California Council for the Humanities

Thanks for posting this. Much to chew on.

Have organized a gathering for my culture group to attend the SF program http://www.meetup.com/Culture-Places/calendar/11710814/. This facebook page is becoming an excellent resource for humanities related events in the Bay Area, as well as for pertinent publications and articles.

i would talk to the youth in our migrant farming community who are enrolled in the FNM art classes! I am from Spfld Ill- land of Lincoln and he is my favorite historical figure of all time

I would like to know what President Obama thinks about Lincoln's relevance and his influence on his political thinking.

Some of the Council's grantees have been wonderfully innovative and would make great speakers.

There's a lot of innovation in the "commercial" industrial design world that the arts and humanities helped nourish and it would be a great cross-pollination (or is that in-breeding?) to come full circle. The folks at IDEO market Innovation with a capital "I" to an enormous range of corporate America (yes there is range there) in fascinating ways--CEO Tim Brown is a dynamic speaker, co-founders Bill Moggeridge and Dave Kelly have keen insights.

Each project is deeply informed by the humanities. Humanities scholars from all the disciplines you name and those you do not, representing the best of scholarship, are integral to each of the documentary projects the Council supports.

Yes, I read the boilerplate on the forms. We'll have lunch, Ralph, and you can convince me there is a reality and not just window dressing behind the words. It's hard for me to believe that a disinterested humanist would look at your recent funding decisions and not just see ideological muckraking and feel good sentimentality.

Wow.

This is great!

The books don't seem to join the issue of diversity within unity. The war between the states is remote both in time and content, though a good dialogue could occur on the role of a national government vs. states' rights vs. individual liberty, making sure that the merits of the various perspectives are presented. The humanities should teach the capacity to understand politically incorrect viewpoints.

These sort of historical collections of data have very little to do with the humanities, but they sure are easy to assemble. Because times were different they fail to shed light on issues of today, unless we seek patterns with contemporary implications which are few and usually overdrawn. They are strictly archival. An event becomes humanistic when it is crafted into an artistic expression relating to our issues.

So, for example, there are the Salem witch trials and then there is Arthur Miller's The Crucible wherein we see dramatically portrayed connections to the overreaching of government during the McCarthy years.

It's easy to assemble the ingredients to make a souffle, but something else to bring it off. ... Read More

The term humanities is not a synonym for historical informatoin and it certainly doesn't just encompass heritage. You could of course change your name to the Council for California's Heritage.

Wow. A treatise on what gives the humanities their import. It's not that I don't agree with the basic premise, but the rub is that the public humanities provide a bridge from the academic to the "public." Sometimes the ingredients of the souffle are a worthy start to building that bridge.

Yes, let's build bridges so the public can cross over into insight and meaning. But such bridges have to offer destinations on the other side that the public wants to visit in these challenging times.

Sorry I didn't know about this in advance. Jim was a good friend when he was in Congress & I directed the State Historical Society of Iowa. His wife, Deba, actually was the second employee of the Iowa State Historic Preservation Office in the 1960s.

Thanks for posting this proclamation. Though it contains many uplifting sentiments, it tends to limit its emphasis to creativity--to the arts side of the duo. One of the core functions of the humanities is criticism/critical thinking, being able to sort out meaning from data and from expression.

Is the Council observing the month with any special activity or activities?

There are many activities that we're involved with during the month and we will be posting them on FB.

It will be interesting to see if he brings a journalist's or historian's assessment to bear or an ideologue's hatchet.