Though modernist ballet is often associated with European companies such as the Ballets Russes, the ideas and concepts that emerged from this movement soon found their way around the globe. In Latin countries such as Cuba, this foreign cultural form was adapted to meet local needs and provided an important way to articulate national identity.

In this podcast, Lester Tomé, associate professor of dance at Smith College, discusses how artists such as Alejo Carpentier adopted and reimagined the formal methods of modernist ballet in order to promote an indigenous form of Afro-Cuban culture. In doing so, he suggests, they developed a distinctive visual language through which to resist and oppose widespread colonial stereotypes.

nationalhumanitiescenter.org/lester-tome-movement-modernism-carpentiers-transatlantic-ballet

As more of our lives shift online, the question of how speech should be regulated in this digital space becomes increasingly relevant. In response, social media companies have set precedents for regulating language on their private platforms. However, these mechanisms are often designed in order to work in tandem with artificial intelligence-based algorithms that have not yet been fully developed, leaving them instead to be administered inconsistently by human content moderators.

In this podcast, Janny HC Leung, professor of linguistics in the School of English at the University of Hong Kong, addresses the ethical and legal questions that arise from these attempts to monitor and evaluate—and sometimes even to block—individuals’ language on social media. As she points out, the evolution of standards and practices around digital discourse has the potential to reshape the concept of free speech as we know it.

nationalhumanitiescenter.org/janny-leung-language-law-and-the-limits-of-digital-autonomy

Scholars have traditionally translated the ancient Greek virtue of Sôphrosunê as “temperance” or “chastity,” implicitly suggesting that it is concerned with forms of self-control in the face of desire or dramatic bodily sensations. As a result, this concept has often been downplayed and relegated to the forgotten corners of philosophical inquiry.

In this podcast, Christopher Moore, associate professor of philosophy and Classics at The Pennsylvania State University, restores and explains the complexities of Sôphrosunê for a contemporary audience. Instead of understanding this virtue as a means of moderating and restraining our behavior, we can recognize and celebrate its power to catalyze self-interrogation through an embrace of discipline.

nationalhumanitiescenter.org/christopher-moore-sophrosune-self-knowledge

When we read most novels, we assume that characters are the most important components of a story. However, in noteworthy American literature of the segregation era, it is often forms of evidence that structure novelistic worlds, making us recognize and question the ways that details of ordinary life can take on particular significance.

In this podcast episode, Rachel Watson, assistant professor of American literature at Howard University, considers how the treatment of evidence in literature can help us to illuminate the simultaneous development of discourses around race, criminology, and crime science. She suggests that at its best, the crime genre can challenge readers by encouraging them both to question the world around them and to suspend widely held assumptions about identity and typology.

nationalhumanitiescenter.org/rachel-watson-evidence-racial-discourse-segregation-era-literature

Though debates about water usage and environmental justice are often conducted in the future tense—with one eye trained on impending catastrophes—the causes are usually rooted in past injustices. For this reason, attempts to understand and avert these crises necessarily involve attending to the voices of those who have suffered them in the past—including the indigenous people of North Carolina.

In this podcast, Ryan E. Emanuel, professor of forestry and environmental resources at North Carolina State University, discusses how members of the Lumbee tribe can provide important insights into both the conservation and protection of the river that bears their name. By attending to their centuries-long and location-specific knowledge of this region, he suggests, we can develop a better understanding of how best to allocate the valuable water resources found in this part of the state.

nationalhumanitiescenter.org/ryan-e-emanuel-water-in-the-lumbee-world-indigenous-rights-and-the-transformation-of-home

Charisma is a concept we typically use to refer to individuals who fascinate, attract, and captivate us in some way. The word’s modern usage, however, obscures its origins in Christian doctrine. In such contexts, charismatic figures were understood to have a kind of divinely ordained authority and spiritual influence.

In this podcast episode, Molly Worthen, associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, explores the evolution of charisma in the popular consciousness and its role in various historical epochs and movements. From St. Paul to contemporary populist politicians, analyzing the ineffable allure of charisma can help us to understand how power has been produced and wielded in both religious and secular contexts.

nationalhumanitiescenter.org/molly-worthen-evolution-of-charismatic-leadership

When mapping the struggle for Black freedom and racial justice, historians have often emphasized the events and organizational efforts that occurred in urban areas, largely led by men. However, in order to take Black Power politics seriously in a more comprehensive fashion, we need to understand how they also emerged from and developed in rural American communities, where the voices and leadership of women were extremely influential.

In this podcast episode, Katherine Mellen Charron, associate professor of history at North Carolina State University, discusses her research into the legacies of local, community-based, rural Black women’s activism in North Carolina. By thinking about how Black Power politics, economics, and culture were affirmed and shaped by women outside of urban centers, we are better able to honor less historically visible forms of political engagement and innovation.

https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/katherine-charron-activism-beyond-city-women-rural-communities-struggle-for-black-freedom/

Between the 1930s and the 1970s, racialized legislation and subsequent migrations of Black Americans combined to drive explosive population growth in urban centers, which in turn gave rise to the creation of segregated districts and public housing projects. The experience of life in these spaces, which required residents to navigate precarious conditions where distinctions between public and private collapsed, was chronicled by Black women writers of the era.

In this podcast, Jennifer D. Williams, assistant professor of English at Howard University, discusses her research into urban spaces, racial politics, and Black womanhood in the twentieth century. By turning to intimate forms of literary expression like poetry and short stories written by politically engaged women writers, Williams suggests, we can come to terms with how the literature of this period engages in social justice work that remains relevant today.

https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/jennifer-williams-black-women-writers-legacy-segregated-urban-spaces/

After the ancient Roman Empire embraced Christianity under Emperor Constantine in the fourth century A.D., the empire’s culture and politics were significantly transformed. Records of poetic inscriptions found throughout Rome can help us to understand how these public displays both recalled an earlier model of poetic discourse and established new forms of spiritual authority and civic instruction.

In this podcast, Dennis Trout, professor of ancient Mediterranean studies at the University of Missouri, shares insights from his interdisciplinary study of such inscriptions. By considering the way that these epigrams were embedded in the architecture of a city and displayed to an empire in transition, he suggests they go beyond considerations of religion, literature, and culture to illuminate the ways that visual and textual cues were used to send messages to a diverse audience in the ancient world.

https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/dennis-trout-poetic-inscriptions-ancient-rome/

For the millions of undocumented immigrants living in the United States, the changing nature of American immigration law and policy is not merely an abstract concern. The rise in anti-immigrant sentiment has transformed the lives of young people, who must contend with the uncertainty of their own legal status even as they fear for the safety of their families.

In this podcast episode, Angela Stuesse, associate professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, discusses her latest collaborative project, which seeks to understand the reality of contemporary immigration in the United States through a personal lens. Animating discourses of ethnography, testimony, and social analysis, Stuesse uses one Mississippi family’s story to illuminate the space between the statistics on American immigration.

nationalhumanitiescenter.org/angela-stuesse-story-american-immigration