Two hundred fifty thousand bodies filled the National Mall on August 28, 1963. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom is now regarded as a landmark event, but the massive organizational effort required to pull it off needed a talented leader at the helm. Enter Bayard Rustin — a multilayered figure whose background in direct action and “creative nonviolence” uniquely prepared him for the part, writes Paige McGinley, a scholar of performance studies and the civil rights movement. It’s a story well told in Netflix’s “Rustin,” which may garner Oscar gold for Colman Domingo’s portrayal in the title role.
Eighth-century Persian courtier and thinker Abdullah Ibn al-Muqaffa’s treatise on governing marks the start of a new vein of political writing in the Arab world, says Faculty Fellow Hayrettin Yücesoy, but has not received the attention it deserves. Yücesoy’s book-in-progress will provide a critical edition and English translation of the Arabic original, bringing al-Muqaffa’s work to readers who contemplate on the art of governance then and today.
Peace of mind: The science and philosophy of mental health
What does it mean to be mentally healthy? The answer has changed over time, says philosopher and historian of science Anya Plutynski. Her research on early 20th-century “mental hygiene” practitioners shows that some providers of the era sought to establish factors and skills that boosted patients’ mental health and prevented symptoms of mental illness from arising. That’s a different goal today’s standard of care, which more often equates mental health with the mere absence of the symptoms of mental illness. With her book-in-progress, “Making Mental Health,” Plutynski, a Faculty Fellow in the Center for the Humanities, is tracking the history of this early movement and considering why their approach was abandoned.
Glitter bombs and green queens: Nicole Seymour’s irreverent take on environmental humanities
A Q&A with Faculty Book Celebration keynote speaker Nicole Seymour, whose work in the environmental humanities asks how literature and other cultural forms — from documentary film to standup comedy — mediate our relationship to environmental crisis.
The human fingerprint maps our identity, the ties that bind us, the lingering traces we leave on this earth. As humanists, we explore the durability as well as the fragility of the human condition — opening windows onto worlds near to home and oceans away, worlds we interpret through stories and images, poems and performance, history and narratives, sounds and silence. At Washington University in St. Louis, the Center for the Humanities facilitates the labor of humanists by nurturing innovative research, transformative pedagogy, and vibrant community engagement locally and globally.
WashU graduate students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences are invited to apply for a one-semester fellowship during the academic year 2024-25. The fellowship offers a workspace, the opportunity to workshop a portion of a dissertation (or job talk) and a $5,000 stipend. Applications are due Friday, April 12.
Proximate and distant, micro and macro — climate change troubles human perception and defies conception. The Madrid-based artist Santiago Sierra’s 52 Canvases Exposed to Mexico City’s Air — on view in the Saligman Family Atrium at the Kemper Art Museum — presents a visualization of the toxicity of contemporary urban life, employing art as direct evidence of airborne contaminants. Projects such as Sierra’s invite us to think about the impact of climate change in its tactile dimensions as well as in its more abstract effects. Essential to Sierra’s artwork is an understanding of climate degradation as intersectional — material and sociopolitical — recognizing the systems of power responsible for the environmental crisis and making us see anew not just the air but also the policies that contaminate our bodies.
Panel participants come from a range of fields, including art history, environmental studies, engineering, and public health to discuss how visual representations of environmental contamination function to encourage contemplation of the viewers’ position within a polluted world as well as the tensions that arise from such representations. Speakers include Ila Sheren, associate professor of Art History & Archaeology in Arts & Sciences and associate director for the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity; Suzanne Loui, lecturer in Environmntal Studies in Arts & Sciences; and Jay Turner, head of the Division of Engineering Education, Vice Dean for Education, and James McKelvey Professor of Engineering Education.
Free and open to the public. Registration is requested.
Time devoted exclusively to research and writing is integral to academic productivity. Faculty fellowships provide the opportunity to make significant strides.
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The humanities center facilitates the labor of humanists by nurturing innovative research, transformative pedagogy, and vibrant community engagement locally and globally.