[As this new semester gets underway, it does so amidst a particularly fraught moment for teaching & learning the Humanities. So for this week’s Semester Previews series I’ve highlighted one thing from each of my courses that embodies the value of the Humanities for us all—leading up to this special weekend post on MLK Day and the Humanities!]
On three
ways I’d connect the iconic Martin Luther King Jr. to the value of the
Humanities.
1)
The
Real King: I’ve shared that hyperlinked MLK Day post for most of this blog’s
14 (!) Januarys now, and so I wanted to make sure to include it in this year’s
MLK post as well (and would ask you to check it out if you haven’t before and
then come on back). But I would also say that the need to understand a subject
like King in all (or at least a lot of) its breadth and depth, to get at nuance
as well as essential elements, to hold complexity in our minds while still
making the case for crucial takeaways, quite simply all the perspectives and
ideas I argue for in that post, are at the heart of why we teach and learn the
Humanities.
2)
The Written Word: For my 2021
MLK Day series, I wrote about a series of important King texts beyond the
March on Washington speech (on which that Real King post focuses in part). Some
of them were speeches, some essays, some books, and I didn’t come close to
highlighting all or even most of his work with any of those genres. I know as
an English Professor I might focus on the written word more than other
historically minded types, but I don’t believe any historical figure better
exemplifies the importance of the written word to American activism, social and
cultural progress, and our collective story than does King. And where else you
gonna get better equipped to connect with the written word than in Humanities
courses?!
3)
The Task Ahead: In mid-December, the contrarian
professor Tyler
Austin Harper (who teaches Literature and Environmental Studies at Bates
College) went viral for a combination of an Atlantic
Monthly article and an accompanying
Twitter thread critiquing the academic Humanities (at least at elite Ivy
League institutions) for emphases on things like DEI, public engagement, and
activism instead of learning, sharing, and creating knowledge. I agree with
Harper that the latter goals remain paramount, and I hope in fact that my first
two items in this post reflect layers to those goals. But I entirely disagree
that these emphases are in any way either/or, and would indeed stress that one
of our most significant goals is to help our students be publicly engaged
activists, not for any particular issue (and certainly not with the same
perspective as us), but in their own lives as citizens. No one in American
history modeled that work better than did King, and so sharing him with our
students, in all the ways I’m talking about in this post and many more besides,
is one great example of helping them get to that point as well.
Next
series starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What
do you think?
No comments:
Post a Comment