From human suffering to political chicanery to environmental degradation, the tide of bad news, blared in headlines every day, seems overwhelming. One poet and classics scholar asks: What can be done?
Eugène Delacroix’s ‘Self-Portrait in a Green Vest’ (1837).
Wikimedia Commons
Through his art and his travels, 19th-century French Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix sought to understand the chaos of an era he called ‘the century of unbelievable things.’
Copies of Bob Woodward’s ‘Fear: Trump in the White House’ are displayed for sale at a Costco in Virginia.
AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
John K. Davis, California State University, Fullerton
Several companies are trying to develop life extension methods that could enable some people to live far longer. There are some ethical dilemmas.
Moliere Dimanche would use anything he could scrounge up – pieces of folders, the back of commissary forms, old letters – as canvases.
Moliere Dimanche
From solitary confinement, Moliere Dimanche started drawing on anything he could find. The result was a series of fantastical, allegorical images that depict abuse, racism and profound isolation.
A statue in Port-au-Pirnce honors Jean-Jacques Dessalines’ legacy as a Haitian revolutionary. Now, a renamed Brooklyn street does, too.
AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery
A renamed Brooklyn street celebrates Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a Haitian slave turned president. For centuries his legacy was tarnished by allegations that Haiti’s revolution led to ‘white genocide.’
Jules Salles-Wagner’s 1898 painting ‘Romeo and Juliet.’
Wikimedia Commons
Each year, Muslims from all over the world go on a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, known as Hajj. A scholar explains its spiritual significance.
The Muslim call to prayer has often been misconstrued. A scholar explains how Islamic prayer is the heart of Islam that allows for an intimate connection between Muslims and their Creator.
For many non-Muslims, the fast food carts that line the streets of New York City and San Francisco are their primary point of contact with halal foods.
Guian Bolisay
The halal food sector largely relies on industrially produced meats and produce. But more and more Muslims are using the Quran to interpret halal to mean food that’s wholesome and humanely raised.
Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon smiles for the cameras during a 1968 news conference.
AP Photo
Fifty years ago, an insurance agent named Paul Simpson was convinced of rampant bias on the evening news. So he embarked on a project to record each broadcast and store them at Vanderbilt University.
A ‘no border wall’ sign is held during a rally to oppose the wall the US government wants to build.
AP Photo/Eric Gay
Conflicts about policing the border have erupted in much of the world. How people respond depends on the many distinct visions of what borders are meant to be protecting.
The culture war isn’t just playing out on the streets. It’s also a struggle over the dominant understanding of certain words.
AP Photo/John Minchillo
Aristotle coined the term “enthymeme” to refer to arguments, words and ideas that are broadly accepted among the people of a nation. So what happens when enthymemes start to disappear?
The 1947 and 1956 editions of the ‘Green Book,’ which was published to advise black motorists where they should – and shouldn’t – frequent during their travels.
Image on the left: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library. Image on right: Courtesy of the South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, S.C.
From the 1930s to the 1960s, ‘The Negro Motorist’s Green Book’ and ‘Travelguide: Vacation and Recreation Without Humiliation’ offered African-American roadtrippers lists of black-friendly businesses.
‘Earthrise,’ which appeared on the cover of the second and third Whole Earth Catalog, was taken by Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders during lunar orbit, Dec. 24, 1968.
NASA
The Whole Earth Catalog was a blueprint for sustainability that envisioned humans living in balance with nature. Its creative spirit was welcomed in a year riven by war, assassinations and riots.
A restaurant in Bishopville, S.C. markets the town’s association to the Lizard Man.
Joseph P. Laycock
Executive Director, Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences; Honorary Senior Fellow, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of Melbourne