Crossing_the_Delaware.jpg,"Moving Image",,1,0 "The Virginia State Capitol: Past and Present","An architectural design conveys the meaning or purpose of a building. The designer want us to experience something when we see, enter, or tour a building. But it strikes me that the architecture itself can have many meanings and that historical events and people who live and work in buildings can transform their original intent. The humanities should teach us to appreciate architecture and understand the meaning of public buildings, but they also give us the tools to see beyond the edifice, the structure, the artistic beauty. When we look beyond the purpose of the building to the people inside, we are likely to find a new and different meaning and purpose.","I had been to the Virginia State Capitol many times since I moved to Richmond in 1989. I’ve viewed proceedings in the House and Senate chambers, held meetings for students, given several lectures in the meeting rooms, and toured the building with family, friends, and students. Yet, until I took part in the Humanities in Class project with the National Humanities Center, I had not thought carefully about why the building was so important, both to me and to the people of Virginia. Just recently I visited the Capitol with a group of students and as I looked up at huge white columns and wandered through the building, I began to think more deeply about the transformative nature of this place. I looked past the architecture, the museum pieces and the contemporary issues debated in the General Assembly to the problem of race in the history of Virginia. I also began to think of its ability to transform the lives of my students. An architectural design conveys the meaning or purpose of a building. The designer want us to experience something when we see, enter, or tour a building. But it strikes me that the architecture itself can have many meanings and that historical events and people who live and work in buildings can transform their original intent. The humanities should teach us to appreciate architecture and understand the meaning of public buildings, but they also give us the tools to see beyond the edifice, the structure, the artistic beauty. When we look beyond the purpose of the building to the people inside, we are likely to find a new and different meaning and purpose.","Thomas Jefferson with Charles-Louis Clerriseau","The Virginia State Capitol",,"July 2017","Daniel J. Palazzolo, 56, professor of political science at the University of Richmond",,,,,,virginia-state-capitol-past-present,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"",,,"Architecture,Capitols,Clérisseau, Charles-Louis,History,Jefferson, Thomas,Presidents of the United States,Professors,Public Buildings,Racism,Richmond, Virginia,Teachers & Teaching,University of Richmond,Virginia State Capitol",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/7/105/7358972234_b6c87cd027_b.jpg,"Moving Image",#Humanitiesinclass,1,0 "The Streets of New York Are Like a Library",,"In this video submission, artist Carter Thompson discusses how a recent exhibit on the Harlem Renaissance revealed some of the fascinating history of the century-old building in which he lives and helped him feel a connection across the decades with those who lived in the neighborhood before him. Thompson describes how his sensibilities as an artist are informed by the stories of those who have walked the same streets, or seen the angle of the light in much the same way. He also notes how the humanities help us to bridge differences wrought by time and vastly different life experiences, and to find the common threads of our shared humanity.",,"An art exhibition on the Harlem Renaissance",,,"Carter Thompson, artist and designer",,,,,,new-york-is-like-a-library,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"",,,"Architecture,Art Exhibitions,Artists,Harlem Renaissance,History,New York, New York,Photography,Storytelling",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/36/NY_architecture.jpg,"Moving Image",,1,0 "The Second Shelf and Beyond",,"In elementary school, Kathryn Hill itched to move beyond the first shelf of the library books. When she finally reached the second shelf, a new world awaited her: biographies of historical figures. The lives of women such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, and Dorothea Dix led her to understand that history was all about stories. She realized that her own life “needed to be about something”—and that it could be. ",,"Biographies of historical figures such as Harriet Tubman and Dorothea Dix",,,"Kathryn Hill, President, The Levine Museum of the New South",,,,,,kathryn-hill-second-shelf,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"",,,"Biography,Blackwell, Elizabeth,Books & Reading,Dix, Dorothea,History,Libraries,Pitcher, Molly,School Libraries,Storytelling,Stowe, Harriet Beecher,Tubman, Harriet,U.S. History,Women's History",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/140/Harriet_Beecher_Stowe_c1852..jpg,"Moving Image",,1,0 "The Pledge of Barbados",,"Standing on Chamberlain Bridge and looking at Independence Arch, I began reading the Barbadian Pledge. Instantly my brain goes to each school morning when students stand and say the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance. Both symbolize a promise of loyalty to a nation represented by a flag, but why do humans feel the need to align to a specific political entity and profess this allegiance to others? I have come to the conclusion that it is a mixture of pride, identity, and competition. Barbados and the United States achieved independence from Great Britain, and the pledge shows the pride in being a separate nation. It was a way for citizens to define themselves different from the previous identity connected to Europe. Even though neither pledge was written or established in the immediate time after independence, both wanted to create an identity that links the people of their nation within a very connected world. Humans are also innately competitive, and whenever there is a competition one team/nation links themselves to symbols. Both the flag design and pledge of Barbados were even created as part of competitions. Pride and identity represented in the pledge and flag carry over to the numerous international competitions such as the Olympics and the World Cup. The emotion seen at sporting events of the 21st century are intense. Some may see this competition as divisive among people, but I feel the pride for a nation shown through say the pledge or waving a flag as a human trait carried throughout the world. There is disagreement over when to say a pledge or if a person should say the pledge at all, but this belief in choosing an identity to be proud of is one shared by humankind. ",,"The Pledge of Barbados",,"June 18, 2018","Elizabeth Mulcahy, Social Studies Teacher",,,,,,the-pledge-of-barbados,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"Andy Mink","Barbados,Chamberlain Bridge,Citizenship,Colonialism,History,Nationalism,Teachers & Teaching",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/12/190/barbados_flag.png,Text,"Virginia Geographic Alliance West Indies Teacher Institute",1,0 "The Only Person of Color in the Room",,"At 95, Betty Reid Soskin is the oldest active U.S. Park Ranger. Having lived through wars, racial segregation, and other turbulent times in our history, she says empathy and world peace are possible through the humanities.
To celebrate its 40th year anniversary of grant making, programming, and partnerships that connect Californians to each other, California Humanities invited a group of 40 prominent Californians to explore what the humanities mean to them. For more information visit California Humanities: We Are the Humanities.
",,,"California Humanities",,"Betty Reid Soskin, U.S. National Park Service Ranger","Standard YouTube License",,,,,betty-reid-soskin-us-national-park-ranger,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"",,,"African American History,American Civil War & Collective Memory,Ancestors,Collective Memory,Empathy,Historic Sites,Historical Memory,History,National Parks & Reserves,Peace,Race Relations,Slavery,United States Park Rangers,Women's History",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/5/56/1985_ribbon_cutting_African_American_Park_Ranger.jpg,"Moving Image","California Humanities: “We Are the Humanities”",1,0 "The long arc of history",,"My humanities moment is about a brilliant encyclopedia which covered the vastness of world history from the prehistoric times to the present day in a concise and engrossing manner. I remember seeing the encyclopedia as a 5th grader in my neighbourhood bookstore. I was entranced by the picture on the book jacket. I think it was a medieval Norman-English stained glass painting. The book was imported into India and was very expensive, so my parents did not agree to get it immediately. I remember stopping by the bookstore many times on my way back from school and checking if the book was still on sale. I finally persuaded my parents to buy it for me. One of the more interesting parts was that for every historical era there were timelines which showed significant events in every continent of the world. It made me appreciate how different civilizations and cultures went through ups and downs through the centuries, and how some went extinct while others adapted to changing circumstances and persisted through the tough times. It also makes you understand that the present world order is just a slice in the long arc of history and is not permanent. The book really created in me a lifelong curiosity for history. I think learning about history also enlightens you about what makes communities and cultures strong and successful. Things like a healthy scepticism against dogma, a robust justice system and a conducive climate for innovation are all things which enable great societies. And I think we should all be cognizant of it so that we can improve our communities. ",,"Kingfisher World History Encyclopedia ",,1999,"Milind Kulkarni, 30, Engineer",,,,,,milind-kulkarni-long-arc-history,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"Nora Nunn","Books & Reading,Curiosity,Encyclopedias,Engineers,History,Kingfisher World History Encyclopedia,Surat, India",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/283/Unknown.jpeg,Text,,1,0 "The Liberation of Our Past",,"The Barbados Museum and Historical Society is located in a former military prison. Its original purpose of control through force and containment is clear and obvious when I entered the present-day museum. Cannons flank the entrance, a symbol of calculated and brutal violence. The façade is imposing, an intimidating tall arch way designed not to invite but to deter entrance. However, today it is a place of education, a site of liberation for the thousands of stories of people and events in the island’s past. That past for Barbados is incredibly complex. Built on coldly calculated and horrific brutality of agricultural production and subsequent cultural diffusion, the island today grapples with economic, political, and social successes, challenges, and the myriad of geographic factors that influence their narrative to the present day. Education is critical to Barbadians history and culture. Education was restricted from enslaved Africans, planters viewing an education as catalyst for rebellion. Upon becoming a sovereign nation, Barbados made a social and political commitment to education. Across the island, the pride and commitment to education is obvious. It is the theme that many social-historians touch on as a key marker for its rise in development relative to other island countries that make up the Caribbean. Barbadian planters feared the liberating force of education, Barbadians themselves intertwined economic and political independence with education, and today, many Barbadians put high value on education’s ability to promote the freedom of job opportunity and prosperity on or outside of the island. This literal former prison’s repurposing into a historic museum was itself a catalyst to understanding Barbados, but also the challenge of the humanities as people grapple with their own past, present, and the connections between them. As people, we look to past individuals and stories and attempt to reutilize or repurpose them to educate, improve, or respond to contemporary and future challenges. This museum, and its reutilization of the prison as a place of confinement to that of freedom is symbolic of that process. Barbados’ past is brutal and complex and, rather than imprisoning that narrative, we must learn and use those real and human truths to promote a better future. ",,,,"June 2018 ","John Skelton, 30, Teacher, Virginia",,,,,,the-liberation-of-our-past,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"Andy Mink","Architecture,Barbados,Education,Geography,History,Museums,Prisons,Teachers & Teaching,Violence",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/12/192/Barbados_Museum.jpg,Text,"Virginia Geographic Alliance West Indies Teacher Institute",1,0 "The Emancipation Act of 1834 and our Shared Freedom Story",,"“To be honest, I’m glad my family didn’t go to America. We ended slavery 30 years earlier. What were YOU guys thinking?” Our Bajan tour guide of St. Nicholas Abbey told us this as we walked through the sugarcane plantation house. She chuckled, and we along with her, albeit awkwardly. She was right, too; the day before, our research group got to actually leaf through the Emancipation Act of 1834, the physical document that started the process of freedom in Barbados. THE original document! We all casually crowded around the pages and touched them with are bare hands. Compare that with the Declaration of Independence, which literally had a whole movie made about how impossible it would be to steal that document. The concepts of freedom and liberation are remarkable, almost overwhelming to think about. As such I, along with many others, anchor these to our own experiences. I interact with freedom and liberation in an uniquely American way; I talk about the First Amendment with my US History students, and we discuss the Emancipation Proclamation as a seminal moment in the American story. However, sometimes this lens leads me to think that freedom itself is uniquely American. When I hear the word freedom, and mind immediately jumps to the Stars and Stripes. This, of course, is ridiculous. We didn’t invent freedom; in fact, we were pretty late to the party. The communities we grew up in shape our worldview. Often, they give us a nearsightedness with regards to monumental events and processes. There are freedom stories from all over the world; it is our job, as global citizens, to learn and grow from them. Therefore, we can better understand and appreciate how each of our communities’ narratives fits within a far greater, and far richer, story. ",,"The Emancipation Act of 1834",,"June 2018","Chris Cantone, 24, US History and World History I teacher at Albemarle High School in Albemarle County, Virginia",,,,,,the-emancipation-act-of-1834-and-our-shared-freedom-story,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"Andy Mink","Barbados,Emancipation Act of 1834 (Barbados),Emancipation Proclamation (United States),History,Liberation,Slavery,Teachers & Teaching,U.S. History",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/12/191/Emancipation_Barbados.jpeg,Text,"Virginia Geographic Alliance West Indies Teacher Institute",1,0 "The Day I Decided to Major in History",,"Graduate student Justina Licata explains how a junior high school teacher's passion and influence led her to embrace the study of history as a lifelong vocation.",,"A teacher's lesson",,"When I was 12 or 13 in the eighth grade.","Justina Licata, 32 years old, Ph.D. Candidate",,,,,,day-I-decided-to-major-in-history,,,,,,"Hello, my name is Justina Licata, and I am a Ph.D. student studying history at UNC-G. And my humanities moment relates to how I became a history major many years ago, and it dates back to my eighth grade year. I think I was 13, I may have been 12. I went to school in Southern California in a town called Yorba Linda, it's actually where Nixon was born. Anyway, side-note. And I was very excited to take history, particularly U.S. history, I loved, loved history because my parents really made it a big part of my childhood by buying my sister and I lots of great books about history and art history. So I already had a really great foundation for loving history, but my eighth grade history/social studies teacher really kind of cemented it for me. Her name was Mrs. McClain and she was a fabulous teacher. She did a great job of making history feel alive and present, not just something that happened in the far past. One way she did this was, I was in eighth grade during the 2000 Bush V. Gore election. And she took the time to, on an almost daily basis, kind of update us as that recount was occurring and explaining to us what was happening, how the Supreme Court participated in that election's decision, and she just really made the present feel as if it's a historical moment that we were living through and kind of appreciating that moment, whether we liked the outcome of that election or not, as a historical moment to pay attention to and that something people in the future will be reflecting upon, which is kind of poignant because the dissertation I'm working on is actually quite contemporary, something that's happened in the 90's mostly. And so it's been interesting to think back on how her, kind of, encapsulating that the present is a historical moment as well was really poignant for me. One other thing I wanted to mention is that there was a particular lesson that she gave that really kind of made me realize that you could study history as a career and not just study, you know, the math and the science and the English, you know. That actually history could be something that you spent much of your college career dedicated to, which was something I didn't realize even though I loved it so much. So one day she, I don't actually recall what the lesson was about, but I'm assuming it was the Civil War because of what I will tell you in a minute, but she took the time to tell us a little bit about a paper she wrote in college, and I remember that she was writing, she was asked to write a paper about two years in the Federal Congress, so to examine two years in which of the House and Senate and what they did during that one session. So, she, I remember she told us that she chose to write about the 37th United States Congress which was the Congress that was sitting during the Civil War, so half of the Congress was not actually attending, half the members were not actually attending the sessions and going to Congress and D.C. because they had seceded. And I just remember being so fascinated by this, and I couldn't even explain why I was so fascinated, I just thought wow that sounds so fascinating, and I wanted to write something similar. And, I remember thinking, well, that must, I don't think everyone's probably having this reaction to her explaining a paper she wrote in college, but I did remember also thinking that in that moment, realizing, oh, you can actually choose to major in history, and you can focus and learn, you know, in depth, about this topic, and that that was, in fact, what I really wanted to do, that I just loved history so much, and the idea of making this thing that I loved a career was truly remarkable and really poignant for me. And so pretty much after that day, I told anyone who cared that I was going to, in fact, major in history and that I wanted to do something related to history as a career. I didn't know what that would be yet, but I did, in fact, go and do that, and I was really, I'm just so grateful that Mrs. McClain made that something that felt accessible to me, that she made it so that it felt like you can absolutely go and do this, and she kind of also gave me further insight as to how colleges worked which was really helpful as I was entering high school and starting to think about college in a more serious way, so I am very very indebted to Mrs. McClain, and I haven't spoken with her in a while, so I hope to try and maybe track her down and tell her how much I appreciated what she did for me way back then. So, thank you so much, I appreciate it, and that is my humanities moment. Okay, thanks.",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"",,"During the Graduate Student Summer Residency Program ","High School Students,History,Presidential Elections,Self-Realization,Teachers & Teaching,Yorba Linda, CA",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/15/321/HM_White_House_image.jpg,Sound,"Graduate Student Summer Residents 2019",1,0 "The Currency of Emotional Intelligence",,"Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye is the 28th Chief Justice of the State of California. She recalls her experiences as a student in a humanities class in college, her upbringing in a Filipino community of hardworking women eager to pass on their traditions, and her realization that the humanities teach us to celebrate and respect the stories and uniqueness of people.
To celebrate its 40th year anniversary of grant making, programming, and partnerships that connect Californians to each other, California Humanities invited a group of 40 prominent Californians to explore what the humanities mean to them. For more information visit California Humanities: We Are the Humanities.
",,,,,"Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye, 28th Chief Justice of the State of California ",,,,,,tani-gorre-cantil-sakauye,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"",,,"Community Colleges,Cultural History,Families,Filipino Americans,History,Justices,Oral Tradition,Teachers & Teaching",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/5/146/Hawaii_Filipino_Welcome_Philippine_Navy_Capt.jpg,"Moving Image","California Humanities: “We Are the Humanities”",1,0 "The “Infinitely Human”: Life Writings, Locks of Hair and Lived History ",,"Like fellow humanists, I struggled to pick a single moment to describe and share with you. However, while delving into my corpus (life writings – mostly diaries, autobiographies and memoirs - from the Franco-German borderland, Alsace-Lorraine, at the turn of the twentieth century), I am reminded of a unique moment I experienced when I discovered these documents in the archives. In May 2018, the week after finishing my first year of the PhD program in the French and Francophone Studies Department at Penn State, I set out on my first archival trip to Strasbourg, France. Once in the archives, my curiosity and intellect were quickly at odds with my limited resources and time. In most French departmental archives, researchers are allowed to order and go through eight archival boxes per day. They usually contain part of a collection, and can range from several pieces of paper to several hundred documents. Moreover, not all boxes are described in the archive’s “finding aid” or databases. The nature of their contents sometimes requires an educated guess based on the limited information available to you. As such, with only a month in France, my research choices needed to be strategic: I had to single out the boxes I believed would contain the best documents to help in my research. One collection in particular piqued my curiosity as the archivists Virginie Godar-Lejeune and Marie-Ange Glessgen described it as having an “infinitely human quality.” While these writings fell out of my delineated period of study, I nonetheless decided to follow my dissertation committee’s advice to “listen” to the archives, indeed to avail myself of what Alsatian-Lorrainers had deposited at the archives instead of narrowly executing the search for my anticipated corpus: I requested the boxes in question. After weeks of mechanically opening hundreds of envelopes and finding papers, postcards or greeting cards, I was quite taken aback when my fingers touched locks of hair. In addition to entire life papers (birth, marriage and death certificates, school grade reports, passports, and photographs), the boxes included locks of hair of every family member. Although I was aware of the practice of collecting children’s or spouses’ hair, I had quite a visceral reaction to seeing and touching it firsthand. The Lambs’ family archives almost systematically included such documents and objects for most family members between 1790 and 1936. The breadth of these documents spoke to the Lambs’ commitment to passing on their history: a small family of modest background in the industrial landscape of Strasbourg, France at the turn of the twentieth century. The intimacy of the objects included illustrated the family’s need to preserve their loved one’s memory. I spent the rest of the day reading through the entire family’s collection, learning about the parents’ love for their children, as well as their fear of losing them to wars and subsequent political instability in the region at that time. As a doctoral candidate, it can prove difficult to project yourself as a researcher who can meaningfully contribute to the world around you. This experience made me realize my role as a historian, specifically, as a link in the chain of “passeuses de memoire,” or living historians. While this collection is not featured in my dissertation, it has instilled in me a sense of responsibility to preserve and make available the life writings of ordinary people, which constitute my corpus. Literally touched by the history of the Lambs family, I felt compelled to pass on their history and memory as a means of understanding larger historical conjunctures. To this end, I assign some of their letters to students in French history courses to teach how individuals lived through the vicissitudes of Alsace-Lorraine’s history. The picture shows the lock of hair and passport photo of Emilie Lorentz-Lambs (1869-1929). The family’s archives (17J) reside at the Departmental Archives of the Bas-Rhin in Strasbourg, France. The collection is freely communicable and under no copyright laws. ",,,,"May 2018","Morgane Haesen, 28, PhD candidate (French and Francophone Studies), Penn State University ",,,,,,infinitely-human,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"NHC Graduate Winter Residency (2020)","Archives,Family Histories,Historical Memory,History,Strasbourg, France",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/17/419/NHC_Humanities_Moment.JPG,Text,"Graduate Student Residents 2020",1,0 "Story-Making and the Fault Lines of American Capitalism","This documentary film prompted historian Edward Balleisen to reflect on the powerful and protean role of storytelling in the American imagination, specifically in the realm of modern capitalism. An appreciation of the humanities may provide us with a deeper understanding of the shape-shifting role that stories play in the economic realm. This understanding, in turn, may serve as a compass as we, in Balleisen’s words, “navigate” the world around us.","Several weeks ago I had occasion to watch the new documentary, Betting on Zero. This fascinating film presents several interlinked stories, all related to the founding and growth of Herbalife, a multi-level-marketing company that sells nutritional supplements, weight loss concoctions, and the “business opportunity” to distribute these products. Among the narrative threads:
At issue in Betting on Zero is the primary question of which story about Herbalife would stick, whether with its sales agents, throughout the communities in which it operated, within the financial markets, or in courtrooms and regulatory agencies. What would become the prevalent, even official story about Herbalife’s purposes, practices, and impacts? Was the firm a vehicle for social and economic uplift, a mechanism for individuals with minimal education and social capital to build a proprietary business that would deliver the American dream, even make them wealthy? Or was it an especially cruel confidence game that separated the vast majority of its sellers from initial capital investments, and, even worse, turned them into recruiters who ensnared fellow community members in a losing proposition? This debate has been and remains a hotly contested one.
After watching this cinematic engagement with a contentious recent episode in the annals of American consumer capitalism, I found myself coming back again and again to a single scene. A few years into the battle waged by Bill Ackman, the camera zooms in on Herbalife CEO Mark Johnson as he addresses a sports stadium filled with Herbalife acolytes. Portraying the company as inevitably beset by establishment naysayers out to destroy Herbalife and the avenues of opportunity that it provided, Johnson proclaimed that he and the Herbalife family would fend off its enemies. The multi-level marketing firm, Johnson explained, would always “seize the narrative.” That might mean shining the public spotlight on hardworking, charismatic Herbalifers who had recruited so many other sales agents that they had ascended into the company’s Millionaire Team. Or proclaiming that in the household where Johnson was raised, the abiding parental message stressed the importance of “integrity” to sustain “trust.” Or reframing the motives of a financial operator like Ackman, implying that his short position undercut any arguments or analysis that he might put forward about the company’s mode of operations. Johnson offered a brash forecast of narrative dominance—that Herbalife would identify the narrative high ground, occupy it, and hold it against all comers.
This declaration struck me so forcibly in part because one rarely sees such candor about the role of stories and story-telling in the hurly burly world of American capitalism. Surrounded by insiders, Johnson was willing to pull back the curtain on how corporations approach public relations in the broadest sense—not just through the messages of advertisements and endorsements, but through the wider management of reputation and popular belief.
The comment from Johnson also resonated for me because it encapsulates so much of my own work as a historian of American law, policy, and business culture. For a quarter-century, I’ve been writing about fault-lines in American capitalism, the zones of instability created by an economic system depending on widespread trust in economic counterparties. For much of the 1990s, I focused on the legal, social, economic, and cultural problems posed by business failure in the nineteenth-century—those dislocating moments when the era’s firms could not pay their debts. Since then, I have been wrestling with the American flim-flam man (and woman), chasing after alleged and actual business frauds from the early nineteenth-century to the present, as well as investigating the shifting institutional responses to the problem of marketplace deceptions.
Stories, of course, help to grease the wheels of modern capitalism. Would be entrepreneurs construct them as they seek to persuade friends and relatives, banks, or venture capital firms to supply them with the funds they need to launch businesses. Advertisers dream up fantasies to convince consumers that some good or service truly offers a crucial need or fulfills some deeply felt want. Even without the prompting of some crisis or scandal, corporate public relations departments construct tales about corporate origins and the essential elements of a firm’s business culture, all to foster employees’ identification with their employer and customers’ identification with the firm’s products or services. In recent decades, business executives have spun yarns about their heroic contributions to financial results to justify gargantuan pay packages. For more than a century now, societies have also confronted a host of meta-stories about the workings of capitalism, such as descriptions (or forecasts) of the business cycle’s predictable arc, moving from growth to boom to bust and recession.
Hardly any of this story-making and telling goes uncontested. Savvy investors and lenders do not uncritically embrace the projections of those who seek after capital and credit. In competitive markets, firms challenge each other’s marketing narratives, as do consumer watchdogs and the business press. Labor unions usually offer a very different take on a company’s history and practices from that laid out by management. The same surely goes for social activists and journalistic muckrakers who seek to expose the negative consequences of corporate activity, whether for workers, consumers, or the environment. At least occasionally, stockholders express qualms about the munificence of executive compensation. And even if there is broad consensus about how to describe the business cycle, politicians and pundits hardly have achieved consensus about how much government can or should seek to moderate its swings. These opposing groups usually tell very different stories about the impacts of counter-cyclical monetary and fiscal policy.
The business narratives prompted by moments of failure or alleged deception tend to have an especially great urgency about them. For the proprietors, managers, and operators caught in the eye of a given storm, they involve questions of social standing, legitimacy, legal liability, economic future, even personal honor. They turn on interpretations of personal motivation, as well as understandings of the social norms, cultural values, and legal standards that structure economic exchange. And they have a collective dimension. As individual stories of bankruptcy and fraud multiply in a given era, they draw on prevailing macro-stories with familiar plotlines. As those macro-stories evolve in new circumstances, they can also help to establish reform agendas that seek to reconfigure social norms, cultural values, and legal standards.
To make these rather abstract points more concrete, consider the following primary sources, each involving a determined effort to “seize the narrative” about a specific enterprise facing existential threats.
The first source comes from a New York City bankruptcy case under the 1841 National Bankruptcy Act, the subject of my first book, Navigating Failure: Bankruptcy and Commercial Society in Antebellum America (2001). This short-lived legislation (Congress repealed it in 1843, just thirteen months after it went into operation) gave individuals the chance to petition for a discharge from their debts. Doing so required that petitioners offer a comprehensive list of their assets (most of which they would have to surrender to the federal court where they applied for relief) and their debts (which, if they successfully navigated the legal proceedings, they would no longer have to pay). One can infer a story of failure from this snapshot of property holdings and financial obligations, but such fragmentary evidence poses lots of interpretive challenges. One can of course dig for other relevant evidence about specific paths to insolvency. Occasionally, moreover, petitioners voluntarily offered a fuller account of their troubles as part of their bankruptcy filings. Such moves represented, at least in part, attempts to take out insurance against any counter-stories from creditors, who possessed the right to lodge formal objections to the granting of a bankruptcy discharge, or against eventual misconceptions by lawyers and the judiciary.
The document in question comes from the voluntary bankruptcy petition of Granville Sharpe Pattison, a New York City physician who found himself ensnared in complex and allegedly fraudulent land deals during the “mania” of the mid-1830s. Not content to offer up just a list of assets and debts, Pattison offered a detailed story that placed his insolvency in the context of the general asset craze that took hold in the run-up to the Panic of 1837. Describing himself as “excited by the spirit of speculation,” the doctor recounted his eager purchases of Illinois town lots and stock in a copper mining company on the basis of false claims about their value. Sometimes he paid by liquidating other assets. More frequently, amid the heady atmosphere of boom times, the transactions rested on his mere promises to pay in the future.
Pattison further explained that he could not raise challenge the legality of his debts in court, because the sellers had immediately transferred his obligations to “innocent third parties.” He also assured the court that he had never indulged in any “extravagance, having always lived within his income.”
Most importantly, Pattison insisted that he might have avoided insolvency had he been willing to look out only for himself, since he subsequently sold most of the property “to English capitalists at immense advances.” But once he discovered that the sales rested on outright misrepresentations, he claimed that “he spontaneously cancelled all the contracts of sale ... without having been asked to do so,” despite the fact that doing so left him unable to make good on his own debts. As Pattison described his thinking, he would rather “be a Bankrupt in fortune” than allow “the shadow of a suspicion ... [to] rest on the uprightness and rectitude of his character.” Even the handwriting that produced this self-exoneration told a story of sorts, conveying a firm, clear penmanship that invited trust from readers.
The next two sources come from twentieth-century entrepreneurs who confronted highly publicized allegations of business fraud, each of whom received some attention in my most recent book, Fraud: An American History from Barnum to Madoff. Edward Lewis, a key figure in Chapter Six of Fraud, developed a cluster of businesses from his early twentieth-century base outside Saint Louis, including a subscription magazine that targeted rural women, a mail order bank, and a correspondence university. His legal troubles began with administrative fraud orders that damaged his core businesses and eventually led to criminal mail fraud proceedings. Glenn W. Turner, who makes a cameo appearance in Chapter Ten of Fraud, ran multi-level marketing schemes in the early 1970s that offered self-help literature/records and cosmetics, as well as opportunities to make income through recruitment of sales agents. His businesses attracted civil actions by a slew of state Attorneys General, as well as the Federal Trade Commission.
Though separated by more than six decades and pursuing different businesses, the two businessmen adopted similar strategies in the effort to shape public perceptions and deflect allegations off fraudulent behavior. Lewis vigorously defended himself through his magazine, political and journalistic allies, and an eventual book, published in 1911, Order Number Ten: Being Cursory Comments on Some of the Effects of the Great American Fraud Order, which collected a series of editorials from Lewis’s Woman’s Magazine. I include here the text of the fraud order against Lewis that he placed at the beginning of the volume, the publisher’s preface, Lewis’s “Introductory,” one illustration conveying popular skepticism toward new ideas, his “Afterthoughts,” and a hard-sell recruiting plea at the back of the volume for book agents to market a related volume. These excerpts hit many recurring themes in the narratives offered up by alleged fraudsters: the difficulty of distinguishing economic deception from enthusiastic promotion at the forefront of innovation; the tendency of powerful, entrenched interests—in this case, the Post Office—to discredit competitors that threatened their position; and declarations of deep affection for those investors and customers who stood by him despite unjust persecution.
Glenn W. Turner similarly expended considerable effort to convince the public that he, in the words of his authorized biographer, was a “saint” rather than a “con man.” I offer here the text from the back cover of Turner’s 1975 promotional album, “Glenn W. Turner SPEAKS OUT: ‘You Can Better Your Best.’” In this concise marketing pitch, Turner put forward a common rendering from American entrepreneurs of all stripes—the remarkable rise from difficult circumstances—as well as the persistent theme of uplift through a mutualistic sharing of opportunity to others who lack advantages.
The authors of these such stories themselves depended deeply on humanistic modes of thought and action. They put forward arguments, evoked sentiments, and sought to influence public opinion and/or official decision-making through personal accounts that drew on widely shared metaphors, tropes, and narrative arcs. For Granville Sharpe Pattison, the voluntary narrative of honorable failure may not have been necessary, since no creditors appeared to challenge his version of events. For both Edward Lewis and Glenn Tucker, tales of innovative striving helped their inveterate investors and customers keep the faith, but lacked punch with officialdom. Each had business empires upended as a result of legal actions; each ended up doing stints in jail as a result of criminal fraud convictions.
We are storytellers and consumers of stories, all of us, and not just in the realm of culture or family or other social relations or politics, but also in our economic and legal lives. The sharpest conflicts within modern capitalism turn in large measure on contending efforts to seize the narrative. Granville Sharpe Pattison, Edward Lewis, Glenn Turner, Michael Johnson, Julie Contreras, Bill Ackman and countless others have crafted stories in order to shape agendas, define the realm of the possible, assign blame or credit, justify or undermine, move themselves and others to action. These endeavors may not accord with all or even most of the relevant facts. They do not always manage to attain the highest narrative ground, nor hold it against all the counter-stories pressing up the slopes of our collective culture. But they reflect our essential nature as story-making, story-telling, and story-craving beings, who inevitably construct narratives to render our world intelligible.
This basic humanistic insight is crucial for clear-eyed understandings of how modern societies have handled thorny problems such as bankruptcy or business fraud. Indeed, this insight is crucial for making sense of wider questions about how modern capitalism works, who enjoys the fruits of its bounty, who has to bear its risks and costs, and how its mechanics and outcomes accord with our sense of justice.
Recognition of this essential perspective also can make us savvier consumers and investors, more thoughtful workers, professionals, managers, owners, and retirees, and more deliberative citizens. If we understand the ubiquity and power of stories in the economic realm, we will be better armed to identify them, to evaluate their basis in fact, and to appreciate their emotional pull. And that level of understanding can only help us as we navigate the complexities of a capitalist society.
For those interested in additional reading about story-making and its impact on how we make sense of the history of economic life (and the past, present, and future more generally), see:
I’m Julia Nguyen and my Humanities Moment, or at least this one because my life has been full of Humanities Moments, as a child—so a relatively early one—going to the National Military Park in Vicksburg, in Mississippi. I was raised in a family that has always been very interested in history, but going to that park really changed the way I thought about both history and the way that we think about history.
I remember being about twelve and the guide is explaining that the park is full of monuments that have been erected by individual states, veteran’s groups, other kinds of institutions, and explaining, for example, that every one is different and that the states themselves or the veteran’s groups decided what they wanted their monument to look like and what that was going to say about, say, involvement of troops from Mississippi in the siege of Vicksburg or the involvement of troops from Massachusetts.
That was the first time I had ever really thought about historical memory as a concept, and the idea that a monument is not just about the history, it’s about how society or a group or an individual wants us to remember the history. For a twelve-year old, that kind of blew my mind. This idea that monuments and historic sites are not themselves history; they are a representation of history. That has always really stuck with me.
I can still remember that moment so clearly, and as I then as an adult studied history in college, went on to graduate school—my own work as a historian is not in historical memory, but that concept continues to shape the way I think about the practice of history and the way that I do history myself: the idea that doing research and writing history is also a representation of what I or any other historian wants society to know or think about the past.
When I write history, I’m not writing the pure past. It doesn’t exist. I’m writing an interpretation, and I think sometimes we as historians, and it’s I think a natural human tendency—“Oh yes, of course, historians of the past were influenced by their own biases or perspectives, or the limitation of the sources that they had access to, but we do things better now!” Certainly, in some cases that’s true. We have access to more sources in some cases. You know, certainly the history of the Cold War can be written differently after the fall of the Soviet Union. But it’s still being shaped by our own perspectives, our own biases, the society in which we live and operate.
I try to keep that in mind as I do my own historical research and writing. Also of course, I think that now that we’re in a moment that monuments have become flashpoints again, it’s important to remember that sort of “ah-ha” moment, that sort of moment where my perspective was completely shifted, and remember that the monuments themselves are not the history. They are a representation of the history, and it’s important to know the full context in which they were erected and also to know the message that the creators wanted to convey, and what that says about them as individuals and organizations, and what it says about us as a society and the way that we choose to remember—or not remember—certain aspects of our history.
",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"",,"NEH ""Contested Territory"" summer institute","Collective Memory,Historians,History,Statues,U.S. Civil War (1861-1865),U.S. History,Vicksburg, Mississippi,Vocation",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/222/Brigadier_General_Lloyd_Tilghman_Vicksburg_Monument.jpg,Sound,,1,0 "St Cuthbert: Just One Voice in a Silent Crowd",,"In the summer of 2017 I was visiting my family in the northeast of the UK as I prepared to begin my Ph.D. in the United States. I had been out of academia for a few years and was eager to get back to working on my passion - the literature of early medieval England. As luck would have it, in that same year Durham Cathedral had launched a new exhibition of the relics of the Anglo-Saxon hermit and bishop, St Cuthbert. After some convincing, my parents and I went up to Durham for the day and my father and I came face-to-face with the incredible trove.I like picnics. Picnics take us outside, to share food with people we like. Those are my three favorite things, and picnics offer all three with a minimum of fuss or cost.
Every picnic is a special occasion. But one stands out because it showed me how much we can learn from deeply observing the world around us. Such observation joins us to the experiences of those who have come before, and perhaps even see through their eyes. It is a humanities experience.
One summer day, to celebrate a birthday, my spouse and I packed up our little girls and went to California’s China Camp State Park for a picnic. China Camp is a few hundred acres of oak savannah and salt marshes on the Marin County shoreline of San Francisco Bay. It is a humble place, just a few buildings clustered around an old pier, but the sheltered cove offers one of the few calm wading beaches in San Francisco Bay. Settled at the lone picnic table under a feral plum tree buzzing with bees, we ate our food and then played with our toddlers on the gravelly shore.
But it wasn’t gravel, we soon realized. It was shell. Much of the beach was composed of tiny, sharp oyster shells of the California oyster, Ostrea lurida. Long thought functionally extinct, the bay’s native oyster still flourished on the Marin Shore and across the bay near the Chevron oil refinery. This humble state park, named for the Chinese shrimp fishermen who lived and worked here in the 19th and 20th centuries, represented not only a physical reminder of these men’s presence, but also the bounty of fish and shellfish that fed Californians for more than a century.
For me the picnic brought an epiphany. San Francisco Bay is not only the battered, polluted remnant of a majestic natural resource, as environmentalists often see it. It continues to be the living, thriving host to the West’s most productive wetlands and California’s green heart. The water that circulates through the bay sustains both the human and nonhuman communities of the region. The shell, and its place, tell an environmental history. They reveal the interdependence of humanity and nonhuman nature. What looks like a purely cultural space turns out to be full of nature. And what looks like a purely natural space turns out to be full of culture. San Francisco Bay, like the oyster and China Camp State Park, is a hybrid of human labor and natural forces.
I am not trying to be nostalgic. Such hybrids are not always peaceful, just, or safe. Indeed the Chevron refinery does more than shelter a threatened native species. The neighboring community, which is mostly nonwhite and disproportionately low-income, suffers from the presence of the refinery. The refinery site is the continuing site of contamination, illness, and hazardous exposure and a textbook case in environmental injustice. Living well with nature requires sharing the risks of our industrial society, not just dumping them on the vulnerable.
My “humanities moment,” then, is an oyster shell I found in an unlikely urban setting. The shell and its place taught me a lesson about nature’s resilience, about memory, and the imperative for social justice. All three are elements I associate with the humanities.
","San Francisco Bay","San Francisco Bay",,"May 2004","Matthew Booker, associate professor of American environmental history, North Carolina State University",,,,,,resilience-humility-picnics,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"China Camp State Park, California,Ecology,Environmental Humanities,Environmental Racism,History,Nature & Civilization,Oyster Fisheries,Petroleum Industry,Picnics,Professors,San Francisco Bay,Social Ecology,United States History",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/8/89/Fishing_Community.jpg,Text,"National Humanities Center Fellows",1,0 "Reclaiming Richmond",,"Historian Ed Ayers discusses how Richmond, Virginia’s 2015 sesquicentennial celebration drew upon the past to re-imagine the future. He emphasizes the ways in which the event’s planners sought to honor the diversity of perspectives and lived experiences in the former capital of the Confederacy.",,"The 2015 sesquicentennial in Richmond, Virginia",,"April 2015","Dr. Ed Ayers, former President and Professor of History at the University of Richmond, former President of the Organization of American Historians, and noted public historian",,,,,,ed-ayers-reclaiming-richmond,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"",,"NHC GSSR 2019","American Civil War (1861-1865),Emancipation Proclamation (United States),Historians,History,Richmond Sesquicentennial,Richmond, Virginia",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/314/Monument_Avenue_and_Lee_Monument_Richmond_Va._[16810945346].jpg,"Moving Image",,1,0 "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,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"Professional Development through FCPS in Virginia, USA","Architecture,History,Tbilisi, Georgia",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/4/529/tbilisi-3410419_640.jpg,Text,Educators,1,0 "Overlooked Histories",,"The image of this colorful sign is obviously meant to be “fun” and perhaps even funny. When I took this picture while traveling with fellow teachers and educators in Barbados, it honestly was because I thought the sign was kind of cute. But later on that day, when I thought about the sign and about looking East across the Atlantic Ocean, I had mixed emotions. The image seemed cheerful, but thinking about the sign marking the distance to Africa’s west coast made me feel anything but. All I could think about was that a few hundred years ago, African slaves on that coast were forced onto ships in chains. Those people endured a horrific journey of thousands of miles that lasted for several months, during which they endured most gruesome, horrific, inhumane treatment imaginable. Men, women, and children were separated from their loved ones, herded onto ships like animals, and packed into tight spaces to maximize cargo and profit for their captors. Many died of disease, suffocation, or drowning by throwing themselves overboard because they would rather die on their own terms than face whatever horrors awaited them at the end of their journey. Those that survived were whipped, beaten, starved, and then sold on the island of Barbados to grow sugar cane and face some of the shortest lifespans for slaves anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. These thoughts make me really upset. It’s a mixture of sadness, anger, shame and guilt that I used to push out of my mind when talking about or teaching about slavery or other less-than-cheerful topics in history in order to seem more objective or “removed”, but now I embrace those feelings. I use them to check my privilege, and to fuel the fire in me as a teacher and lifelong learner to learn as much as I can about the events and people in history who are so often underserved or overlooked because they aren’t “pleasant” or nostalgic enough to be “fun” to teach or learn about. My trip to Barbados was an eye-opening one in many ways (some unexpected). I discovered that some of my own ancestors are buried on that island, and I learned that they were sugar planters and slave owners. This discovery further affirmed my belief that everyone is connected. Those connections might be rooted in the past, but they shape our present in ways that we don’t always fully, consciously acknowledge or understand. I wasn’t surprised by this information, and I also make no effort whatsoever to hide it. I don’t want to hide it. I don’t want to feel neutral or indifferent about it. I don’t want to ignore it or bury it or pretend that it doesn’t matter. It does matter. It matters because my privilege as a white person living in the United States is built on the forced movement and enslavement of African people. My ancestors came to the Americas of their own free will, and profited from slave labor in Barbados before they moved further north to Virginia. Those are the facts. The life that I now live and the comforts that I enjoy are byproducts of slavery, and to deny that fact would be unconscionable. As a teacher, it is my responsibility to convey to my students that the impact of slavery cannot be underestimated. It is my job as an educator to not only be an objective purveyor of knowledge and information, but to help students contextualize why historical truth matters and how white privilege allows people to feel neutral and indifferent about slavery. Removed or neutral feelings about slavery are artifacts of white supremacy. Slavery isn’t something that should be taught only as a part of a unit on European Exploration and Colonization of the Americas. The Atlantic Slave Trade defines the American experience for all of us. The modern history of this entire hemisphere and of the entire world is defined by it. In my 10th and 11th grade classes, students do have questions about slavery and the slave trade. Unfortunately, they often sound a bit like this: “It happened, it was bad, but should we really worry that much about it? Do we really know what slavery was like? Do we really need to talk about it that much? Does it really affect people living in the 21st century?” This trip to Barbados, and the humanities moment that I had there only reaffirmed my belief that the answer to all of those questions is: YES. ",,"A sign that I photographed while on the Atlantic coast of the island. ",,,"Kristen Wilson 30 years old, history teacher in Albemarle County, Virginia",,,,,,overlooked-histories,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"From Andy Mink","Ancestry,Bathsheba, Barbados,History,History Education,Memory,Slavery,Teachers & Teaching",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/12/226/Africa_This_Way.jpg,"Still Image","Virginia Geographic Alliance West Indies Teacher Institute",1,0 "Madonna’s Mandorla",,"While acting as a teaching assistant for a large art appreciation course, Caroline Jones witnessed a student’s curiosity about a painting of the Madonna. Such symbols, so pervasive and recognizable in Western culture, she realized, are not as simple and self-contained as they may seem to some of us. The experience helped her to see that even familiar objects are best considered through multiple frames, and that all parts of the humanities—including art history, religion, and history—are made more robust when put into a dialogue with one another.",,,,,"Caroline A. Jones, professor of art history at MIT",,,,,,madonnas-mandorla,,,,,,"My name is Caroline Jones and I’m a professor of art history at a technical university known as MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I’ve really enjoyed my time at the National Humanities Center because it’s given me an opportunity to think about the humanities, which I don’t always get every day at MIT.
I think for me, a really powerful moment in my thinking about the humanities came when I began my teaching career. I was just a lowly TA and we had a course on the books that was essentially a kind of art appreciation class, and people from the West, from America, might have seen this as a bit of a finishing school or something like that. But one of my students, who was not from this background, said, “Okay, I get all this stuff about the Madonna, but what’s that plate behind her head?”
I realized, in a kind of shimmering cascade, that my cultural upbringing had closed off for me some very deep questions in the humanities that could only be answered by history, by a study of religion, by a question of, where does that plate come from behind the Madonna’s head? What is the mandorla? What is the halo? How much of this is coming from the East? What does it bring with it as a kind of iconography? So the humanities, for me, are a dialogue with all that we have taken for granted, and a way of opening that up to renewed inquiry and a kind of wonder.
",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"",,,"Art History,Cultural Exchange,History,Madonna,Professors,Religion,Symbolism,Teachers & Teaching",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/8/180/Madonna.jpg,Sound,"National Humanities Center Fellows",1,0 "Inspirational Literature",,"In this video Marlene Daut describes how teaching literature to college students enables them to both understand their lives and history better, as well as be inspired regarding their possible futures. ",,,,,"Marlene Daut, Associate Professor of African Diaspora Studies, University of Virginia",,,,,,marlene-daut-inspirational-literature,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"African American Authors,African American History,African American Literature,Books & Reading,Coral Gables, Florida,History,Inspiration,Professors,Teachers & Teaching,United States History,University of Miami,Wheatley, Phillis,Women's History","http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/10/47/hm-daut-360.mp4,https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/8/28/Phillis_Wheatley.jpg","Moving Image","National Humanities Center Fellows",1,0 "How Theology Helped Me Succeed in International Business",,"In any successful international business venture, you need to understand another culture. That’s the advice that James Hackett gives to his students. In this video, he reflects on how theology school—especially the study of the Bible—prompted him to investigate the intricate connections between religion, history, and culture. ",,"The Bible",,,"James Hackett, CEO, Alta Mesa Resources",,,,,,james-hackett-theology-culture,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"",,"Heidi Camp","Business Leaders,Cultural Awareness,History,International Business,Religious Studies,The Bible,Theology,Vocation",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/274/World_Flag_map.png,"Moving Image",,1,0 "How Maps of Time Made me Rethink the Significance of Education",,"My Humanities Moment was when I first read David Christian's Maps of Time during my 2nd year of grad school. It made me interested in some of the big questions that I have never thought are important and compelled me to converse about these topics with others and to converse with them well. There are two major academic challenges that I faced which were what makes humanities education meaningful? How can I attract an audience to listen to my expertise? The book helped me overcome these two challenges by convincing me that whatever disciplines we work on, it always boils down to the fundamental big questions that are of concern to us all. It teaches me how to use metaphor and how to reach out to a wider audience. As a scholar of Chinese history, I always thought that only historians (indeed only Chinese historians) will ever be interested in what I have to say. But this book changed my mindset and made me realize that I was the one who was locking up the door not my audience. It is up to us as humanities scholars to demonstrate why any knowledge or skills passed down are worth learning about. I was overwhelmed by the ability of the author to do interdisciplinary research. It is true that in his discussion of the origin of the universe and humanity, Christian is not an expert in math, science, geology, history, anthropology, etc. But what is valuable and worth keeping in mind is that this is the right approach to do humanities research because the questions come first and our ego and pride come last.",,"Maps of Time",,,"Jiajun Zou, 25, Graduate Student",,,,,,how-maps-of-time-made-me-rethink-education,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"National Humanities Center","Books & Reading,Christian, David,Cultural History,Education,History,Maps of Time,Self-Realization",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/17/413/Big_Bang_Image.jpg,Text,"Graduate Student Residents 2020",1,0