Humanities Connection

Natalie Elder read about a simple clothing accessory one day at her job in the Chesney Medical Archives for Johns Hopkins Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health. The Curator of Cultural Properties is still on a continuous quest to find it. What can items like these teach us about a person and an organization’s past? How can medical archives help piece together someone’s story? Elder tells us more.

THIS IS A RE-AIR: Did you know that 21% of adults in Maryland have reported that they have a disability? John Owen is the Director of the Maryland State Library for the Blind and Print Disabled. He tells us how blind and low-vision people access books and computers in the digital age.

THIS IS A RE-AIR: For Black History Month, Charles H. Flowers High School in Prince George’s County hosts a show of its students’ art. Part of the process involved students with disabilities attending museums and interpreting art prior to creating their own. LeAnn Holden-Martin, a Special Education Teacher at the school, tells us more.

How can the humanities help teens process current-day issues and create a more equitable society? Staff at Wide Angle Youth Media have developed a curriculum called “Why Black Lives Matter: Discussing Race Through Film, Photography, and Design." The curriculum pairs youth media projects with instructional content. Dena Robinson –Wide Angle Youth Media’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Facilitator – tells us more. Maryland Humanities has provided support to this programming with a grant.

The Accokeek Foundation was founded to preserve the landscape along the Maryland shore of the Potomac River, the same view George Washington had more than 200 years ago. Laura Ford, the Foundation’s Executive Director, shares how this Prince George’s County organization has been shifting and widening its focus in recent years.

How can writing create help create a more inclusive world for autistic people? Writer Hannah Grieco is the mother of an autistic twelve-year-old son well as a former teacher. Her byline has appeared in The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, and more. Hannah talks about how her son’s influence on her writing.

How is storytelling a form of survival? R. Eric Thomas, Senior Staff Writer at Elle Magazine and Board Member at FreeState Justice, tells us more.

How are teenagers bringing history to life through theatre? Norah Worthington, Historical Partnership Director and Resident Costumer at Baltimore School for the Arts, tells us more.

"...the humanities—literature, history, archaeology, theology, philosophy, art history, and ethics—offer a lens through which to more deeply and clearly understand ourselves and the world around us." In a special Humanities Connection segment, Phoebe Stein offers a sort of love letter to championing the humanities.

How are high school students in Calvert County making documentary films to tell some of their region’s stories? Robyn Truslow, Public Relations Coordinator at Calvert Library, tells us more.

How have smartphones and our constant connectivity changed the way we travel- and the way we relate to one another through the places we visit? Towson University anthropology professors Samuel Collins and Matthew Durington tell us how their research led them to the new idea of “networked anthropology.” You can read more about this idea on their Tumblr.

How is one Eastern Shore region amplifying its own heroes this African American History Month? What are the connections between jazz and civil rights history? Cheryl Sidwell, Events and Development Manager at Wicomico Public Libraries, tells us more.

Every Tuesday, Pastor Prentice and the Turnaround Tuesday staff foster a deep repair of community in a city of systems that can mercilessly come down hard on people’s spirits. Radiants of power, dignity, and agency, journey with participants David and Octavia as they give the jobs movement a try. Photo of a Darley Park Mural by @whitney_gracefrazier taken by @baltimurals. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How did a jobs proposal intent on helping people with criminal records gain employment grow into a go-to workforce development organization? The power of organized people is how. Turnaround Tuesday, the successful jobs movement embracing participants to recognize their own power, almost became the movement that never was. Find out how. Photo taken by @baltimurals of vacant homes before ReBuild Metro's rehabilitation and construction in the Oliver neighborhood See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What distinguishes Turnaround Tuesday from other workforce development efforts? It's a jobs movement for one, not a jobs program. A jobs movement focused on people, where participants feel valued and heard. How do they do what they do? Why is Turnaround Tuesday successful? Bear witness to this movement's way of being that leaves people whole again, standing in their greatness, restored of their dignity. Photo of @urbanhipsta "Learn, Grow, Evolve" taken by @baltimurals. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Turnaround Tuesday's staff meets people where they are. Follow Turnaround Tuesday's Administrative Assistant JC while she recruits potential participants at the Avenue Market in West Baltimore. Unexpectedly, Yasmene finds herself in the story about the movement to get Baltimore back to work when she crosses paths with someone special. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How can heritage be a tool for inclusion and acceptance rather than exclusion? Andrew Arvizu of Patapsco Heritage Greenway tells us more: Arvizu is the Heritage Coordinator at the Ellicott City organization.

For Black History Month, Charles H. Flowers High School in Prince George’s County hosts a show of its students’ art. Part of the process involved students with disabilities attending museums and interpreting art prior to creating their own. LeAnn Holden-Martin, a Special Education Teacher at the school, tells us more. Read the transcript.

How can an institution shed light on the fact that its location was a place where enslaved people once worked? St. Mary’s College of Maryland will install a memorial to the enslaved peoples of Southern Maryland. The college will also host a public symposium called “From Invisibility to Remembrance: Commemorating Slavery in St. Mary’s City and Southern Maryland.” Dr. Julia King, Professor of Anthropology at the college, tells us more about the history of enslaved people in St. Mary’s City and the college’s commemoration.

One arts organization is creating a choose-your-own-adventure performance to explore a library’s history. Ursula Marcum, Co-Artistic Director at Submersive Productions, tells us more.

Have you ever heard of a floating hospital? Did you know that The Army and Navy have sailed almost 60 hospital ships since the Civil War? Steven Hill, Exhibits Manager at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, talks about our nation’s history of hospital ships.

Elizabeth Catlett received a Lifetime Achievement Award in contemporary sculpture from the International Sculpture Center in 2003. Decades earlier, Carnegie Institute of Technology revoked her admission when the school learned she was Black. Jackie Copeland, Executive Director of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture, tells us more about the groundbreaking artist.

As the end of the year approaches, many of us consider donating to charities and nonprofits. Dr. Heather Miller-Reubens —Executive Director of the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies — tells us about Dorothy Day, a religious leader who offered a powerful meditation on giving.

Montpelier Arts Center will celebrate Black History Month in February with a show called Chronicles of the African American Journey through Fiber Arts. Director Beth Crisman tells us more.

What led someone to charge an Ann Arundel County woman with witchcraft in the 1700s? Rissa Miller, a tour guide with Maryland History Tours, talks about the history of witchcraft in Maryland.

Kara Harris has spent eight years researching Maryland culinary history. She travels the state and sometimes the country to research cookbooks from over a hundred years ago. Four years ago, she turned her hobby into a blog, Old Line Plate. Harris tells us more about what cookbooks can tell us about our state’s history.

Did you know that 21% of adults in Maryland have reported that they have a disability? John Owen is the Director of the Maryland State Library for the Blind and Print Disabled. He tells us how blind and low-vision people access books and computers in the digital age.

How is one organization combining civic engagement, history, and the arts to ensure that the voices of Baltimore youth are heard? Sharayna Christmas, Executive Director of Muse 360 Arts, tells us more.

How is storytelling a form of survival? R. Eric Thomas, Senior Staff Writer at Elle Magazine and Board Member at FreeState Justice, tells us more.

How have Du237ua de Los Muertos observances changed over the past 3,000 years? Yesenia Mejia, part of a group called Artesanas Mexicanas and Artesanas Mexicanas Coordinator at the Creative Alliance, tells us more and talks about the value she finds in observing the holiday today in Baltimore.

As an eight-grader last spring, Addie Skillman won first place in the junior individual performance category at Maryland History Day for her project “Loving v. Virginia: The Stepping Stone for Equality in America.” Addie then advanced to the National History Day contest in College Park where she won the top prize—the Gold Medal—for her junior individual performance. Currently a ninth grader at Howard High, Addie tells us how her participation in the program changed her life.

In the play 'Here We Are,' Amelia Earhart wakes up in the underworld. Playwright Jen Diamond intertwines her own imaginings with biographical information about the aviator. Interrobang Theatre Company produces the play. Artistic Director Katie Hileman tells us more.

The Smithsonian Institution makes a stop in Calvert County with H2O Today, now at Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum. This Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibition explores the beauty and essential nature of water and the diversity and challenges of our global water sources. Rachelle Green, Acting Director at Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum, tells us more.

How can we make the humanities more accessible to people with disabilities? Tammy Black of the Hearing and Speech Agency or HASA, tells us more.

In the digital age, what’s the value of connecting face-to-face while celebrating the humanities? Tara Hart, Co-Chair of Howard County Poetry and Literature Society, tells us more.

How can poetry and journalism help high school students rediscover their neighborhoods? Writers in Baltimore Schools developed a new program for students called “Neighborhoods, News: A Poetic Archiving of Baltimore.” Patrice Hutton, Executive Director at Writers in Baltimore Schools, tells us more.

How can a few dedicated volunteers help an organization, neighborhood, and city retain their collective memory? Caitlin Swaim, Curator at the Annapolis Maritime Museum ---- Park, tells us more.

What can we learn about a region from its farming history? Evergreen Heritage Center is creating an agricultural museum in a barn’s lower level stables. Janice Keene, the center’s Founder ---- Director, grew up on the farm at the center’s current location: she tells us more.

Natalie Elder read about a simple clothing accessory one day at her job in the Chesney Medical Archives for Johns Hopkins Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health. The Curator of Cultural Properties is still on a continuous quest to find it. What can items like these teach us about a person and an organization’s past? How can medical archives help piece together someone’s story? Elder tells us more.

How can quilting interpret history and document community identity? Next summer, The Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art at Salisbury University will host an exhibit featuring documentary quilts by Dr. Joan Gaither. The Maryland Heritage Award winner will also lead quilting workshops for Eastern Shore residents: the quilts made in these workshops will also be included in the exhibit. Jackson Medel, Curator and Folklorist at The Ward Museum, tells us more.

How can an institution shed light on the fact that its location was a place where enslaved people once worked? St. Mary’s College of Maryland will install a memorial to the enslaved peoples of Southern Maryland. The college will also host a public symposium called “From Invisibility to Remembrance: Commemorating Slavery in St. Mary’s City and Southern Maryland.” Dr. Julia King, Professor of Anthropology at the college, tells us more about the history of enslaved people in St. Mary’s City and the college’s commemoration.

Baltimore’s Rahne Alexander is a writer as well as a musician and multimedia artist. She talks about the process of finding her voice on the page and writing Heretic to Housewife. This new essay collection won the 2019 OutWrite Chapbook Competition in Nonfiction and will be released in August.

Bethlehem Steel mill in Baltimore County’s Sparrow’s Point was once the largest in the world. After 123 years, the mill closed in 2012. A photography exhibit from J.M. Giordano, Shuttered: Images from the Fall of Bethlehem Steel, examines the impact of mill’s decline and closure on his hometown of Baltimore. Giordano tells us more about the exhibit, the history, and his personal connection to Bethlehem Steel.

Did you know that Baltimore residents can explore over 50 buildings across the city with guided tours for free? Margaret DeArcangelis of Doors Open Baltimore and Shauntee Daniels of Baltimore National Heritage Area tell us more.

A heat wave in Europe this week drove up temperatures to a record-breaking 115 degrees in France. In the American Midwest, scientists said climate change contributed to torrential downpours that flooded farms and killed livestock.In Delaware Bay, rising water temperatures are playing a role in a small but increasing number of cases of swimmers becoming infected with a flesh-eating disease called vibrio that normally only lives in tropical waters, according to a report in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

What does creativity look like? What inspires creative pursuits? Photographer Larry Marc Levine explores these questions with an exhibition entitled “Creativity, with a capital WHY?,” on display at Sandy Spring Museum in September.

As she read Unruly Bodies, an online magazine curated by bestselling author Roxane Gay, Aden Weisel thought of visual artists who addressed some of the themes as the magazine. Inspired by the magazine, Weisel – the Exhibitions Director and Gallery Curator at Stevenson University – then curated an exhibition with the same title. She tells us more.

Baltimore-based author Anthony Moll recently won the 2019 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Nonfiction. In Out of Step: A Memoir, he describes his time as a working-class, self-described queer from Reno who served in the U.S. Army during “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Today, he reads an excerpt from his book, an essay entitled “Cedant Arma Togae.” Moll uses photographs to explore his history and the people who mattered to him throughout military service. In this essay, he discusses the first close friend he lost in the War in Iraq.

How is one organization amplifying the presence, contributions, struggles, and experiences of LGBTQ individuals throughout Maryland’s history? Preservation Maryland’s Meagan Baco talks about the Maryland LGBTQ History Collaborative Initiative and their personal relationship with the project.

The Smithsonian Institution makes a stop in Calvert County with H2O Today, now at Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum. This Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibition explores the beauty and essential nature of water and the diversity and challenges of our global water sources. Rachelle Green, Acting Director at Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum, tells us more.

Did you know that third grade is a pivotal year for students learning to read? Reading proficiently by the end of that grade can be a marker for successes through a student’s college years. Angelique Jessup, Program Director at the Baltimore Campaign for Grade Level Reading, tells us more about reading development.