Ideas from the National Humanities Center, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2002

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This is an archived issue of Ideas.
Vol. 9, No. 1, 2002

Muhammad Ali prays at the Hussein Mosque, Cairo, Egypt, June 1964 (Getty Images).

Muhammad Ali as Third-World Hero by Gerald Early

[Ali's] name change turned out to be one of the most startling and contentious symbolic acts in American race relations in the nineteen-sixties. Never were so many so annoyed by something that was seemingly so minor. PDF file (198 KB)

First-Person Narrative and the Memory of the Holocaust
by Jeremy D. Popkin

If such works are seen as having a unique power to take us into the heart of the twentieth century's most horrible catastrophe, then it is not surprising that we should also turn to first-person narratives to understand other aspects of human experience. PDF file (116 KB)

Former prisoners of the little camp in Buchenwald, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

Woman at the Window, September 11, 2001, photograph by Eric Nederlander

Refracted Visions: Looking at the World after September 11 Collected Essays

[E]very picture prompts us to relive, not just to remember, the moment of the disaster. The single still frame provides a means by which to replay and also to attempt to master the trauma of September 11. PDF file (332 KB)

Do Centers for Advanced Study Deserve a History? by W. Robert Connor

Like married couples of a certain age, centers for advanced study have begun to mark major anniversaries. PDF file (78 KB)

Gleanings
Excerpts from the writings of Fellows of the National Humanities Center

[T]he New York Times called R. W. B. Lewis's Dante "a brief, loving, and learned biography of the great poet who made himself his own protagonist in the Commedia as well as other writings; accordingly, Lewis artfully interweaves the life and works." PDF file (42 KB)

The Director's Desk

Visitors to the National Humanities Center often suggest metaphors for the building—a monastery, an ivory tower, the Alexandrian library, or a Greek village complete with whitewashed walls, coffee, and a palm tree. PDF file (45 KB)

Cover: Brooklyn Promenade, Lorie Novak, Ideas, Vol. 9, No. 1

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