The Public Humanist
Literature in the VA
I have been a facilitator for Literature & Medicine discussions at the Togus Veterans Administration Hospital in Augusta, Maine for the past two years and have borne witness to some remarkable discussions. In my day job, I am a philosophy professor at the...Conscience in War
As the savage harvest of World War I was underway in Europe, Sigmund Freud offered this less than prescient comment in an essay entitled “Thoughts for the Times on War and Death”: When the frenzied conflict of this war shall have been decided, every one of...Motor Vehicle Pollution, Social Justice and Public Health
Motor Vehicle Pollution, Social Justice and Public Health David Sittenfeld, Jon Levy, Sam Lipson, Joanne Nicklas, and Wig Zamore A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that that chronic exposure to motor vehicle pollution can trigger health problems such as...A Movement Grows: The Human Right to Housing in America
Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Community Action Network A right to housing? Sounds unAmerican! Sounds like socialism! Well, actually, the right to housing is an American idea that’s been around for quite some time and that has found support in high places. Almost...What's in a Name: Anonymity (now and then)
early in the film: Mordecai (Billy Curtis): What did you say your name was again? The Stranger (Clint Eastwood): I didn’t. Mordecai: No. I guess you didn’t at that, did you? just before the conclusion: Mordecai: You know, I never did know your name. The...The Telling Detail and the Facts of Life
This just in: 71 registrants as of this morning. I am really looking forward to this year’s Mass History Conference (June 7). I am starting to get to know people. My third conference will be, again, a little bit more about seeing people I like and respect, and...When Art Was a Stimulus Package: My Argument for a Reprise
Imaginary Headline, 1934: “Over 3,000 un/under-employed American artists put to work in last six months. Direct aid recipients produce 15,000 unique works of public art to enliven spirits and landscapes of America. Cost: a mere 1.3 million dollars with 90% of...Liberal Arts Call to Arms: Expand the Mind!
In the previous blog entry, Professor Elizabeth Duclos-Orsello wondered why, given the lessons learned about the connections between funding artists and economic growth during The Great Depression, the current administration’s response to The Great Recession has...Growing Up American 2: Shanghai/Paris — La Charge Héroïque
“Don’t apologize, it’s a sign of weakness,” says John Wayne’s Capt. Nathan Brittles to a fresh-faced lieutenant. Men and women I know, who grew up in America, mostly think it a hilarity that exemplifies what they work to change. I take it...Attie's Music
The playlist for my mother’s birthday CD, entitled “Attie’s Music,” is dominated by American swing/jazz. I realize these are not the same, but since my mother was born and bred and lives in Holland, let’s start there in contrast to the...Oh, You Were There, Too? American War Films in Britain
Although the term special relationship traditionally defines a bond of friendship between the United States and Britain, I find it is much more appropriate in describing a long-standing bitterness. After all, the two nations were enemies for over 100 years: starting...A New Humanities Ph.D.
This article is reprinted here by permission of the author and the online publication, Inside Higher Ed. After Sidonie Smith, president of the Modern Language Association, took on the herculean task of asking the profession to rethink the shape of the dissertation,...
The Case for Literature
This essay was originally broadcast on Vermont Public Radio, April 29, 2010, and you can listen to it here. Recently I read [in Education Week] that the National Council of Teachers of English was looking for volunteers for an ad hoc task force to gather evidence...Making Invitation: On Bringing an American Opera to Macedonia
Synchronicity is astonishing. I could never have dreamed that our new opera, The Captivation of Eunice Williams (Paula M. Kimper, composer, Harley Erdman, librettist) would be chosen to be presented in Macedonia. Where exactly is Macedonia? Sort of near Greece, right?...Teaching Art I Love
A lot of professors hate teaching survey courses. In art history, the typical survey would be something I took as an undergrad: from the Parthenon to Picasso. At Harvard, where I did graduate work, the class was traditionally scheduled at 12 pm and earned the nickname...Tolstoy on Art, Real and Counterfeit
I find myself compelled to share the words of Tolstoy because I’ve been moved by his art and I’m seeking to be united with others who have been similarly moved–or who will be when they get with it and start reading his books. I have been pricked by...Frederick Wiseman's HOSPITAL at THE DOCYARD: Reality in the Raw
After many years of study, negotiation, and struggle, and over a year and a half of intense national debate landmark healthcare legislation was signed into law this past March. While the significant outcomes of this new plan are yet to be seen, it can’t be...Cringe-Worthy History
How many of you have groaned your way through cringe-worthy reenactments in history documentaries? Let me see a show of hands in early 19th century gauntlets. Do you have any idea how much it costs to rent those gauntlets. If you throw them down please remember to...15 Minutes of Jerkiness
One of the jerkiest things I’ve ever done is push a blind man down on an elevator in the Sears Tower. I was on a third-grade field trip to the observatory of the (then) world’s tallest building. I was so excited to get to the top that I shoved my way...A View from the Grand Duchy: Reflections on What I Learned in Luxembourg
Moien, Äddi, and Kaweechelchen are the three Luxembourgish (Lëtzebuergesch) words I know. They were committed to memory during my recent stint as a Fulbright Faculty Fellow at the University of Luxembourg where from February through June of this year I...Growing Up American 3: London – Lure of the Wilderness
When my family left China in 1948, I missed the movie theaters in Shanghai. On the boat to Hong Kong, my brother and I, in our early teens, vowed that we would sacrifice much to see Howard Hawks’ long-anticipated Red River. One year later, we saw it at an...Re-entry
It’s August 1st and a faint scent of the new academic year is in the air, detectable only by returning teachers who with a mix of melancholy and excitement begin to brace themselves for re-entry. We have learned to expect neither understanding nor pity from our...The Birthplace of Ideas
Henry David Thoreau’s birthplace in Concord opened to the public this past June for the first time in its history. This momentous achievement was the result of fifteen years of hard work and determination by the Thoreau Farm Trust, which helped to save the site...Teaching My Children History
I have been studying and researching and writing about history for half of my life. For the seven years I have been a father, I’ve been thinking about what is appropriate to teach my children about history; what seminal events might constitute a beginning canon...Teaching Difficult Subjects
I am writing and posting this from Helsinki, where I am attending a conference and giving a paper. I mention this only because it reminds me that perspective is crucial: what is self-evident in one context may not be so in another. The first thing to consider when...Reentry Revisited: The Academic and the Ex-Prisoner
My reflections follow from Bob Meager’s insights into the melancholy that besets academics at this time of the year. I share his dismay about re-entry into a world that is often distracted by a war of words, where victory is often measured by the promotion of...I'm Sane; You're Sane: We're Crazy
“Insanity in individuals is something rare — but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.” – Friedrich Nietzsche If you keep up with the news, you could be forgiven for thinking that – pace Nietzsche – there are a lot...Witness Katrina: Interview with Filmmaker Greg Jacobs
There’s been a recent deluge of documentaries and news specials marking the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Within the last week, Spike Lee, Harry Shearer and Brian Williams each released high profile films examining the continuing social, political...New Orleans Rising: Interview with John King
This is part two in my continuing conversation with filmmakers about the political and narrative challenges they faced in producing films about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. While numerous documentaries have been released to mark the five-year anniversary of...An Arts Activist's Summer Vacation
There is the romantic notion, the American nostalgia for (and fantasy of) isolated and collective genius, the creator’s dream: a group of artists go off into the woods, or maybe a farm, for a summer or longer. They train and explore together, challenge each...A Visit to the Mountain Kalash, the Vanishing Pagan People of Pakistan (Part I)
While Pakistan is predominantly a Muslim nation, it is home to an ancient pagan people known as the Kalash who claim descent from Alexander the Great. Known for the love of wine, unveiled women, wooden idols, and bright folk costumes, the Kalash of the Hindu Kush have...A Visit to the Mountain Kalash, the Vanishing People of Pakistan (Part 2)
Life with the Kalash of Rumbur We accessed the Kalash after making a ten hour journey from the Pashtun-dominated frontier city of Peshawar which lies to the south of the mountains. Approximately seven hours of this journey was made off road on an unpaved mountain road...Cabinet of Culinary Curiosities: Books & Manuscripts from the Mortimer Rare Book Room
Six recipes for puff pastry from 1669 to 1970. Eating ice cream in France in the late 19th century. Dining with gladiatorial entertainment. These are just three of the offerings I included in Cabinet of Culinary Curiosities: Books & Manuscripts from the Mortimer...A Feast for the Eyes and Food for the Soul: Visiting The Carle with My Daughters
Since I’ve worked in one capacity or another in the Education Department of The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art (www.carlemuseum.org) for the past ten years, visits there are commonplace in my family, but they haven’t become stale in the least. With...“Fascist”: A Modern Insult and Historic Movement
As the political atmosphere in the United States has become increasingly heated and divisive, a prominent strategy of debate is to reveal that an opponent’s beliefs are somehow un-American. The labels employed in doing so are often quite broad and not given much...Those Fascist Elites
Fascism, so far as I can tell, pretty much means everything, yet still means nothing these days. Trying to fish a theory of fascism out of the random, often hateful commentator rants (right and left) strikes me as foolish. Hardly interested in history and historical...Family Adventures in Reading
Since 2008, Mass Humanities has sponsored a children’s literature program for families called Family Adventures in Reading. It’s been held in branch libraries in Springfield and New Bedford. The Springfield program for this year will be hosted by the...Shared Stories and Shared Lives: Reflections of a FAIR Storyteller
“To read a book for the first time is to make an acquaintance with a new friend; to read it for a second time is to meet an old one.” ~Chinese SayingAs a child, books were my friends, my allies. As an adult and professional storyteller I have the good...The Making and Remaking of an Audio Tour for the Museum of Russian Icons
Thinking back over the past year of working on the creation of the Museum of Russian Icon’s family audio tour that highlights stories from Russian folklore, the one lesson that I keep coming back to is the importance of testing the impact of a project with an...Picturing Thoreau in the Digital Age
The other day, an eight-year-old visitor was mesmerized by a map of Greater Boston that hangs in my kitchen. The map is nothing fancy. It’s the kind that might have hung in a real estate office before the advent of GPS devices. After my visitor determined that...Mapping the Invisible: Hidden History in the Old Deerfield Streetscape
Summer of ‘64… We drove our old, woodie Mercury three-seater, oil-burning station wagon with a one-wheeled trailer piled high with a family-of-six’s earthly belongings in tow, across the continent from Fresno, California, to Waxhaw, North...Documentary Filmmaking and the Risk of Retraumatization
“Before I had a trauma problem. I could not study. I was always suffering from headaches. I was always crying. I was hopeless about life because I thought was alone on earth.” That’s the first thing Fifi said to me when we began our interview with...Why I'd Rather Be Farming
Each spring right after my garden beds thaw, little green spears of garlic poke through the leaf mulch. The warmth awakens my compost and the smell begins to draw the neighbors’ ire. I love it: to me it’s the smell of sedition. By producing some of my food...Food, Relationships and Morality: The Ethics of Eating
Norman Rockwell “Freedom From Want” (1943)Thanksgiving is fast approaching. Close your eyes and picture this scene: you and loved ones sharing food and memories, creating new ones, talking, laughing, lifting a glass of wine or a forkful of pie to toast...Falling in Love with History
When I was a graduate student at Emerson College, I enrolled in an Oral History and Performance course co-taught by professors Ron Jenkins (theatre) and Blanche Linden-Ward (history). We created a documentary theatre script, gaining practical experience in documenting...Is America in Decline?
In a lengthy and widely cited cover story for theJanuary/February 2010 issue of The Atlantic magazine that serves as the conceptual framework for Mass Humanities’ seventh annual fall symposium and is paradoxically entitled “How America Can Rise...The Uses and Abuses of Theories of Decline
Is the United States in decline? There is only one thing that we know for sure in response to this question, namely that we have no idea. Theories of decline abound, as they always have (those who are inclined to see the dark side, always will), but only in historical...Have a Day
As one who once dropped out of an excellent small college in Vermont in the middle of sophomore year as a result of having to say “Hi” to everyone I passed on campus, I may be thought to be too dyspeptic to write on “the compulsion to be...Tyranny of Cheerfulness
When a major earthquake struck the Bay Area in 1989, I phoned my friend Sue in Oakland to find out if her home had been affected. My call went to voicemail. A positive message, recorded for all their worried out-of-town friends and family, assured: “We’re...Social Media Flaws and the Humanities
The humanities transmit, through time and across cultures, diverse expressions of the human condition, allowing us to contextualize, illuminate, and pass on an essential legacy of culture, history and heritage. They are an ages-old, ongoing conversation about the...Souls Imperiled, Humanities Intact
Seated in the front row, uncomfortably close to the speakers who formed a panel on the use of stories in the communications work of state humanities councils, I felt a little embarrassed when Kathleen Holt, an impressive woman who heads up the communications efforts...Re-imagining a liberal art: science
Although the plight of the humanities occupies the ever fretful academy, the sciences also face a dilemma. Are the sciences just technical training, or are they intended to broaden students intellectual horizons? In my experience, current practice in most...The Uses of Social Media for Filmmakers
Social media is the worst form of media, besides all those others. Apologies to Winston Churchill for repurposing his famous quote on democracy. Isn’t that what we often do with social media, repurpose quotes and video (or sometimes just copy and paste)? For...Historic Preservation: Beauty or Honesty?
If you happened to be walking about any town or city with historic buildings, roads, and structures from several different periods, then chances are that there is an organization tasked with their preservation. Not only a tool for protecting the history of a locality,...Historiographical Gulf
Twenty years ago today the Gulf War began. I remember it well. I was in Zaire that Thursday morning, riding atop the back of a lorry through the rainforest, when first I heard news that “Desert Shield” had become “Desert Storm.” One of my...Hecho en Socialismo: Made in Socialism
I was sitting in the make-up chair for the morning news show at Globovision, a large cable network station in Caracas, Venezuela a few weeks ago. As the assistant touched up the liver spots on my bald head (they form the shape of the Hawaiian Islands to exact scale),...Visiting Cuba, Mass Humanities-Style
Should we go? It only took us a moment to agree. We had to. Mass Humanities was sponsoring a trip to Cuba in January, 2011, and it seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. After all, Americans don’t usually get to go to Cuba. And although neither of us had...Reading and Thinking Emerson in 2011–Part I
“The first rule of writing is not to omit the thing you meant to say.” –Ralph Waldo EmersonToday, as we look back on our history, we are awed by that miraculous confluence of character and brains that coalesced in the Constitutional Convention,...Reading and Thinking Emerson in 2011: Part II
“The light is always identical in its composition, but it falls on a great variety of objects, and by so falling is first revealed to us, not in it own form, for it is formless, but in theirs; in like manner, thought only appears in the objects it...E-Edition
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