Category: Humanities MomentsPage 7 of 8
It was our first real date. His blind date had backed out and I volunteered to hear Rostropovich’s debut in Washington to play the Dvořák. It was not…
Personally I’ve never been one to adopt a positive outlook when things go wrong. In my life, things tend to go wrong more than they go right. This…
During the election week of president-elect Trump, I was upset. As I tried to make sense of my initial reaction and other’s reactions, a scripture from my youth…
Stephen Kidd explains how his involvement with several projects during his time at the Smithsonian illuminated the powerful role of the humanities in cultivating cross-cultural community. One project,…
While I was a teenager about to go off to college, I watched Death of a Salesman at the theater. At the time I was struggling with the…
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…
Stephen Kidd recalls a trip to Kent State University that he made as a high school student while growing up in Ohio. This visit to the site of…
This might be a total Millennial generation kind of humanities moment, so readers be warned. One day, I was scrolling through social media when I came across a…
As a middle-aged American Caucasian woman with an adopted son from South Korea, I had a longing to understand my son’s heritage and feel more connected to him….
At the age of 74, I could describe many humanities moments but this one stands out. Sometime in 1961, my brother was driving me home when I first…
It was a late night on September 14th, and school was at an overwhelming high. My new organization had just kicked off so all of my time was…
I started learning Latin in seventh grade because I decided it was the most difficult course I could take, and I had something to prove. I was an…
When I was young, maybe around 13 years old, I read a fantasy novel by Raymond Feist called Magician. I enjoyed reading since I was young, but I…
Due to the oil and gas industry plummeting in 2016, my dad lost his job that he had for over 30 years, right before I was about to…
Three years ago my schoolfriend of university took me to see the Canadian monument for the fallen soldiers of the First World War at Vimy in France. I…
As part of my undergraduate degree in Asian studies, I took a class on Haiku, a traditional form of Japanese poetry. At the time, I knew nothing about…
When I was a senior in high school, one of my friend’s passed away from a tragic accident. My friend and I decided to attend the funeral together…
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…
I was around seven years old. My dad and I were in the car when the song came on. “My Front Porch Looking In” by the band Lonestar…
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:…