Dear Friends,
Each week for the past three months we’ve been in your inbox with curated content to help us consider pressing issues through the lens of the humanities. As Rhode Island moves into Phase 2 of reopening,
#HumanitiesInTheAgeofSocialDistancing
is also moving into a new phase. This is our final issue, but we’ve got some exciting things planned for the coming weeks. Next Tuesday, the Humanities Council will launch our
new bi-monthly eNews: #HumanitiesInContext
. It will continue to provide news of the Council’s grantmaking, partnerships, initiatives and events and also will share curated humanities content that is a springboard for reflection, learning, and action. The format will change, but the purpose and spirit remain.
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We’re all in this together,
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Elizabeth Francis
Executive Director
and the Humanities Council Team
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“Many of the subjects of these projects belong to populations, including the African American and Latino communities, that have borne the brunt of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States. Historians and activists .... must now grapple with how they can forge ahead with existing projects in the face of a pandemic that shows no signs of letting up.”
In this piece
, Eddy Martinez interviews Emiko Tsuchida about a project to collect stories of Japanese Americans interned during World War II and Rhode Island’s own
Marta V. Martínez
, director of the
Nuestras Raíces:
The Latino Oral History Project of Rhode Island and executive director of Rhode Island Latino Arts. Marta, the 2016 Winner of the Public Humanities Scholar Award, speaks to how she has adapted her process in the age of social distancing while still engaging entire families in the work of collecting oral histories.
Learn more about the
Nuestras Raíces
project here
.
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“It’s not just that the statues represent white supremacy, but the purpose of building the statues was the perpetuation of white supremacy,” James Grossman, executive director of the American Historical Association, tells TIME. “This is why they put them up in the first place; to affirm the centrality of white supremacy to Southern culture.”
This piece in
Time Magazine
by Jasmine Aguilera addresses the ‘cycles of controversy’ that have led to this tipping point, offers historical context, and asks the question—where do we go from here?
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Local perspective from artist Becci Davis:
As part of 2019
PVDFest Ideas!
, artist Becci Davis created
My Living Monument
in Providence’s Burnside Park. “
My Living Monument
is a multi-sensory, interactive installation intended to spark conversations about monuments, commemoration practices and the politics of public space.”
Learn more about the project here.
PVDFest Ideas!
was supported by the Humanities Council, the Providence Public Library, the Rhode Island Historical Society, and the Providence Department of Art, Culture + Tourism as part of PVDFest.
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In this interview
Lorén Spears, executive director of the Tomaquag Museum, talks about how the award winning museum is dealing with the impacts of the pandemic. The Tomaquag Museum is the state’s only indigenous museum and was awarded the National Medal for Museum and Library Service in 2016. At the end of the article, listen to Lorén, the 2016 Winner of the Tom Roberts Prize for Creative Achievement in the Humanities,
speak about racism and broken systems in America
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Responding to the realities of creating as people of color during these unprecedented times, multimedia artist Carlos Andres Toro and composer/violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain collaborate on a live-streamed cinematic journey in film and in sound. As two proud sons of immigrant families of the diaspora between island nations and North America, Toro and Roumain marry their complex, fluid creative practices into a singular, seamless collaboration. Combining bold, dramatic imagery with a string and beat-based score,
“Requiem”
addresses the realities of living in modern-day America, where the inherent worth of black and brown bodies and souls requires impassioned pleas for their basic humanity to be recognized.
A PVDFest Project - Curated by FirstWorks
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In 2013, the Humanities Council funded Sylvia Ann Soares with a grant to research and develop a living history performance of Nancy Elizabeth Prophet. In 1918, Prophet was the first Black woman to graduate from the Rhode Island School of Design. She was African American Narragansett-Pequot. Sylvia Ann continues to develop the performance of Prophet.
Click here to watch
a 48-minute spirited journey through Prophet's life, diary excerpts, letters and more, performed at the Newport Art Museum June 27, 2019, to accompany the exhibit “Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney: Sculpture.”
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Listen, Learn, & Unlearn:
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Resmaa Menakem is a therapist, author, and teacher who works with communities across the country including police forces. “In this heartbreaking moment, after the killing of George Floyd and the history it carries, Resmaa Menakem’s practices offer us the beginning to change at a cellular level.”
In this conversation
with On Being host Krista Tippett, Resmaa and Krista confront how historical, intergenerational, and personal trauma affects our health and our bodies.
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This list will be added to as the Humanities Council is made aware of resources available to the sector as we weather this storm together. Check back often.
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