Author: Morariu, Megan
The William Benton Museum of Art featured in the Boston Globe
Boston Globe Article: Get stamped: explore the Connecticut Art Trail
You SHOULD…See: Moonlight
“So intimate is moonlight reflected on still water that this spare, deeply moving film appropriately bears the name. Moonlight won a Golden Globe for Best Picture, an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and was the second lowest-grossing film in history to win an Oscar for Best Picture, its all-black, mostly unknown cast beating out favored La La Land starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. So why is this particular coming-of-age story so worth seeing? In a word: hope. Told in three parts, the film portrays black lives that are at once complex, flawed, loving, and healthy [finally!]. Moonlight follows from boy to man the life of black and gay Chiron. Front-and-center in the film are hyper masculinity, economic depression, and drugs, yet these situational factors are not depicted as the inherent dysfunction of blackness. Unexpectedly, we admire and care about the 40-something drug dealer whose performative masculinity slips easily from his shoulders to tenderly parent semi-orphaned Chiron. We are both crushed and empathetic when Kevin, Chiron’s childhood playmate, as a teenager and to avoid his own beating by schoolyard bullies repeatedly knocks down and draws blood from his shy unsinkable friend, Chiron. And we feel Chiron’s interiority, the ebb and flow of his self-possession, his tenuous yet durable embrace of himself. As Chiron sorts through his gay black worth, stretching toward fulfillment despite domestic abuse and betrayal, we the viewers also internalize the power of honest connection and self-acceptance. For Moonlight, both black aggression (pariah) and self-erasure (hapless victim) indeed are myths. Chiron returns again and again to his gayness, blackness, and vulnerabilities, choosing to love rather than deny himself. As we watch, the desire to engage the best of our own lives and communities is overwhelming. Moonlight is a must see.”
–Melina Pappademos,
Associate Professor, Department of History
and Director, Africana Studies Institute
Harry van der Hulst on Tent Talks Podcast
You SHOULD…Hear: Songs in the Key of Life
“You should hear Songs in the Key of Life, by Stevie Wonder. In 1975, Wonder had considered leaving the music industry, moving to Ghana and working with children with disabilities. At only 25 years old, he had already released 17 albums, sold millions, and won dozens of awards, including Grammys for Album of the Year (1974 and 1975). After some prodding from friends, family, fans (and the biggest record contract for any artist in history), he returned to the studio to record. In the midst of the dominance of the carefree hedonism of disco, the double LP, was released in September 1976 to critical acclaim. Like his previous work, this LP proved to be a beautifully discursive exploration of the human condition. Wonder assembled a group of artists from different genres and filled the album with an aural style and literary brilliance that was organically balanced with social commentary and festive jaunts about mistakes of our youth. “Isn’t She Lovely” is as infectious and fun as songs get. “Sir Duke” is classic Wonder. With more hit singles than any Wonder LP ever, it’s a challenge to justify focus on one song, but Wonder’s highpoint is one of the best love songs ever, “As.”
Songs became Wonder’s best-selling album of all time. It won Grammy Album of the Year among three other Grammys. Auteurs from Prince to George Michael have praised it as the best album ever made. The list of awards and honors is too long to put here. When you hear it, know that it offers us many ways for its consumption. Focus on the sonic, and isolate the various instruments and vocals from Herbie Hancock or Minnie Riperton. Concentrate on the enthusiastic flow of Wonder on some songs, the playful laugh, improvisation, or prattle on another. Appreciate the jazz inflections on R&B vocals. Listen to tales of love, God, struggle and joy. It is a lush, incredible example of exceptional talent and a reminder of how important it is to encourage the creation of wonderous art. ”
– Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar
Director of the Center for the Study of Popular Music
Professor of History
You SHOULD…Read and Listen: Teaching Community
“You should have a reading and listening jam session, engaging bell hooks’ Paulo Freirean-inspired critiques of structures and systems of power in Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope (2003) while absorbing the liberatory sounds of the Wynton Marsalis Quintet’s “Free to Be” (2004). In ensemble, these two works offer at once intensely personal and collaborative learning frameworks for creative action. In Teaching Community hooks interrogates how our gendered, sexualized and racialized bodies intersect and operate in the context of historically segregated educational institutions. Yet, she insists that when working in solidarity with and in diverse communities beyond the university, “democratic educators” can foster a pedagogy of hope. Similarly, as a cultural form born from resistance to oppression and as an expression of freedom, jazz music –as exquisitely interpreted by Marsalis in “Free to Be”– functions through three interconnected elements. It grounds us in the historical pain and blues of inequality and discrimination; it celebrates individual creativity and strength in improvisation; and it promises that, if we intentionally and empathetically listen to and collaborate with each other, the music and experience will swing!”
–Mark Overmyer-Velázquez,
Professor of History and Latino & Latin American Studies
University of Connecticut – Hartford
You SHOULD…Read: The Anatomy of Fascism
“To help navigate these incredibly dark times and put them into historical perspective, you should definitely read Robert Paxton’s The Anatomy of Fascism. I meet people all the time who want to learn more about fascism, but don’t know where to begin. The pile of books that have been published on the subject could form its own mountain, and the sheer range of options can be overwhelming. I’ve had to take a big bite out of this mountain for my own research, and I can say that if you have time to read just one book on the subject, it should be this one.
I like it because of its accessibility and avoidance of jargon, its broad scope, and because it is attuned to the contemporary relevance of his subject. As such, he’s not afraid to say that fascism lives on in present day. Published in 2004, Anatomy of Fascism was not conceived with the current crisis in mind, which makes it less topical and more powerful in my view. But I like it most of all because it’s argument is solid. Paxton doesn’t pull any cheap shots to make his subject topical. Instead, like a good historian, he honors the specificity of pre-WWII European politics and culture, and lets his readers draw their own conclusions.
Paxton, now retired from Columbia University, argues that fascist movements can’t be defined by their political platforms – these change as values change, and fascist states shifted their policies quite often anyway. A steadier indicator of a fascist movement is its “mobilizing passions” – that is, the emotional triggers and underlying desires that fire up its political base (you’ll have to read the book to find out what these triggers are). Further, he argues that fascist movements rely on the enablement of traditional conservatives: if an aging conservative establishment had not given Hitler and Mussolini the keys to the kingdom, their movements would have likely died on the vine. With an eye to the present, Paxton writes, “Fascists are close to power when conservatives begin to borrow their techniques, appeal to their ‘mobilizing passions,’ and try to co-opt the fascist following.”
-Christopher Vials,
Associate Professor of English & Director of American Studies
University of Connecticut
Made by History’s new post “Why one of punk rock’s icons is sporting a MAGA shirt” by Katherine Rye Jewell
A new piece in The Washington Post’s Made by History by UCHI fellow Katherine Rye Jewell.
You SHOULD…Listen: to Running for the Drum
“You should listen to Buffy Ste. Marie’s 2009 album Running for the Drum.
It’s not her most recent, or her most acclaimed (though it won a coveted Juno award). It’s not her most innovative (in my completely uneducated opinion, that accolade belongs to 2016’s Power in the Blood, which had me looking for Bjork in the liner notes. She wasn’t there. Neither were liner notes, actually, because it’s not 1988 anymore, but you know what I’m saying). But I think it’s the best album this prolific artist has given us to date.
Running for the Drum comes out of the gate hard and righteous. “No No Keshagesh” was on constant repeat in my house for a while (“keshagesh” is a Cree word meaning “greedy guts”, and the song lives up to every expectation you just had). The second half softens up with “America the Beautiful” (not exactly the version you’re expecting, but perhaps the version you need). As always, Buffy delivers truth to power and a celebration of indigeneity layered with love, anger, sorrow, pride, and longing. Granted, I’ve got Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl” on my playlist (and I am not ashamed), so I may not be the sharpest music critic on campus. But you really should give Running for the Drum a listen.”
-Barbara Gurr,
Associate Professor in Residence,
Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program,
University of Connecticut
Four Questions with Adrian Stegovec
1. Tell us a bit about the project you are working on at UCHI.
A sentence like “She introduced you to me”, where the pronouns “you” and “me” co-occur, isn’t that easy to form in many languages. In fact, in some languages it is downright impossible for certain pronouns to co-occur in a sentence. This is, for example, the case in French, where speakers don’t accept the sentence “Elle te me a présenté”, with the meaning of the English one from earlier, as well as other similar sentences with the wrong combinations of co-occurring pronouns. As part of my project, I investigate the patterns that arise with possible and impossible combinations of co-occurring pronouns across different languages, examining over 100 languages spanning different language families from all over the world.
It turns out that there is surprisingly little variation in the attested kinds of impossible combinations. The co-occurrence of pronouns is always restricted depending on their person – that is, whether they are 1st (“I”, “we”), 2nd (“you”), or 3rd person (“he”, “she”, “they”) - but never depending on their grammatical number or gender. Furthermore, all restrictions conform to the same abstract pattern and vary from language to language in a handful of predictable ways. This is surprising, given that such restrictions are often found in unrelated languages, separated from each other both historically and geographically - indicating that the pattern is not the result of a historical transfer or geographic contact. In my project, I explore the idea that this phenomenon can reveal to us important clues about the universal mental mechanisms we use to create and interpret language.
2.What drew you to this topic and what exciting developments are you anticipating?
I think what drew me to the topic was the same thing that originally drew me to linguistics. It’s just fascinating that in spite of how different individual languages may seem from one another, there exist patterns underlying the differences which we can uncover by approaching language in a scientific way. In that respect, I’m just happy that I found a topic that is at the same time quite narrow – looking at one very specific phenomenon – and has implications for one of the main problems linguistics deals with.
Although I have already made a lot of preliminary findings – for example, the cross-linguistic patterns mentioned earlier, and I have some ideas of where to take the project next, I can’t completely anticipate what all the details of my analysis will be and what else I will uncover as I work towards them. I think that is the truly exciting bit.
3. What are you looking forward to in regard to this year at UCHI?
I’m looking forward to an environment where I can engage with ideas and questions that I would otherwise not get in a linguistics-only setting. I think it is important to know how to communicate your ideas to broader audiences, so this year will be a perfect opportunity to hone those skills, see where the topics I work on fit in the broader context of the humanities, get feedback from experts in fields I’m not that familiar with, and learn about the exciting topics they are working on. Hopefully, I can return the favor by also offering a linguist’s perspective on non-linguistic topics.
4. Many people wonder what value the humanities and humanities research has in today’s world. What are your thoughts on what humanities scholarship “brings to table?”
The fields that comprise the humanities are so varied that they each bring something unique to the table. Because of that, I’m not comfortable giving an opinion on the humanities as a whole and I’ll focus only on linguistics. Almost everyone has an opinion about language - either the language or languages they speak or what language is in general, and almost everyone also doesn’t know what linguistics is or what a linguist does.
But there’s much to be gained from the study of language, even though most people take it for granted. Linguists have uncovered a lot over the last 50-60 years, but we’re still just scratching the surface. For example, we’re only now starting to seriously explore the neurological and evolutionary side of language. Think also of the technological progress made with automatic translation and voice assistant software. In spite of how advanced these technologies may seem, we’re still far from making computers speak and understand language on par with humans. Consider that, as the voice assistant with the most supported languages, Apple’s Siri currently “speaks” 20 languages. We estimate that there are around 7000 languages spoken in the world today, and the databases required to train such software, given its current limitations, are practically impossible to compile for the vast majority of those languages. In contrast, a child learns their native language without really breaking a sweat, regardless of the language, and working with a very limited input compared to their computerized competitors. Whatever our children are doing, it’s radically different from what Siri’s teams of programmers are doing. The next big steps in the development of such technologies won’t come without first better understanding language itself.
Linguistics has the potential to be a bridge between the humanities on one end and engineering and the natural sciences on the other. Aside from this, I think that being aware of the complexity and the diversity of the world’s languages, and that language can be studied like any other natural object, can help people view the world more critically. If language, which comes to us so easily, is so complex that we are still working on fully understanding it, then perhaps other things we take for granted are worth a second though.
