"An extraordinary emblematic flag"
I visited Barbados on a teacher professional development trip in 2018. My assigned research topic for the trip was Bussa’s 1816 slave rebellion. Within three days in April of that year, the rebellion had spread to most of the southern half of the island.
Slavery in Barbados was addressed in a limited way by tour guides and historians on the island. There were not accounts from the slaves to detail their life experience. During this trip, I viewed the rebellion as evidence that slaves were not satisfied with the conditions of their lives and wanted their freedom. In a roundabout on one of the highways in the country, there stands a statue of Bussa- hands raised, fists clenched, chains broken. However, there is no diary entry from Bussa, just accounts from the British of the importance of putting down the rebellion. We can only make assumptions about Bussa’s objectives, but we are missing his words.
In an account written in a private letter on Tuesday, April 16th, the slaves were described as carrying “an extraordinary emblematic flag.” British sketches of the flag, now housed in the National Archives in London, are the only record of the goals of the slaves. They were striving for the freedoms that had been denied to them. They wanted to marry and have access to the privileges of the planters. But they did not want to overthrow the British Crown. They wanted to be British citizens.
This flag is the voice of Bussa and his followers. Slaves were often kept illiterate in order to limit their access to the tools and ideas to agitate for freedom. In this way, their voices are lost. Without those voices, it is possible for historians and individuals to imagine what slaves would have thought or said. But those imaginations do not allow for the complexity of human thought and experience. We are missing these people and we will never truly know their lives. It is unique to have evidence of what Bussa really thought. It contributes to the recognition and understanding of the humanity of Bussa and his followers.
Emily Longenecker, 34, High School Teacher, Virginia
an-extraordinary-emblematic-flag
"Latinoamerica"
"Latinoamerica" is a song from Calle 13. When I first heard this song I realized how important music is for identity in the construction of culture itself. Back in those days, I was studying for my first Masters degree in Spanish Literature and I was taking a class in literary criticism. We were focusing on essentialism at that time and I thought how as Latinos we can be identified as a whole group but at the same time, we are really different and how we may conceive ourselves while we empower our differences to create unity. I really identified with that song. Every time I listened to it, I got very emotional. This can be representative of Latino history. The song is a mixing between Spanish and Portuguese, which represents Latin America in real life.
Calle 13
"Latinoamerica"
2011
Gilberto Garcia, 35, Ph.D. student and language instructor
latinoamerica-song
"on a small radiant screen honeydew melon green are my scintillating bones"
Gwen Harwood's "Bone Scan" will always have a place in my heart when it comes to my inspiration for teaching Literature and my abiding interest in the humanities. Growing up in Singapore, the educational environment I was in did not prioritize literature and the humanities very much, and math and science were the core subjects that we were expected to focus on. <br /><br />However, when I was 18, I had a literature teacher who taught and prepared us to appreciate unseen poetry for the A levels and among the poems she introduced us to was "Bone Scan," which we later realized was her way of explaining her long absence from the classroom near our national exams. She was struggling with cancer and her teaching allowed us to appreciate that the poem's use of the word "scintillating" and the use of sibilants represented her desire to regard her struggle with cancer as a positive and hopeful journey rather than one to think about negatively and pessimistically. Although she eventually passed on, her influence continues to inspire me to be a better teacher and reader of literature, and continues to remind me of the importance of being attentive and committed to the text before us. I continue to return to "Bone Scan" and think how we approach, study, encounter, and teach literature reflects how we approach, encounter, and interact with others in our lives as well.
Gwen Harwood
"Bone Scan"
2010
Eunice Ying Ci Lim, 29, Ph.D. Candidate, Pennsylvania State University, Comparative Literature and Asian Studies
on-a-small-radiant-screen
"Teach Them Well and Let Them Lead the Way"
For many years, my school district hosted an annual Academic Diversity Institute prior to the start of the new school year. At this institute, teachers had the opportunity to hear speakers and attend seminars that taught about and encouraged the implementation of new teaching strategies and methods in the classroom. The theme of the 2012 institute was "Reaching All: Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century." The keynote speaker at the 2012 institute reinforced many of the concepts and arguments that I had studied in my graduate school cohort program, from which I had graduated just three months earlier. As I listened to the keynote speaker, her words really resonated with me, further confirming my belief that the integration of technology in the 21st century classroom is critical to helping students to be academically successful, both in the present and in the future.
The keynote speaker tugged at my heartstrings through her incorporation of Whitney Houston's "Greatest Love of All". It is the song that my dad and I had danced to for our Father/Daughter dance at my wedding a year earlier. Although there is a very personal reason why my dad and I chose this song for our special dance, much of the meaning that he and I both share in connection with this song also carries over into my beliefs as a classroom teacher. My own analysis of Houston's lyrics further supports my belief about the importance of technology in the classroom.
"I believe the children are our future," as past and current generations have shown that they will be who shapes the workplace environment once they become the majority of the population. "Teach them well and let them lead the way" in how they will acquire, master, and utilize knowledge. "Show them all the beauty they possess inside" in order to intrinsically motivate them to want to learn. "Give them a sense of pride to make it easier" for them to find their own meaning in the standards that they must master in order to pass a particular course. "Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be" when we ourselves were students (Whitney Houston, "Greatest Love of All").
That last line in particular reminds me of how excited I was to use Ask Jeeves for the first time in my 9th grade Regional World Studies class in order to do research on the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. At the time, Ask Jeeves was a newly developed research tool on the Internet. My own memory of this experience reinforces the need for teachers to not only continuously learn about and incorporate new learning strategies and methods, but to also serve as a guide on the side of student learning and to let students find meaning in their own learning.
Whitney Houston
"Greatest Love of All"
August 2012
Kathryn Thayer, Social Studies Teacher
teach-them-well-let-them-lead
"The Machine Stops" is Only a Start
I was always a voracious reader with a preference for fiction. My family made regular trips to the library growing up, so I had a never-ending supply of books at hand. Yet, one story I read in my high school British Literature class stands out as influential: E. M. Forster’s short story "The Machine Stops." The story itself captivated me. In it, humanity lives underground, reliant on “the machine” for all means of life. There is no need to visit others face to face: all communication is carried out through video conferencing and messaging systems. There is no need to leave one’s room or rely on one’s own muscles for support: everything needed is delivered, including air to breathe. One young man is dissatisfied with this life. He develops his strength by walking the hallway and eventually visits the surface, wearing protective gear. Throughout the story it is palpable how much humanity loses in giving up a connection to each other and nature and in rejecting self-reliance. The other characters, however, don’t realize their weakness until the day the tragic machine stops.
This is the earliest book I remember prompting me to think in depth about the human condition and about what we might need for fulfilling and flourishing lives. Forster’s story didn’t just entertain me; it promoted an interest in questions that continue to vex me and which I now pursue through philosophy. It was also one of the first ‘school assigned books’ that made me want to learn about the author’s life and read everything else the author had written. Forster is still one of my favorite authors. Although none of his novels are science fiction, as "The Machine Stops" is, all his writing depicts the melancholic beauty of humans in search of authenticity. But it didn’t stop there. Most of Forster’s novels have been adapted to films, and in pursuing those I developed a more general love of Merchant Ivory films. My friends may tease me for being moved by “sweeping British landscapes and gents leaning on mantles,” but for someone who grew up in the working class Midwest, these movies and Forster’s novels helped open new worlds to me and nurtured questions and concerns that have followed me over the years.
E.M. Forster
"The Machine Stops"
Dawn Jacob, Ph.D. student in Philosophy
machine-stops-only-start
"The Town that Freedom Built": Preserving Zora Neale Hurston's Eatonville
This plaque, and several others, are sprinkled throughout Eatonville, Florida to guide a walking tour of America's first legally established self-governing all-African American municipality. Eatonville was established in 1887. The town gained popularity from its depiction in Zora Neale Hurston's novel, <em>Their Eyes Were Watching God</em> (1937), and her autobiography, <em>Dust Tracks on a Road</em> (1942). <br /><br />Sadly, 100 acres of Historic Eatonville has been lost due to expansion of the Greater Orlando area and Interstate 4. However, The Historic District of Eatonville was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 3, 1998. The Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community has been working to make Eatonville an internationally recognized tourism destination, to enhance the resources of the town, and to educate the public of its cultural significance and the community's heritage. <br /><br />I came to Eatonville because of my research and love for Zora Neale Hurston. Inspired by scholars such as Alice Walker, who worked to find and mark Hurston's final resting place, I too am aspired to keep Hurston's legacy from disappearing. The dilapidated plaques that are supposed to guide and educate the public about the importance of Eatonville are impossible to read. <br /><br />The sight of these plaques awakened a call-to-action inside of me. Since this moment, I have been working to digitally preserve Zora Neale Huston's Eatonville through geospatial technology and augmented and virtual reality technology. This technology has the capability to tell these stories in ways that are immersive and accessible. By digitally preserving these stories, future curious minds will be able to explore and share the experience.
Eatonville Walking Tour Plaques
February 2014
Valerie Rose Kelco, UNC-Greensboro, Literature
zora-neale-hurston-eatonville
"Three Mountain Pass" - Connecting to Vietnam
For teenagers, the world they live in is often described as “normal” and everything else is “weird.” One of my goals as a history teacher is to help my students recognize difference, but also to feel connected to people who lived in a much different place and time than them. Ho Xuan Huong’s poem, “Three Mountain Pass“ provoked in me admiration of her artistic talent, curiosity (“Who is this woman who can write such clearly sexual poems in 18th century Vietnam?”) and a sense that we had a shared experience of love and passion that shortened the distance between us.
“Three Mountain Pass” helped me understand the extremely high value Vietnamese culture places on poetic imagery - such that transgressive poetry could flourish because of its beauty. It also made me think deeply about the space Ho Xuan Huong carved out to express herself (and challenged the notion, propagated by American media, of Vietnamese women as passive objects, rather than educated artists with agency.) I am grateful to John Balaban for helping to bring these poems to me and to an American audience more generally, and that I was able to first feel a deep connection to Vietnam through this poem.
"Three Mountain Pass": https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/three-mountain-pass/
"Three Mountain Pass" by Hồ Xuân Hương
Lindsey Graham, 27, history teacher
three-mountain-pass
"To the Daughters of My Country": Humanitarian Connection across Time and Borders
In 1922, Julia Dimashqiya, founder and editor of the Beirut-based women’s magazine "The New Woman" ("Al- Mar’a Al-Jadida"), inaugurated her first issue by dedicating it to "the daughters of my country.” From our vantage point, this statement seems to be an innocent and even bland admission of belonging. But looking beneath the surface reveals a world of contending debates about who belongs to this national mother, who might not, and why. In 1922, neither Lebanon nor Syria were yet countries—having transitioned from being Ottoman provinces to European mandates, these territories were undefined by fixed national borders. As such, enfolded in this invocation are a number of overlapping claims: to a nation, to a nonsectarian familial bond, to a future that is being built by a gendered collective. "The New Woman" was far from the only periodical working to define a community in this pre-national social soup; between the 1910s and 1930s, women-oriented periodicals in Greater Syria exploded in popularity. Women who founded, edited, and contributed to these magazines were attempting to both construct the ideal “modern woman” and also understand how their overarching society—beginning to be envisioned as a nation—would function through the lens of a collectively-defined women’s role.
Nearly one hundred years later, down in the digital ossuary of Middle Eastern archives, I opened the magazine and felt a kinship to her. Like Julia Dimashqiya, I feel engaged in a deep tradition of scholarship, agitation, and creative belonging. Like her, I understand that any project building something new requires a collective, a plurality, in order to last. Where she worked to build a nation in the face of unbearable oppression by colonial overlords, I hope to be engaged in a sphere of humanities that radically reshapes what it means to empathize, learn from, and interact with the past beyond the boundaries of time and space. Living one hundred years apart, we are connected to different facets of the same project to educate and elevate the consciously-constructed collective. After all, many of the problems she and other women intellectuals faced then remain familiar to us now: bridging the gap of social difference, challenging inequalities, and bringing together the many.
The first time I opened "The New Woman" was my Humanities Moment. Far from being a discrete point in time, I see it as part of an ongoing process built by a series of inquiries and curiosities that led me to the magazine. I did not have a single epiphany that switched on my lightbulb—instead, a decade of accidental discoveries in the literary realm, patient mentors in the academy, and interpersonal encounters in the world in time apprehended me, forming the unconscious bedrock of my commitment to the humanities. Holding the magazine for the first time merely lit the spark of a fire that had long been building—I knew I had to work with Julia Dimashqiya and other intellectuals like her, in spite of the century that separated us, to tell the story of women building a new nation. To me, this is what the humanities offers us: within the academy and beyond, it gives us the tools to understand one another and critically engage to form bonds. We work to define, challenge, and redefine our collectives and the borders between us. In this way, we learn how to connect the past to the present in ways that encourage us to envision the possibilities of our futures.
Kylie Broderick (27), PhD student
to-the-daughters-of-my-country
“Fern Hill”: the fleeting, eternal magnificence of Innocence
<p>I could do several Humanities Hours out of Humanities Moments – there are so many passages and ideas that have animated my imagination. I first find myself drawn to the heart-wrenching climax of Cervantes’s novel <em>Don Quixote</em>, but to describe that would be to reveal the ending, which I would feel queasy doing.</p>
<p>So I’m going with Dylan Thomas’s poem “Fern Hill” instead. Its lyricism conjures the innocence of youth that cannot imagine its own end. That’s kind of what innocence is: a brilliantly perfect inability to envision its own conclusion.</p>
<p>Thomas’s second stanza begins,</p>
<p>And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns<br /> About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,<br /> In the sun that is young once only,<br /> Time let me play and be<br /> Golden in the mercy of his means</p>
<p>We are “young once only” and we play and are golden. We all see this in the delight of children and also in the mesmerizing natural panoramas that remind me of a summer evening on a hilltop in Maine. It’s summer vacation all the time. It evokes the feeling that I think that character from <em>Friday Night Lights</em> has in mind when he says, “My heart is full.”</p>
<p>In a way, the ending of “Fern Hill” brings me to what I love so much about <em>Don Quixote</em> and the scene I mentioned a minute ago. Here I am, a middle-aged guy spending every day with teenagers, hoping to share and discuss with them truths about the human condition and our relationships and tragedy and beauty while they, children who are “green and golden” in their “heedless ways,” in their Eden of hope and vigor, start to gain insight about how Time holds them. They are looking toward college and work and beyond, and often they worry and fear, and although for many the curiosity of youth is sputtering, its flame is not out.</p>
<p>Thomas:</p>
<p>Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that Time would take me<br /> Up to the swallow-thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,<br /> In the moon that is always rising,<br /> Nor that riding to sleep<br /> I should hear him fly with the high fields<br /> And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.<br /> Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,<br /> Time held me green and dying<br /> Though I sang in my chains like the sea.</p>
<p>Whenever I read “Fern Hill,” and whenever I think of <em>Don Quixote</em>, I do so from the Experience side of the divide between innocence and experience. I peer longingly over at innocence, and I wish for it…and I feel it as if it were still here. It is the wonder of the poem, and of art, that in its presence we can be <em>both</em> green and dying.</p>
"Fern Hill," a poem by Dylan Thomas
I can trace it to several instances, including my original interaction with the poem, but the photo I use was taken in July 2012.
Carl Rosin, 51, teacher
fern-hill
“For the Sake of a Cloud”
The beautiful thing about the humanities is that the search for truth need not be a matter of “right” or “wrong” — there is room both for the mastery of facts as well as for creativity and innovation. Through Euripides’ play, I realized that the story of the war really belongs to everyone; if even the ancient Greeks had creative and radically different versions, that frees up modern classicists to similarly transcend the traditional narrative. This experience invited me into the field because I could finally see myself doing something new within the discipline, and I was eager to be part of a long tradition of reinterpreting the story in a way that resonated with my own experiences. In the years that followed, I have written poetry about mythological subjects, and the process of writing about mythology helped me see connections across the disciplines of the humanities. From history to literature and art to music, the myths of ancient Greece continue to be reinvented and Euripides’ imagination has passed on to a new generation of artists, scholars, and thinkers.
<p>While taking Latin in high school, I became fascinated by the story of the Trojan War. I loved the interconnected perspectives of soldiers, royalty, deities, and ordinary people. The family trees and catalogues of soldiers seemed endless, and I was thrilled to discover that each individual inspired stories, plays, and art. As I began to master the intricacies of the myths, I prided myself on recognizing the differences between movies like “Troy” or Disney’s “Hercules” and the original story. I watched eagerly to notice what they got wrong or right about the myth.</p>
<p>My beloved Latin teacher Dr. Fiveash soon introduced me to “Helen,” a play by the Greek playwright Euripides. The Trojan War is said to have started when Helen runs away to Troy with a prince named Paris. But in “Helen,” the story is turned on its head; she never goes to Troy. Instead, a cloud that resembles her was placed at Troy while the real Helen lived in Egypt and wondered when her husband could come to pick her up. I realized the story of the war is so complex that even the most fundamental aspects can be reinterpreted.<br /><br />The beautiful thing about the humanities is that the search for truth need not be a matter of “right” or “wrong” — there is room both for the mastery of facts as well as for creativity and innovation. Through Euripides’ play, I realized that the story of the war really belongs to everyone; if even the ancient Greeks had creative and radically different versions, that frees up modern classicists to similarly transcend the traditional narrative. This experience invited me into the field because I could finally see myself doing something new within the discipline, and I was eager to be part of a long tradition of reinterpreting the story in a way that resonated with my own experiences. In the years that followed, I have written poetry about mythological subjects, and the process of writing about mythology helped me see connections across the disciplines of the humanities. From history to literature and art to music, the myths of ancient Greece continue to be reinvented and Euripides’ imagination has passed on to a new generation of artists, scholars, and thinkers.</p>
Euripides
<em>Helen</em> by Euripides
2006
<a href="http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/humanities-in-class-guide-thinking-learning-in-humanities/">Skye Shirley</a>, age 28, Latin Teacher in Boston, MA
for-the-sake-of-a-cloud
“I saw, in Stephen Dedalus, myself.”
Beyond personally identifying with one of Joyce’s most well-known character, William Ferris points out how “Joyce keeps renewing his presence in our lives.” The continued circulation and appreciation of literature helps us draw parallels between our experiences and concerns and those of others, across time, national boundaries, and other differences.
<p>In this excerpt from a conversation with William Ferris, former Chairman of the National Endowment of the Humanities, he shares how he came to see himself in Stephen Dedalus, the protagonist of James Joyce’s <em>A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man</em>, who declares that he will fly from the nets of “nationality, language, and religion.”</p>
<p>He notes that at the time he encountered the character he and Stephen were about the same age and describes how he identified his own struggles as a young Southerner with those Dedalus experiences as a young Irishman. He goes on to discuss how the figure of Dedalus has become iconic and is used repeatedly to help discuss the struggles of young artistic spirits.<br /><br />Beyond personally identifying with one of Joyce’s most well-known character, William Ferris points out how “Joyce keeps renewing his presence in our lives.” The continued circulation and appreciation of literature helps us draw parallels between our experiences and concerns and those of others, across time, national boundaries, and other differences.</p>
James Joyce
<em>A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man</em> by James Joyce
William Ferris, former Chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities
william-ferris-stephen-dedalus
“I was dragged, kicking and screaming, to a van Gogh exhibition”
I get chills thinking about it even now, because to have this extraordinary storyteller explaining to you what was going on at that point in van Gogh’s life—what this meant to him, what it should mean to us—but still leaving the whole painting open to individual interpretation, it was really something that, to me, was quite profound.
In what I believe was the latter part of the 1980s, I was dragged, kicking and screaming, to a van Gogh exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum. And for the first time in my life, I wore one of those machines around my neck, where you listen to headphones and you hear somebody describe what it is you’re going to see. It was a brand-new experience.
The narrator was the then-director of the Metropolitan Museum, Philippe de Montebello, and at the introductory part of the exhibit, I was really struck by the quality of what he was saying. It was so well written that it really bordered on being fine literature.... As we went from room to room, his storytelling, and the visual impact of my seeing these extraordinary paintings by this extraordinary, troubled person, made an impact on me that I still think about, probably, every month.
There was a new richness in what I saw, but also a level of insight into what van Gogh had done that magnified to a great degree the impact that it had on me. Looking back on it, coming at a part of my life where I had been underground for a long time, as a law student, and then as a young lawyer, it pulled me back into the knowledge that there was this greater, more interesting world out there; one to which I owed a lot more attention. From then on, I dedicated myself to making sure that I was going to live a life that was more rich.
I get chills thinking about it even now, because to have this extraordinary storyteller explaining to you what was going on at that point in van Gogh’s life—what this meant to him, what it should mean to us—but still leaving the whole painting open to individual interpretation, it was really something that, to me, was quite profound.
Vincent van Gogh
An exhibit of Vincent van Gogh's paintings
C. Allen Parker, General Counsel, Wells Fargo & Company
allen-parker-van-gogh
“Il faut le savoir:” Reflecting on France’s Holocaust History and Memory
“Nothing distinguished the gas chamber from an ordinary blockhouse,” writes Jean Cayrol in the screenplay for Alain Resnais’ iconic filmic meditation on the Shoah, Night and Fog (1956). “Inside, a fake shower room welcomed newcomers. The doors were closed. The newcomers were observed. The only sign – but you must know this (il faut le savoir) – is the ceiling worked over by fingernails. Even the concrete was torn.” At this point in the film, like an insistent investigative eye, the camera pans to the ceiling of the gas chamber, revealing the telltale scratch marks. The image of fingernails clawing into concrete in a desperate attempt for survival recurs in another work about Holocaust memory that we read this semester, Georges Perec’s W, or the Memory of Childhood (1975). Recalling an exhibit he had visited with his aunt shortly after the war – the same one, in fact, that led producers to ask Alain Resnais to create the film that would become Night and Fog -- the child survivor narrator writes: “I remember photos showing the walls of the ovens, lacerated by the fingernails of those who had been gassed.”
Il faut le savoir. The phrase has haunted me throughout the semester. You must know this. Because it happened. Because many would deny that it did, depriving the victims of dignity and history of truth. Fingernail scratches in the crematoria walls of Auschwitz, asks the neo-Nazi website The Stormer? “Jewish mythology says ‘yes.’ Science says ‘no.’” You must know this, because soon there will be no more survivors, and those still alive often find it too painful, or shameful, to share their testimony, or else they have learned to suppress it so as not to trouble others. “No one wanted my memories,” writes Birkenau survivor Marceline Loridan-Ivens in But You Did Not Come Back. You must know this, because 2/3 of young Americans, according to a 2020 national poll, lack a rudimentary understanding of the Holocaust. “Where did the Holocaust happen?” educator Rhonda Fink-Whitman asks a Penn State student in her 2012 documentary, 94 Maidens. “I have no idea.” You must know this, as Cayrol writes in Night and Fog, because “war is sleeping, but with one eye always open.” As I write, genocide continues to be perpetuated against the Muslim Rohingya people by the military in Myanmar. “Who among us keeps watch from this strange watchtower to warn of the arrival of our new executioners?”
But to know – and this is a second meaning of il faut le savoir -- one must be ‘in the know,’ know where to look, how to be on the lookout, how to decode the signs. You have to be tipped off to find the “Memorial to the Martyrs of the Deportation” (1962) tucked in a small square behind the behemoth of Notre-Dame Cathedral, just as you must be ‘in the know’ to be disturbed by the memorial’s identification of those deported from France as willing “martyrs” to a cause rather than victims of state persecution by both the Nazis and the Vichy regime. The French State headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain is nowhere mentioned in this memorial monument, yet it deported over 75.000 Jews from France to their deaths, along with, in smaller numbers, Roma, the disabled, Jehovah’s witnesses, gay men and lesbians, and other ‘undesirables.’ Stroll around to the main façade of Notre-Dame to contemplate the two female allegorical figures framing it; only if you’re ‘in the know’ about the anti-Semitic underpinnings of European Christianity through the mid-20th century will you understand that one figure represents the Church triumphant, while the other, with downward cast, blindfolded gaze and broken Torah tablets at her feet, symbolizes the Synagogue. As only one photograph of this event remains, you need to be on the lookout for the tiny plaque at the foot of a bustling Parisian office building marking the site of the former Vélodrome d’hiver, an indoor bicycle track where over 11,000 Jews, including over 4,000 children, were packed for several sweltering days in July 1942 before being herded to their deaths. “A peaceful landscape,” writes Cayrol, “An ordinary field with flights of crows, harvests, grass fires. An ordinary road where cars and peasants and lovers pass. An ordinary village for vacationers – with a marketplace and a steeple – Can lead all too easily to a concentration camp.” Il faut le savoir.
“Every hour of every day,” writes Hélène Berr, a young upper-class French Jewish woman who survived a year in deportation before being beaten to death in Bergen-Belsen, “there is another painful realization that other folk do not know, do not even imagine, the suffering of other men, the evil that some of them inflict. And I am still trying to make the painful effort to tell the story. Because it is a duty, it is maybe the only one I can fulfill. There are men wo know and who close their eyes, and I’ll never manage to convince people of that kind, because they are hard and selfish, and I have no authority. But people who do not know and who might have sufficient heart to understand – on those people I must have an effect.” Let us – we who in Primo Levi’s words “live safe in [our] warm houses,” armed with all we have learned this semester, make the “painful effort to the tell the story” to all those who will listen, “those with sufficient heart to understand.” Because the world must know. Yes, il faut le savoir.
Jean Cayrol, Alain Resnais
<em>Night and Fog </em>(1955)
Spring 2021
Willa Z. Silverman, 62, Malvin E. and Lea P. Bank Professor of French and Jewish Studies, Penn State University
il-faut-le-savoir
“It’s not nonsense, it’s Shakespeare.”
Dr. Michael P. H. Stanley describes an encounter with a terminally ill patient who, in his pain and confusion, demands to leave the hospital ward in the middle of the night. While the patient’s pleas are initially regarded as “nonsense” or evidence of his delirium, Dr. Stanley recognizes the patient’s writings as lines from Shakespeare’s play, <em>Macbeth</em>. As Dr. Stanley highlights, his experience speaks to the lasting power of texts and stories to leave an indelible imprint on our minds, offering up a means of communication when all other words fail.
<em>Macbeth</em>, written by William Shakespeare
Dr. Michael P. H. Stanley
its-not-nonsense-its-shakespeare
“Nowhere Man” in Lincoln, Nebraska
Sweet describes stumbling upon a 45 record that altered his perspective on The Beatles. More profoundly, it changed how he understood his place in the world.
"Nowhere Man" by The Beatles
Matthew Sweet, musician based in Omaha, Nebraska
matthew-sweet-nowhere-man
“Personal freedom was therefore not existent.”
The title of my moment comes from a quote on page 55 of Watson and Potter's book, Low-Cost Housing in Barbados: Evolution or Social Revolution?
My humanities moment occurred in the Bajan archives while being able to view the original document that freed the enslaved people of the island. I simply sat down in the corner of the room and cried. I felt moved to share this discovery with my son. Although we are privileged to be removed from this kind of historical trauma, it was an important experience to consider its effects on the lives of real people. Knowing how hard it is to come into such documents in our country, understanding the importance of this document and being thankful that my child understands to a degree how significant this experience will forever be for me both humbled and overwhelmed me.
Due to geographic constraints, the option to flee beyond the island’s borders even after emancipation was practically impossible. It even seemed as if their freedom was merely symbolic due to the chattel system which allowed the once-enslaved persons to build small homes on the land of their former imprisoners for labor. The idea of freedom was born on that day. However, much like in so many parts of the world where there is still a struggle between the races and the haves/have nots, personal freedom was still not existent for these people. They still had to be very cognizant of all of their actions to ensure food and shelter for their families. Fear of having to move their home or simply not having a place to move their home helped perpetuate the system of a white dominated society for many more years past the initial emancipation.
Low-Cost Housing in Barbados: Evolution or Social Revolution?
June 21, 2018
Lisa Roop Belcher
personal-freedom-was-therefore-not-existent
“This is Water”: Finding Empathy in the Banalities of Daily Living
I was first introduced to David Foster Wallace’s “This is Water” in a Language and Composition class. Our textbook was full of examples of rhetoric, categorized by topic. “This is Water” was originally a Commencement speech given at Kenyon College in 2005. A shortened version was transcribed in my textbook which I had to analyze and write about for my class. In reading DFW’s words I found a perspective that resonated with me and one that the world is often starved of. The speech opens with an anecdote about fish swimming in the ocean. Two young fish are asked by an older fish, “How’s the water?” and one young fish turns to the other and says, “what the hell is water?” Wallace uses this story to point out that often, like fish in the ocean, we’re not aware of what surrounds us. As humans each of us are predisposed to be self-centered, because our own thoughts and needs come to us much more urgently than anyone else’s. In the tedium and banality of “day-in, day-out” life we begin to see the strangers around us in traffic or at the grocery store as obstacles and annoyances rather than recognizing them as people whose reality is just as vivid and important as our own, with triumphs and tragedies of similar magnitude.
My favorite part of the speech is DFW’s perspective on freedom. While there are many ways to feel “free” (money, power, success, beauty, etc.), “the really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline and effort, and being able to truly care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad, petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom.” It’s easy to submit to our “default setting” (DFW), unknowingly considering ourselves to be the center of the universe, “lords of our own tiny skull sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation”. Our kingdoms do need some of our attention, you do need to focus on your own needs and ambitions. But to see the “water” around you as an annoyance or not to see it all, to forget about the billions of other mind kingdoms walking around, perhaps anxiety ridden kingdoms or dyslexic ones, maybe some are very similar to your own, is to miss out on connection that is uniquely human and beautiful.
I find it crucial to remember that the people wrapping my cheeseburger or standing in front of me in the self-checkout line or stopped next to me at a light, all have dreams and fears and insecurities and pains and joys, and maybe they’re battling mental illness or training for an Iron Man or their favorite color is orange like mine or they’ve just found out that they’re pregnant or they’re struggling to learn English. The point is that none of us are alone on this planet, and sometimes it just takes getting out of our own heads and looking at the water.
"This is Water," a speech by David Foster Wallace
My junior year of high school.
Avery, 18, Student
this-is-water-banalities-of-living
“You don’t just run, you run to some place wonderful.”
<em>From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler</em> turned Deborah Ross’s world upside down. Kongisberg’s book, which just celebrated its 50th anniversary, chronicles the adventures of Claudia and her brother, who run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The book kindled Ross’s imagination so much that when she visited the museum with her parents, she retraced the protagonist’s steps in search of the Egyptian cat, the fountain, and Michelangelo’s sculpture.
<em>From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler</em> by E.L. Konigsburg
Deborah Ross, U.S. Representative for North Carolina's 2nd District
deborah-ross-someplace-wonderful
“You Have to Be There”
Averill Corkin describes the moment she decided to major in the humanities after seeing a video performance of the song “Du måste finnas” (“You Have to Be There”), in which a female refugee, overcome with loss and fear, questions the existence of God. She notes, despite the language difference, she understood the woman’s experience through the melody and the nature of her performance. She goes on to talk about the power of the humanities to connect us through our appreciation of art regardless of geographic, cultural, and language boundaries.
The song “Du måste finnas” (“You Have to Be There”)
Averill Corkin, Graduate Student, Harvard University
you-have-to-be-there
<em>A Touch of Green</em>
While doing research in Nanjing, the capital city of Jiangsu province in China, I made a visit to a local neighborhood called Dafang Lane. There's no famous tourist spot here, but I was drawn to it by a Taiwanese TV series that I watched years ago -- <em>A Touch of Green</em>. <br /><br /><em>A Touch of Green</em> is a 2015 TV series that is based on a novella of the same name by Pai Hsien-Yung, a phenomenal Chinese writer. The story unfolds the life of three Republic of China Air Force pilots and their wives from the Chinese Civil War period (1945-1949) to the White Terror period (1949 to 1987) in Taiwan. The story is not an ode to China's revolutionary past, but rather to the tumultuous and miserable lives of ordinary Chinese people who left their homeland and migrated to a new island after the KMT lost the Civil War in 1949. It is not centered on the bravery of the pilots or the strength of their wives. Instead, the drama portrays their anxiety and weariness over the war, their helplessness when confronting fate and history, and their grief over their loved ones' deaths. It touched me because it transcends macro-historical frameworks and narrates the bond, love, pain, and survival hardship of an ordinary group of people. <br /><br />In the original novella, Dafang Lane is the military dependents’ village where the wives of the pilots resided. The old buildings still exist today, and there is a brief introduction on the wall explaining that they were constructed in the 1930s and are now protected historical sites in Nanjing. I walked around Dafang Lane, as if I was walking down the memory lane of modern Chinese history. The dripping sound of life echoed here, as I imagined how the wives of the pilots anxiously awaited their husbands' safe landing or their deaths. For me, the Dafang Lane is not just a place; it's also a humanities moment that intertwines the TV drama, the novella, and the untold history of a group of pilots and their families.
<em>A Touch of Green </em>(television series and novella by Pai Hsien-Yung)
May 2021
Jinghong Zhang, 26, history Ph.D. student
touch-of-green
<em>Asian American Dreams</em>
While a double major in Biology and Studio Art at Colgate University, a predominantly-white university in Upstate New York, my coursework provided challenging STEM curricula and liberal arts classes steeped in the classical Western tradition. However, I did not realize what I was not learning (and had desperately, subconsciously been seeking to learn) until a guest speaker came to our little, snow laden school in the “middle of somewhere.” <br /><br />As a junior in college, I joined a newly formed club called the “Organization of Asian Sisters in Solidarity,” which brought Asian American and Asian international women and femmes together (a small group of about ten of us) to discuss our experiences at a predominantly-white campus. We did not have a single Asian American Studies class on campus, and at 20, I did not even know that Asian American Studies was a field with an activist history stemming from 1968 strikes which originated in San Francisco, the California Bay Area where I was born and raised. We, naively, decided to find guest speakers of Asian American background to bring to campus via Google search. Somehow, we convinced a famous Asian American activist, Helen Zia, to visit. <br /><br />When Helen Zia came to campus, our small club and about forty or so students and faculty gathered in the Women’s Studies Center for a lunch time discussion. Even as a co-organizer of the talk, I had no idea how pivotal Helen was to the development of Asian American Studies. (Six years later, I kick myself for not making a bigger deal out of the event or trying to get an even larger turn out, despite having already invited all of my friends on campus). Helen’s talk was based on her book, <em>Asian American Dreams</em> (2000), and she drew out personal anecdotes such as: why she chose to work in an autofactory instead of going the STEM route; her journalism and activism surrounding the unjust murder of Vincent Chin in 1982; her experience coming-out in the public eye; and what it means to have Asian American dreams. [The image is my visual notes taken of this event]. <br /><br />Helen Zia coming to Colgate was the first of many humanities moments that catalyzed my life path toward a drastically different direction than I thought it would take in 2016. In college, I was a Biology honors student who spent hours in the lab studying the relationship between mitochondrial damage and cancer and dreamed of becoming a pediatrician. However, after graduation, instead of going forward with my plans, I finally found the time to read Helen Zia’s <em>Asian American Dreams</em> (2000) in its entirety. It was the first Asian American Studies book I’d ever read and it inspired me to pursue my MA in Asian American Studies at UCLA and now my PhD in Cultural Studies at Davis, where I am a Teaching Assistant in the Asian American Studies Department. <br /><br />It saddens me to know that Ethnic Studies courses continue to be few and far between but I am hopeful that work in Asian American Studies, as well as African American Studies, Chicanx and Latinx Studies, and Indigenous and Native American Studies, will continue to emerge in our higher education and K-12 classrooms.
Helen Zia
<em>Asian American Dreams</em>
December 2016
Angel Trazo, 26, PhD student in Cultural Studies at UC Davis
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<em>Bite Me!</em>- A Florida Humanities Moment
People frequently talk about being haunted. Usually by spirits, both by the friendly Casper types and the decidedly less friendly Poltergeist types. Sometimes people are haunted by bad decisions. This is a spectrum too. Some must repeatedly face the time we developed a temporary and acute stutter during an eighth-grade presentation. While others face a scarier specter born of a truly terrible decision, like buying a monitor lizard as a pet. Perhaps one of the most pervasive and long-lasting hauntings of all is that of our hometowns. We swear that we’ll leave it forever. Pack our bags and only talk about home to family and in the occasional childhood anecdote while we live somewhere exciting and exotic. This attitude was especially pandemic to my hometown of Orlando, FL.<br /><br />You see, Florida is often presented as an exciting place for people to visit. And they do, by the millions. Everyone eventually comes to Florida, at least for a while. To quote Jerry Seinfeld: “My parents didn’t want to move to Florida, but they turned sixty and that’s the law.” <br /><br />To offer a few examples of this phenomenon: The spiritualists founded the town of Cassadaga, FL (which still has a major spiritualist camp). Jack Kerouac bought a house in Orlando to quietly read and write. Laura Ingles Wilder briefly came to the state for her health. Ernest Hemingway, on the other hand, famously came to stay. He went so far as to buy a house and began a long line of six-toed cats. The cousins of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (grandchildren of Alexander II) came to South Florida after the Revolution. One even became the three-time mayor of Palm Beach. Florida is a holiday and a safe house. It is where people come to escape—they escape the grind of daily life, illness, political prosecution, revolutions, icy winters, writer’s block, and sometimes even the law. <br /><br />In these imaginings, Florida then is understood as a land where people bring "culture." The locals are people who supposedly accept "culture." This view is pervasive, and many (including me in my teenage years) believed this. It was for this reason that my friends and I dreamed of leaving Orlando and go somewhere where things happened. It all changed one afternoon, thanks to a rather unexpected humanities moment. <br /><br />How I got the book in the first place is part of its random charm. In 2005 or 2006, Tom Levine—a local fisherman, author, and “character”—showed up in my parents’ two-person CPA business in Orlando, FL. Levine periodically sells his books business-to-business or in farmers’ markets in Central Florida, using his charisma and humor in equal measure. My parents declined to turn their office into a small-scale bookstore but did buy a couple of his books—including Bite Me! I, a twelve-year-old girl who didn't fish, was clearly not the intended audience. And yet, I quickly came to love this book. <br /><br />Tom Levine’s <em>Bite Me!</em> is an admittedly unusual choice for an inspirational book. It’s a slender collection of essays about Levine’s travels. Described in one paper as “Part Hiaasen, part Hemingway,” Levine writes to celebrate nature, critique the overdevelopment of “paradise,” and of course to support his fishing expeditions. On the surface, his book <em>Bite Me!</em> is a humorous take on his journeys around the world. But what truly struck my interest was his deep and open love for the natural world of Florida. Levine articulates a clear argument for preserving our natural splendor. Not for tourists to ogle on vacation, but because the swamps, coastal wetlands, and pinewoods of Florida were innately valuable and worth saving—just as much as any mountain, scenic alpine lake, or rocky beach. It changed my relationship with my surroundings, I started thinking of Florida as a place within the world rather than a suburb outside of it. <br /><br />This new appreciation, in turn, led me to investigate my state’s history, environment, and literature. I started reading in earnest the works of Zora Neale Hurston, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Carl Hiaasen, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, and others. I realized that there was a cacophony of voices in the state who all have painted a full picture of Florida as a strange and special place that doesn’t need others to determine its worth. That the land and its many peoples are historied and important, and that Florida's troubled past and diverse actors deserved consideration. The land they lived on transformed from a boring backdrop to a central part of the Flordia story. <br /><br />This radical new point of view ultimately brought me to a MA and Ph.D. on Florida’s colonial past. You can say that Florida has become, to my great surprise, my life’s work. <br /><br />When I moved away for graduate school, I thought I may feel triumphant in realizing my childhood goal of leaving. Instead, I have found myself longing for the woods and beaches I used to traverse. Every time I return to this unexpected book, I feel like I’m with Levine searching the waterways and coastlines of the world to rediscover Florida and an elusive bite. From where I sit today, the ghost of my hometown still sits at my side. It floats around in my thoughts and writing and appears to have settled in for good.
Tom Levine
<em>Bite Me!</em>
2005-2010
Rebecca Earles, 27, graduate student (Rice University)
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<em>Feeling</em> the American Revolution
History teacher Steve Oreskovic discusses how he gets his students to empathize with the feelings of injustice among colonists in the run up to the American Revolution, helping them gain a richer context for learning about history.
Through the practice of experiential learning—a simulation of a tax on school supplies—Oreskovic created an opportunity for his students to imagine the lived realities of American colonists. In doing so, he drew parallels with the Stamp Act imposed by the English government in 1765. The experiential activity “really gets them into the why,” he explains. By reflecting on the internal feeling of injustice, his students gained a richer understanding of the past that transcends the mere knowing of dates, names, and places.
Steve Oreskovic, Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District
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<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
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<em>Hamilton</em> and the Performance of Poetry
<p>Thomas Scherer describes two related encounters which speak to the power of hearing poetry performed aloud. The first is an explanatory talk and poetry reading by the great literary scholar M. H. Abrams at the National Humanities Center; the second is hearing Lin-Manuel Miranda discuss his award-winning rap musical, <em>Hamilton</em>.</p>
<p>Across generations, cultural divides, venues, and artistic voices, the power of lyric poetry to capture and convey powerful feeling is undeniable. And when poetry is performed and embodied, “brought to life” if you will, its capacity to create change is palpable.</p>
M. H. Abrams, Lin-Manuel Miranda
Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical <em>Hamilton</em>; M.H. Abrams' <em>The Mirror and the Lamp</em>
Thomas Scherer, Consultant, Spencer Capital Holdings
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<em>People of the Book </em>Reminds Me Why I Love the Humanities
I read <em>People of the Book</em> by Geraldine Brooks a few days ago and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. This book combined many of my loves: reading, historical fiction, and stories of survival and humanity.<br /><br />As a history teacher, with two young kids, I don't get much time to read for pleasure during the year. And this past year of the pandemic was the hardest of my career and I had even less time for reading. I have been so happy to slow down and relax this summer and to escape into the world of this book that was so captivating. <br /><br />This book had been sitting on my nightstand for months and once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down. It was such a powerful novel about imagined and embellished stories about a real live artifact, the Sarajevo Haggadah. The stories that the author created felt so real and I grew so attached to the people who helped protect this book. I learned so much about history and religion that I didn't know before. I also learned so much about the human condition. <br /><br />This is why I love my job. You can always learn more. I was so inspired by this book to keep reading others and keep learning more. I can't wait to travel and eventually see the real Haggadah. I want to share its story and hope others will get the opportunity to read this book!
Geraldine Brooks
<em>People of the Book</em>
July 2021
Natalie Hanson, 36, History Teacher
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<em>The Fault in Our Stars</em> and my Dad - Living through Leukemia in my Dad's shoes
Between the years of 2012-2014, the book <em>The Fault in Our Stars</em> written by John Green was one of the most popular books and films for teenagers. The book was such a hit Hollywood decided to make it a film, and they did a great job sticking to the original novel. <br /><br />This novel is about two teenagers named Hazel and Augustus going through cancer and struggling to get through it until they meet each other through a support group, consisting of many other young cancer patients. My humanities moment happened in 2014 when my friend introduced to me this book. This included staying up all night, each night until I had finished reading the book so I could watch the film. At the age of 19, my dad had stage 4 Leukemia. This book always leaves me feeling emotional as it makes me think of my dad and all the battles he had to go through. Cancer is the hardest battle to fight and I’m so grateful that my dad, even though he was so close to death, continued fighting to survive. Without my dad, me or my siblings would not be here today. This novel is similar to my dad’s story because like the teenagers in the novel, they were fighting for their lives each day and going through lots of chemo and battling depression. <br /><br />To read the novel and watch the film gave me a better understanding of what my dad’s life looked like from his shoes, living his everyday life being once a cancer patient. It was laying in a hospital bed all day, eating the same foods, being sick and exhausted all the time, and taking so many medications that didn’t seem to help. It made my dad feeling depressed because he couldn’t do much from being so sick, similar to the character Hazel and her story. When my dad got sick, he lost his friends because they thought they can no longer hang around him or weren’t wanting to support him. The character Hazel had similar troubles like my dad and was always sad and alone, rereading the same book and watching the same tv shows, that is until she met Augustus from the support group that she was forced to go to because of her parents. <br /><br />If there is one gift I could give to my dad in the past, it would be to watch this film (not the story because he doesn’t like to read). I think watching this film would have gave my dad hope to know that he isn’t the only one fighting cancer and the characters Hazel and Augustus as well as millions of other teenagers in the world understand what he is going through.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ffrNqDDyEgLPHj5IMLH6OMcedcAki7mNHeRVFKKol10/edit?usp=sharing
The book <em>The Fault in Our Stars </em>by John Green
The year 2014 in my living room reading the book / watching the movie.
Cheyenne, 18 years old, living in Utah, a senior in high school
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<em>The Great Gatsby</em>, Revisited
When asked what my favorite book is, I often quickly answer with <em>The Great Gatsby</em>. I first read <em>The Great Gatsby</em> in 2009 in my 10th Grade English class and fell in love. I loved the description of the clothing and parties of the 1920s. I loved the characters, I thought the (spoiler alert!) unrequited love between Daisy and Gatsby was so romantic, and I felt heartbroken by the tragic ending nearly every character received.<br /><br />Throughout the years, I have defended this novel from students who claim it is boring and adults who describe the characters as self-centered. They were, in my opinion, misunderstood. Recently, I realized I had not re-read <em>The Great Gatsby</em> in a long time and decided it was the perfect time to re-read. Wow, was I wrong.<br /><br />Perhaps it is because I am now looking through the lens of someone who lived through a pandemic or the lens of being nearly 30- I am not sure what changed but something has and wow are these characters insufferable! Everyone is privileged, entitled, and whiny. What I once saw as romantic (buying a house with a view of Daisy's dock) now seems creepy and manipulative. The characters who I once loved now seem like absolute trash people. <br /><br />As I reflected on the way my thoughts on this book have changed, I thought about the importance of perspective and lived experiences. It gave me more insight into how my high school students might interpret things differently than I do and how important it is to bring multiple perspectives in as often as possible.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
<em>The Great Gatsby</em>
Summer 2021
Maggie Jones, 28, Social Studies Teacher
great-gatsby-revisited
<em>The Jungle</em>: Personalizing the Historical Struggle of Workers
Sinclair famously quipped that he “aimed for the public’s heart” but accidentally “hit it in the stomach.” His novel hit Shedd in both places. <em>The Jungle</em> personalized the hopes and struggles of those living in the era that she would eventually study as a modern U.S. historian. Sinclair’s story prompted her to seek answers to questions: How did this novel prompt policy change? How did it capture the struggles of historical actors and immigrants in the early 20th century? What other novels did Sinclair write? What institutional structures need reform in order to be more just?
<span><span>An early encounter with muckraking American novelist Upton Sinclair’s </span><em>The Jungle </em><span>exposed Kristen Shedd to issues surrounding human rights and animal rights in the early 20</span><span>th</span><span> century. For Shedd, the 1906 novel exposed the intersections of fiction, policy, history, and social justice. Sinclair’s story prompted her to seek answers to questions: How did this novel prompt policy change? How did it capture the struggles of historical actors and immigrants in the early 20th century? What other novels did Sinclair write? What institutional structures need reform in order to be more just?</span></span>
<em>The Jungle</em> by Upton Sinclair
Kristen Shedd, Fullerton College & The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress
shedd-jungle-personalizing-history
<em>The White Tiger's</em> Impact
My most recent humanities moment would have to be a book I recently finished based on my brother's recommendation. Named <em>The White Tiger</em>, the book was recently adapted into a Netflix film, which follows the story of an ambitious and cunning rich family's driver in India and how he manages to overcome his impoverished lifestyle and rise to the top as an entrepreneur. The reason why this book resonated with me so much is because it perfectly encapsulates the reality of India's ranked social and political system and how it can play a role in every individual's life. The author, Aravind Adiga, does such an amazing job breaking down the characteristics of society through a metaphoric and satirical tone. Upon finishing the book, I enthusiastically discussed it with my brother and our family. My parents were born and raised in Jaipur, India. The realities of Indian society explained through the book came as a surprise to my brother and I, but were quite the norm for my parents. They found it amusing how my brother and I could not believe the atrocious events that took place in the book whereas they'd witnessed these events every day growing up. It definitely put into perspective the vastly different lifestyles that people like my brother and I, who were raised abroad with expensive international educations and privileges, have from people like my parents. This book is a current favorite and I definitely recommend it. If you're considering simply watching the film on Netflix so you can get away without the extra reading, I'd highly advise against that. After all, we all know the book is always better than the film.
Aravind Adiga
<em>The White Tiger</em>
June 2021
Vyapti Wadhwaney, 18, Student
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