Icons of southern and American history serve a purpose in our lives and in society. We make meaning with and through icons. In 2018 Jessica Wilkerson published an essay “Living with Dolly Parton”–part memoir, part cultural criticism, and part history–in which she deconstructed the image of country music and southern icon Dolly Parton. This webinar … Continued
How can pop music help us understand historical movements? Does music have an effect on the outcome of protests throughout history? How does music foster connections between people in pursuit of a common goal? Through an examination of pioneering artists such as Sam Cooke, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, John Coltrane, Nina Simone, and Curtis Mayfield, … Continued
Days after the police killing of George Floyd in May 2020, protestors all across America took to the streets to demonstrate against systemic racism and, more specifically, a national crisis of police violence against Black people. This movement for Black lives, arguably the largest protest movement in US history, included invocations of the cries of … Continued
This webinar will consider how humanities scholars research and write about popular music, highlighting the unique interdisciplinary methods often employed as part of this process. Generally, popular music is reflective of broader social and political change. Yet at the same time, there are elements of its development that are quite specific to the concerns of … Continued
Join us as we take a series of virtual audio journeys through the intellectual woods with cohosts Robert D. Newman, Tania Munz, Matthew Booker, and Brooke Andrade as they survey some of the compelling topics being studied by historians and philosophers, scholars of literature, art, and other fields who come to the Center from all over the world.
When my Humanities moment struck me, I was dumbfounded. Being at the young age of fourteen, I don’t think I fully understood the power of music. I knew that I loved music. I knew that I could connect with music. I knew that music had some power over the world, as everyone around me loved … Continued
Late scholar James A. Snead wrote that repetition in Black American creative expression is most prevalent in performance such as rhythm in music, dance and language. He used James Brown’s “Cold Sweat” to demonstrate this, revealing the algorithmic design of the song. This helped me connect the cultural arts to technology, specifically through computation and … Continued
One thing I can tell you for sure is that music can save the soul. For me music is my outlet. Music has always played a role in my life, especially when I was in high school dealing with the ups and downs of the average teenager on top of depression etc. Not only a … Continued
In this video recording, actor and musician Noah Reid describes the way that a Neil Young song allowed him to understand and portray the way that loss shaped Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Seemingly small moments, unexpected and beautiful, make this world interesting. Noticing the beauty all around is a pastime that comes with many benefits, especially in the field of the humanities. Art, music, and film—they are areas I will always enjoy, but one specific night heightened my love for all three, and it happened in the … Continued