The Public Humanist
Olmsted and America
Editor’s Note: Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing America, a film by Lawrence Hott and Diane Garey, premieres at the Northampton Academy of Music on Sunday, April 13, 4 PM. At the editor’s request, the film’s writer Ken Chowder contributed the...The Dark Matter of Moral Injury
By now most every American is painfully aware of the runaway suicide rate in the military, averaging 33 suicides per month in 2012, roughly one every seventeen hours. Even this number—representing confirmed suicides among active duty troops—falls far short...The Worcester Revolution of 1774 Project Brings Historical Agencies from Central MA to Celebrate the First American Revolution
In the summer of 1774 yeoman farmers, craftsmen and other members of the colonial middle classes throughout Central Massachusetts became incensed at their government–the Royal Parliament of Great Britain. Their actions would spark one of the largest political...How Russian Nationaism is at Odds with an Increasingly Global World
Under the pretext of saving ethnic Russians, Vladimir Putin has been making headlines recently for his aggressive takeover of the Crimea and impending invasion of Eastern Ukraine. As a result, the United States and Europe have threatened increasingly severe economic...EU Court's Ruling on Google Privacy
Both threats to net neutrality and internet privacy issues were big headlines this week. For an authorative list of resources on the recent EU Court Google ruling, I recommend following links listed below the text; both the text and links were taken from The Scout...On Learning by Making
I have a new bookshelf. It modestly greets all who enter the house. The top shelf holds, perfectly, an old set of cloth-bound books of walking tours of English counties. Other random favorites with handsome spines populate the lower shelves. What’s special about...Never Done: Women's Work and Why it Matters
Women’s stories from the past aren’t easy to recover. Women left less evidence, different evidence, evidence that’s harder to find and often more challenging to interpret. And where they have been recovered, women’s stories have often been...Mill, Mountain, River: A Child's View of Olde Coleraine
If you were a child living in Coleraine, Massachusetts, from 1840 to 1890, you would have been a witness to and a participant in America’s industrial revolution. Though the production of apples, honey, and maple syrup would continue to dominate the local farm...Teaching Writing: An Experience in Community
I was on a book tour around the publication of my fourth novel when I learned that I would be teaching an introductory course on writing fiction to undergraduates in the spring. Although I was in the midst of giving readings and talks in academic settings (as I have...The Tragedy of Climate Change
In the latest in a series of reports released this spring, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned again that governments are not doing enough to avert the profound risks associated with rising levels of carbon in our atmosphere. The national...Othering: Lessons from Rwanda for Our Schools
Twenty years ago Rwanda collapsed amidst a hundred-day genocidal rampage by its majority Hutu population against the less numerous Tutsi. The quick ferocity of the slaughter stunned and shocked the world, though not enough to prevent it. The seeds of hatred had been...The Pornographic Plantation: Mammy Minstrel Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Molasses drips on the walls. Close to the entrance, leading to the altar and centerpiece of whiteness, brown sugar boys hold baskets as their faces and bodies melt in the heat. A few of them have collapsed on the floor, disintegrating into dark viscous puddles. And...European Parliamentary Elections 2014: Why Nigel Farage is Both Right and Gravely Wrong
In May of this year, the various nations comprising the EU held their parliamentary elections. Despite more moderate parties taking the majority of seats, the surge in popularity of far-right, anti-EU candidates in several countries made headlines, being termed as an...Key Documents for Understanding the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Editor’s Note: This collection of annotated primary sources prepared by David Tebaldi was originally posted here on The Public Humanist on August 3, 2009. He also prepared this annotated list of novels and memoirs selected to further illuminate the conflict. The...Understanding Islam: Some Library Discussion Group-Tested Book Suggestions
Editor’s Note: Today’s news about U.S. Warplanes attacking Iraq has prompted me to dig into my files for an annotated bibliography listing the books selected by Mass Humanities for its “Understanding Islam” reading and discussion program that...Crisis in Gaza: A Look to Quebecois History for Guidance
In 1763 Great Britain had won the Seven Years’ War against France. With the Treaty of Paris that followed, Britain maintained its American territories and all of Canada was surrendered by the French. This vast, newly-acquired area increased the size of British...Longing for Home
“I don’t want to die too soon.” These words spoken by a young woman, the same age and complexion as Michael Brown, were voiced from a deep and lonely place. As a teenager facing adulthood and entering college, she identified with Brown, who no longer...The Privilege of Grief
It was easier for me to travel across the whole country and claim my partner John’s body than it was for Michael Brown’s mother to cross a few feet of pavement in Ferguson, Missouri. John was killed in a car crash in Montana while I was home in...Layered Time and the Force of Gravity in Frankenstein: A Conversation with Linda McInerney and Lindel Hart
Lindel Hart and Linda McInerney have been collaborating for two years on an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In the first year, they researched, imagined, and Lindel wrote. They spent endless hours on Linda’s couch dreaming out how the show might...Interview with Harley Erdman, Playwright for Nobody's Girl
On October 17 and 18, 2014, the Northampton Academy of Music Theater will debut the new play, Nobody’s Girl, a screwball-style comedy based on a true story from the early 1940s. The events involve Mildred Walker, a cashier at the Academy (then a movie theater),...The Cream of the New England Short Film Crop
Technically, the Internet reaches a worldwide audience, but for us at NewEnglandFilm.com, we try to think a bit more locally. The initial idea for the Online New England Film Festival came from our goal to promote local filmmaking to our local community....“Cast Your Whole Vote”: Conversations on the American Social Contract
Two days ago I had the honor of moderating the second of this fall’s four Created Equal: Conversations on Negotiating the American Social Contract events. The series of public film and discussion forums is designed to showcase the theme of Mass Humanities’...Essays Old and New
In the later sixteenth century, about a century after the introduction of the print, Renaissance humanists evolved a novel literary genre, the Essay. The name itself was probably coined by the French thinker Michel de Montaigne. He felt he needed a written mode that...Will the Real First Thanksgiving Please Stand Up?
“And God be praised, we had a good increase…. Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling that so we might after a special manner rejoice together….These things I thought good to let you understand… that you might on...Writing War's Full Range of Emotions: The 1914 Christmas Truce
Writing War’s Full Range of Emotions: The 1914 Christmas Truce Kristina H. Reardon On Christmas Eve of 1914, German, French and British soldiers in Belgium waited in the trenches, now sure the war would not be over by Christmas. Yet optimism that the war might...Cutting up Books in Libraries and other FAIR Adventures
On a recent Saturday, a group of adults and preteens gathered at the J.V. Fletcher Library in Westford, MA and began cutting up books. I mean, really tearing into them, leaving big holes in the pages. Right there in plain view of the librarian. And no one stopped...E-Edition
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