The Historian and the Murderer

A Croatian Historian's Death Ultimately Put Our Profession on Trial

On May 14, 2018, I was led into a nondescript courtroom in Kew Gardens, Queens to testify at a murder trial. I am a historian who loves details, and the resources involved in getting me into that humdrum room to be questioned with a jury to my left, a judge to my right, and a murderer sitting in front of me astounded. An entire system of asking, telling, tracking, and filing for the grand finale of live community listening and judging: no wonder so many historians love to study court …

“Frivolous” Humanities Helped Prisoners Survive in Communist Romania

Covertly Studying Language and Literature Connected Captives and Freed Their Minds

In a recent New York Times article on the movement to promote university majors promising higher employment and income, Anthony Carnevale, a professor at Georgetown University, sums up the utilitarian …

The Humanities Aren’t As Dead As You Think

But They Need to Integrate With Other Disciplines to Prosper in an Era of More Students and More Majors

What’s happened to the humanities—once the center, and now the wallflower, of American higher education? The subject of their decline and fall has become a familiar lament. As New York …

Teach Art. It’s the Law.

I Used to Try To Persuade Communities That Arts Education Was Valuable. Then I Realized I Needed to Be More Direct.

I started my career as an instrumental music teacher in 1957. This was in the Ontario-Montclair School District. Since then, I’ve been a music consultant, teacher, supervisor of a visual …