Humanities at Large

What happens when a colonial power tries to erase the evidence of its own past? Host Melissa Gismondi speaks with historian Audra A. Diptée about Operation Legacy, a secret British policy to hide or destroy colonial records before colonies gained independence. Focusing on the Caribbean, she explores how Britain sought to shape historical memory through missing archives and propaganda, and how anti-colonial thinkers and musicians challenged those narratives. Her research shows why the stories we tell about the past can shape the futures we imagine. Audra was the 2025-26 JHI Visiting Public Humanities Faculty Fellow.

How do you speak out when public protest can put your life at risk? Ann Komaromi explores the memoirs of Soviet dissidents who challenged state repression through uncensored writing and networks built on trust. From texts passed secretly between readers to Andrei Sakharov repeatedly rewriting a manuscript seized by the KGB, their stories reveal how ordinary people documented their lives, defended human rights and imagined a more democratic future. Ann was a 2025-26 JHI Faculty Research Fellow.

What can art make possible when a government tries to dictate who you are and who you can become? Curator Qanita Lilla reflects on growing up under apartheid in South Africa, where artists created spaces that challenged state-imposed ideas about race and identity. From a childhood art lesson to underground networks that circulated banned calendars, she explores how creativity, community and trust offered ways to imagine a different future. Qanita was the 2025-26 JHI New Media and Public Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow.

With Opened Mouths https://agnes.queensu.ca/digital-agnes/audio-file/with-opened-mouths-the-podcast/

With Opened Mouths: Threnody for the Khoisan with Garth Erasmus https://agnes.queensu.ca/digital-agnes/audio-file/threnody-for-the-khoisan/

Buy Threnody for the KhoiSan through Bandcamp https://gartherasmus.bandcamp.com/album/threnody-for-the-khoisan

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/3XjlBt1YemeHTUEoCLFuTE

What happens when an oil company builds not just an industry, but an entire community? Historian Luis van Isschot traces the rise of Standard Oil's company towns in Colombia and Peru, where coveted jobs, housing and social services came with tight corporate control over everyday life. His research explores the workers and communities who challenged that power, and the lasting connections between oil extraction, inequality, violence and environmental harm. Luis was a 2025-26 JHI Faculty Research Fellow.

How can music give voice to a history that has been denied? Pianist and composer Eve Egoyan explores this question through In Stone, a deeply personal work shaped by her family's connection to the Armenian Genocide. Blending piano, her own voice and AI-generated sound, Egoyan turns to music to confront silence, memory and denial, and to imagine nature itself as a witness to history. Eve was the JHI's 2025-26 Artist in Residence.

Watch Eve's performance of In Stone on YouTube.

Seeing a place through someone else's lens can shape how we imagine it. In this final episode of Series 2, photographer Tamara Abdul Hadi revisits the Iraqi Marshes, layering her own images, family archives, and crowdsourced photographs over a colonial-era photo book that once defined the region in the global imagination. Her project develops a decolonial vision of a landscape central to Iraq's cultural identity and to her own. Tamara was the JHI's 2024-25 Artist in Residence.

View some of Tamara's photos on the Doris McCarthy Gallery website.

Indigenous history is not a side story but the foundation of how we understand the past. Aroha Harris explains why all history is Indigenous history, and how Māori ways of thinking about time, place, and connection can reshape our shared future. Her perspective highlights how Indigenous approaches open up new possibilities for history and for how we relate to one another today. Aroha was the JHI's 2024-25 Distinguished Visiting Indigenous Faculty Fellow.