Applied/Socially Active Humanities

A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR:

Previous issues of The St. John’s University Humanities Review mainly focused on book reviews, essays, and interviews. With this issue, I wanted to do something different, so I also asked for personal stories and essays that answered the question: How do you define and/or use the humanities as activism?

In the middle of May of 2016, when I was asked to edit this issue of the journal, I said yes. But what I didn’t say was that I truly didn’t want to do it, and that I didn’t think that I was capable of doing it. This was because I felt that I had nothing new to say about the humanities that had not already been said ad nauseam. 

Then, in June, 49 people were killed at the LGBTQ nightclub, Pulse, on “Latin Night,” in Orlando, Florida. And I knew that homophobia shot those bullets.

Then, in July, two more Black men—Philando Castile and Alton Sterling—were killed by the police. And I knew that racism shot those bullets.

For me, it was a summer of attending vigils and protests. And I observed that the various disciplines of the arts and humanities were explicitly being utilized as activism in the streets at these vigils and protests. Specific language on protest signs. Writers reading poems at rallies. Performance artists theatrically marching. Etc. The summer of 2016 proved the value of the humanities. Nothing more to debate!

This idea of the humanities as activism is not a new one for me because for many years, in my own work, I have been connecting the two. But I noticed that it was obvious that others realized that the two were inextricable. And that was when I knew that I had something new to say about the humanities, and that I would use this issue to say it.

And then Trump won the election.

One of the many wonderful things that feminism taught me was that the personal is political. I chose the theme of “The Humanities As Activism” for this issue of the journal because it is personal. It truly is that simple. I believe that in order to improve our current social-political problems, we must make use of the humanities as activism. The arts and humanities must be utilized as agents of change.

As I edit this issue, I keep re-reading two of Dorothy Allison’s essays (for inspiration): “Believing in Literature,” in which she tells us that “literature should push people to change the world”; and “Survival Is the Least of My Desires,” in which she writes: “I became convinced that to survive I would have to re-make the world so that it came closer to matching its own ideals.” I think that it is time that all of us start to re-make this cruel world. And I think that the contributors in this issue of the journal agree with me; they, too, are trying to re-make this world.   

What you are about to read are forceful pieces that demand and deserve the same attention that we would give to any energizing speech at a protest rally. So, with your fists up, voices screaming, and feet marching, I hope that you enjoy the journey and movement that is this issue of The St. John’s University Humanities Review. The revolution is coming and it is documented in this journal.

In solidarity,
Michael Carosone, Editor
New York City, May 2017

Dedicated to the activists, artists, humanists, scholars, and writers,
to the oppressed and marginalized,
to the victims.
Dedicated to revealing the truth.

“The arts [humanities], it has been said, cannot change the world, but they may change human beings who might change the world.”
–Maxine Greene

La verità anche a scapito del mondo – prima grande mostra dedicata all’artista in Italia –, presenta una realtà senza filtro alcuno, un inno alla consapevolezza e al pensiero critico. Attraverso un’ampia selezione di opere, alcune inedite, altre ri-azionate, viene posta
una lente d’ingrandimento su alcune urgenze
del nostro tempo, lasciando anche che sia il pubblico ad ampliare il margine di cambiamento.
La mostra, a cura di Diego Sileo, si è tenuta al PAC - Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea di Milano, tra il 27-11-2021 e il 13-02-2022

In 1915, as Italy entered the war on the side of the Allies, a group of British humanities scholars formed the British Committee in Aid of the Italian Wounded. At the head of them was Cambridge historian, G.M. Trevelyan, who organised a convoy of British Red Cross vehicles to cross Europe and reach the theatre of war in the North-Eastern Italian Alps. Amongst Trevelyan’s fellow scholars were Thomas Ashby, archaeologist, photographer and Director of the British School at Rome and Francis William Sargant, a sculptor in Florence. As fluent Italian-speakers, these men and other BSR men and women eased the communications between the British nurses and the Italian wounded. Yet the peculiarity of this group of volunteers rested in their commitment to the arts and humanities; as ‘humanities activists’  these scholars were confident in their ability to boost morale and provide ‘spiritual ammunition’  to  allied soldiers in the so-called ‘European war’. They were based on the Isonzo front, at Villa Trento, a place which became known behind the war zone for its ‘home comforts’, which included theatre performances and pantomimes. It was here that these British humanities activists were able to play their part in the transnational contest of internationalist aid.