Humanities

2 weeks ago | neh.gov | Danny Heitman

One day in 1830, Frederick Douglass bought a book that changed his life. Douglass, then known as Frederick Bailey, was a twelve-year-old child enslaved in Baltimore. After hearing a group of white boys recite from The Columbian Orator, a grade-school textbook for teaching rhetoric, Douglass decided to get a copy for himself. Against stiff odds for slaves of the time, he learned to read, and words were his prevailing passion.

Aug 12, 2024 | neh.gov | Rachel Harrison

In Born This Way: Science, Citizenship, and Inequality in the American LGBTQ+ Movement (University of Chicago Press, 2023), sociolegal scholar Joanna Wuest analyzes decades of scientific studies, legal documents, media coverage, and advocacy pamphlets to detail the inception and ongoing life of the “born this way” defense of LGBTQ+ rights.

Mar 16, 2024 | neh.gov | Nick Ripatrazone

Qui est per omnia secula benedictus are the final words of La Vita Nuova, Dante Alighieri’s collection of poetry and prose. The Latin renders to “who is blessed for ever” and concludes an enigmatic, brief paragraph. First published in 1294, La Vita Nuova is a tantalizing prelude to the Florentine poet’s masterpiece, La Commedia, known today as The Divine Comedy.

Jul 26, 2023 | neh.gov | Jennifer Vanderbes

Late in the evening of Thursday, May 4, 1961, thirty-three-year-old William McBride got a call at his home in Blakehurst, Australia, to attend a complicated birth. McBride, an ambitious workaholic, ran one of the largest obstetrical practices in Sydney, Australia. He was on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A tall man with intense blue eyes and a beak of a nose, his brown wavy hair was always side-parted.

Feb 21, 2023 | neh.gov | Daniel Evans

Daniel Evans is a PhD student at the University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign. His research uses natural language processing and machine learning to explore the history of the book, the history of computing, and digital archives. More recently, his work has been centered on equity and access, information retrieval, and cultural analytics in digital libraries.