Two other experiences shaped my understanding of the humanities while still in college. If we forget the underbelly of the narrative, do we fully succeed in interpreting the past and coming to know the human experience? This text pushed me to understand the power of interpretation, making me aware of the way that we privilege certain information at the expense of other facts. This text provided access to the busy world of intolerance and pain, making me feel the irony of the text’s linguistic turns, such as a description of the university-ordered Auto-da-Fe, an “entertaining” event in which people in “costumes” burned. Knowing that Candide circulated underground, anonymously, and with some risk, placed in juxtaposition the textbook narrative that concentrated primarily on the intellectual growth of male elites in the eighteenth century. Despite being a hilarious read, I was weighed down by the context of this book. Voltaire brilliantly interweaves the Spanish Inquisition, immoral clergy, the travails of warfare, and syphilis into a political satire. Likewise, Candide proved to be an eye-opening critique of eighteenth-century society and culture. In the humanities, we play a central role in ensuring that competing narratives are explored and questioned. It was really the first time that I understood the complex way in which multiple narratives were constructed simultaneously and were contested, with victors controlling access to canonical truth while other narratives were harder to extricate. Focusing on the early Gnostics, this class twisted my basic framework of early Christianity by examining texts that forced me to question authority, gender, and legitimacy. Edwin Yamauchi, who was known for having students stand before speaking in class (you get the idea, it was terrifying). But who are these individuals that we choose to study and value? Do we push ourselves in the classroom, or in personal growth, to go beyond the master narrative?Īs an undergraduate, I studied early Christianity under Dr. To me, the value of the humanities rests in its ability to enter the cultural experiences of others. As I reflect back, many of my current interests in alternative vantage points began during those important years, allowing me-a happygolucky Michigander-to begin to question the master narrative, the construction of a singular narrative by which we understand the past. The education that I received from talented and thoughtful professors shaped my understanding of culture, history and religion today.
Emerging from a family of English teachers, I veered towards history and religion as fields of study with an innate love of text and language. With balmy Lake Michigan swims long forgotten, I arrived as an eager first year student at Miami University (Ohio) with an equal supply of trepidation and confidence.
Reading Discussion Series: Winter Break Read.Symposium with the Missouri Humanities Council: Humanities & Water.The Humanities and Ethics Center at Drury University.
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