Maryland Humanities Podcast

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.

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.

For Black History Month in February, Charles H. Flowers High School in Prince George’s County hosted 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 supported this programming with a grant.  

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 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.    

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 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.”

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.

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.

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. 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.

 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.

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.

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.

What led someone to charge an Anne 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.

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.

Kara Harris has spent eight years researching Maryland culinary history. She travels the state and sometimes the country to research cookbooks written more than 100 years ago. For 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.

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.

As an eighth-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.

How have Día 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.

In the play Here We Are, Amelia Earhart wakes up in the underworld. Playwright Jen Diamond weaves 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.    

What is “rememory?” How can exploring collective memory help people heal from traumatic history and offer hope? Durryle Brooks is the Executive Director at the Center for Black Equity – Baltimore. He tells us more. We do want to add a Content Note for trauma and violence involving racism, homophobia, and transphobia in this segment.

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 the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society, tells us more.

How is Outward Bound using the humanities in its outdoor programming to enhance young people’s reflection, leadership skills, and more? Kelly Reynolds, Instructional Designer at Baltimore Chesapeake Bay Outward Bound, talks about the organization’s Character Curriculum.

In the 1800s, Enoch Pratt said Baltimore needed “...a free circulating public library, open to all citizens regardless of property or color.” How is the Enoch Pratt Free Library continuing Pratt’s legacy with renovations to the Central Library? Meghan McCorkell, the library’s Marketing & Communications Director, 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 the 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 De Arcangelis of Doors Open Baltimore and Shauntee Daniels of Baltimore National Heritage Area tell us more.

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? now at Sandy Spring Museum.

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.

Over 200 years after Jane Austen’s death, Kate Hamill published a new adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. How is one theatre using the play and community programming to explore the construction of gender? Suzanne Beal, Director of Pride and Prejudice at Frederick's Maryland Ensemble Theatre, tells us more.

How can language used to write about autism make an impact on public discourse? The Writer’s Center in Bethesda explores this and more in “#OwnVoices: Autism Through a Literary Lens,” a one-day-only symposium. The event focuses on characters and writers with autism and features workshops for autistic individuals and parents of autistic children, as well as a panel.  Panelist and writer Hannah Grieco is the mother of an eleven-year-old son with autism as well as a former teacher. Her byline has appeared in The Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, and more. Today, Hannah talks about how her son’s influence on her writing and how writing can help create a more inclusive world for those with autism.