Mia Bay (NHC Fellow, 2009–10), Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Chair in American History, University of Pennsylvania

From stagecoaches and trains to buses, cars, and planes, “Traveling Black” explores when, how, and why racial restrictions took shape and brilliantly portrays what it was like to live with them. It also recounts the many forms of resistance deployed in the prolonged fight for freedom of movement across the United States.

Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/sJW0wRhtMc4?t=113

https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/fresh-off-the-press-traveling-black/

Mia Bay, “Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance”

As it has taken shape as a distinct field of scholarly inquiry, animal studies has significantly contributed to our understanding of other species and our relationships with them. Drawing on a variety of disciplinary approaches across the humanities and sciences, animal studies has challenged traditional categories that have long gone unquestioned, such as “nature” and “wildness” that not only clarify perspectives on the lives of animals but human experiences and concepts.

In this podcast, we talk with Harriet Ritvo, who has been a leading voice in animal studies for over 30 years. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and past president of the American Society for Environmental History. Her research has been supported by fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Humanities Center (twice), and the Stanford Humanities Center. Ritvo currently serves as the Arthur J. Connor Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and as a trustee of the National Humanities Center.

Harriet Ritvo, “Understanding the Animal, Understanding Ourselves”

Discovery & Inspiration asks “What can we learn by talking to scholars about their research? What makes them so passionate about the subjects they study? What is it like to make a new discovery? To answer a confounding question?”

For over 40 years the National Humanities Center has been a home away from home for scholars from around the world—historians and philosophers, scholars of literature and music and art and dozens of other fields.

Join us as we sit down with scholars to discuss their work—to better understand the questions that intrigue and perplex them, the passion that drives them, and how their scholarship may change the ways we think about the world around us.

Harriet Ritvo, “Understanding the Animal, Understanding Ourselves”

Discovery & Inspiration

Related tracks