Empowerment Archives | National Humanities Center

Empowerment

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Disorderly Eaters: Texts in Self-Empowerment

Edited by Lilian R. Furst (NHC Fellow, 1988–89) and Peter W. Graham This book explores the various manifestations of eating disorders in literature, including cannibalism, the magic attributes of food, religiously motivated fasting, and children's eating problems, from the classical period to Toni Morrison, in American, British, and European texts. The underlying, unifying theme is … Continued

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Unexpected Lessons in Empowerment

My Humanities Moment involves a connection between two individuals that might not initially seem to have anything in common: Jane Austen and Quentin Tarantino. One of the first places I found inspiration for the tenacity that has always kept me going through numerous personal and professional challenges was in the novels of Jane Austen. The … Continued

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A Quiet Desperation

In my late 20s, I knew that I wanted to make a vocational shift, but I struggled to find the courage to do so. One day, I came across the lines of Transcendentalist philosopher Henry David Thoreau. “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation,” he wrote in Walden in 1854. Thoreau’s writing—a reflection on human … Continued