Humanities vs. humanities: What’s the Difference?

The Humanities is an area of study that explores the nature of being human. What does being a human entail? Davidson’s Humes course offers a dive into this question via a multidisciplinary approach that strives to address each major aspect of the human. Strengthening one’s understanding of the mind, the body, and the spirit, as well as an exploration of broader societal themes such as utopia and dystopia, contributes to a deeper understanding of the state of being human. Being human does not have a single definition. Rather, it is defined by infinite factors within (and some outside of) the three units. 

In the first unit, we discussed the Turing Test, the Voight-Kamph test, and other investigations into whether a machine is intelligent (Robb). We then learned about similar concepts—namely, the bodily response theory and the judgment theory—that seek to answer whether machines can feel. These tests ultimately sought to define humanity by identifying factors that make us not human. In the second unit, we explored the possibilities of the body through physical exercises. We wrote about our experiences during these plenary sessions—some of my own observations included “my body is made to complete tasks, engage with others, stay alive,” and “my body has feelings—pain, fatigue, comfort, embarrassment, strength, anger” (Bory). The body unit did not seek to define humanity via comparison, but instead defined it through a thorough process of documenting its abilities and possibilities. In the third unit, we discussed the less physical aspects of our humanity. We discussed the spirit through the lens of church practice, pentecostalism, and black spirituals (Pyle). This unit defined humanity through media that depicted the black experience in America—in order to continue defining humanity, we looked at the dehumanization of a people by another people. Each unit sought to expose different aspects of what makes us human: the first through comparing humans to technology, the second through our abilities, and the final through experiences of racism and dehumanization. 

The second semester expanded our definition of Humanities with broad societal concepts like utopias, apocalypse, and the future. A theme emerged in the lectures and assigned readings: a recognition of a systemic problem, and an urge to reject the past in order to construct a fresh, just society. One of the first lectures of the semester introduced the Communist Manifesto, which set the tone for a semester largely based on manifestos as a vehicle for change. A focus on dance early in the semester allowed for a connection between the physical body and the need for change. Concepts found in Tristan Tzara’s “Dada Manifesto” among similar pieces established a desire to move forward and anti-institution sentiments (Pyle). A look at Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground began our examination of those “othered” by society (Ewington). This theme continued in David Wojnarowicz’s Seven Miles a Second, which described the experience of living in New York City with AIDs in the 1980s. This unit continued into the Act Up protest movement of the same time period, in which people came together in choreographies of protest to call for change. Humanities, then, is not only defined by individual concepts like mind, body, and spirit, but also holds implications about broader society in its definition. Humans are social creatures, and a human history is defined by change that we create. Humanities is the study of the human, but also the study of change; the study of protests, and manifestos, and movements that urge our species to continue moving forward and bettering ourselves.  

Lowercase humanities, however, is not as easily explored. This term does not refer to a study—rather, it refers to what makes us feel human: the struggle to find meaning. I believe that this term cannot be confined to a stereotypical “definition.” We find meaning in emotion—in joy, in melancholy, in pure, unbounded love. We find meaning in struggle, in goal setting, in fighting for justice. We find meaning in enjoying food, or lying under trees. Being human is defined by an underlying desire to find meaning. For me, I believe that meaning can be found in the small things in life. With the right outlook, each little experience, each inconsequential moment, can become something beautiful. Dr. Boyer’s lecture on December 5 told a story of a friend whose meaning was shattered by the death of a close friend on 9/11. This person tried to find meaning in the coming years (Boyer). The lecture on October 17th discussed theater, a method of finding societal meaning through acting (Green). A guiding question at the beginning of our Spirit unit was “How does religion work to de-mechanize bodies and liberate people” (Wills). This question addresses people who are able to find liberation and meaning through religion. Dr. Boyer’s lecture at the end of the course mentioned our eternal struggle to “burn with a gemlike flame”—this pursuit, ultimately, encapsulates humanities (Boyer). Our lives are spent trying constantly to better ourselves in every sense of the phrase: through interests, through suffering, through love. These pursuits; our human endeavors to find meaning, are what define humanities. Each plenary included not only studies in the Humanities, but also in humanity, in feeling, in emotion

The Humanities is a study; it is a class and a department that explores the state of being human. humanities are different—they are internal; they are the undefinable forces that make us who we are. I believe that humanities are defined by our pursuit as individuals and as the human race to find meaning in our own lives and with this collective life that we share. Uppercase Humanities, as an area of study, can help us consider the implications of our existence, or our lowercase humanities. 

Works Cited

Bory, Alison. “Plenary” Hum-103, 5 October 2023, Davidson College, Union 900 Room. Lecture.

Boyer, Patricio. “Plenary” Hum-103, 5 December 2023, Davidson College, Tyler-Tallman Hall. Lecture.

Boyer, Patricio. “Plenary” Hum-104, 25 April 2024, Davidson College, Hance Auditorium. Lecture.

Ewington, Amanda. “Plenary” Hum-104, 6 February 2024, Davidson College, Hance Auditorium. Lecture.

Green, Sharon. “Plenary” Hum-103, 17 October 2023, Davidson College, Tyler-Tallman Hall. Lecture.

Pyle, Marcus. “Plenary” Hum-103, 16 November 2023, Davidson College, Tyler-Tallman Hall. Lecture.

Pyle, Marcus. “Plenary” Hum-104, 30 January 2024, Davidson College, Hance Auditorium. Lecture.

Robb, David. “Plenary” Hum-103, 29 August 2023, Davidson College, Tyler-Tallman Hall. Lecture.

Wills, Anne. “Plenary” Hum-103, 31 October 2023, Davidson College, Tyler-Tallman Hall. Lecture.

Ballet Hispánico at Davidson College was a four-act ballet in Duke Family Performance hall. The organization’s mission is to bring people together around experimental forms of ballet that celebrate Latino culture. Clearly, Ballet Hispánico at Davidson College was intended to provide entertainment to students, faculty and staff, and community members, as well as to spread the art to those who might not otherwise have the opportunity to experience it. Because of the intriguing mission, I was hopeful going into the performance, anticipating an engaging experience that was different from anything I had seen before. After the performance, it was clear that I had viewed four love stories, each through a different lens.

The theater was full as I entered, community families and students alike sitting in anticipation of the upcoming performance. Ominous music faded in as the lights dimmed. Two dancers emerged with abrupt bodily movements and black costumes, extremes in both movement and color. The music also verged on the extreme, incorporating hydraulic noises. The dancers spun, becoming closer, accelerating as the noise grew, then moving apart. Finally, the couple converged in the center of the stage and the curtain dropped before the theater lights turned on, interrupting the immersion. The first act felt like a story of young love: adrenaline-inducing and exciting, yet fleeting. 

After several minutes, the lights dimmed once again and the curtain was raised to reveal a woman in a long red dress. Her body became an axis as her arms rotated around it in subdued, flowing movements. The silence and darkness in the theater created an attention vacuum, the illuminated dress the sole magnet. Guitar music played and four men in red entered, trading the female dancer between themselves, tugging on her dress with desire. Suddenly, the men seized her fans and the light became crimson. Then dancers entered in unison with leaps and graceful strides. The pace of the act continued to fluctuate with frequent changes in lighting and music and bodily movements until the dancers fell to the ground. It’s over. Their heads fell with the curtain. This story felt like one of grappling with different loves. Undertones of polyamory were present and the relationships felt unstable.

As the curtain rose on the third act, several elements stood out, especially in contrast with the previous act: first, the smoke that engulfed the unwavering bodies on the stage; second, the heavy use of clothing that juxtaposed the lack of it in the previous act. A woman stood center stage while the other dancers surrounded her on the ground. Dancers emerged and replaced her clothing with a nun’s robe, and she became a planet as the other dancers were pulled into her orbit. Then she was left alone. Slowly, each dancer entered in colorful costume and orbited the main dancer before falling to the ground and occupying their original positions. She loomed over them. This act felt like a war story between the main dancer and her religion, her family, perhaps her sexuality, and loneliness. While the previous two acts felt lighthearted at points, this act was a tragedy throughout. 

The final act was a whirlwind. The curtain rose to reveal a man smoking a cigar while a woman danced in the foreground. Purple light and lively music gave the stage a playful ambiance. The clothing looked similar to that of a traditional club; suitable for dancing and flirting. Couples danced with one another, provoking cries from the audience. For the final minutes of the act, a disco ball dropped from the ceiling, casting reflections about the theater that brought the audience into the environment already developed on the stage. This act felt like an upbeat and scandalous club scene with multiple couples having fun. It was refreshing after the previous act, and ended the performance on a positive note. 

The organizers of the event and the members of Ballet Hispánico were undoubtedly successful in their goal of bringing this art form to a group of young humans. I was not handed a program prior to the event so I did not have access to descriptions of the individual acts. I therefore viewed each act as something for me to interpret, to try and decipher the story behind the movements happening on stage. Of course, there are intended stories behind each of these acts, but without knowledge of those, human nature led me to try and interpret what I witnessed. I felt as if I was able to decipher a story from each of the Ballet Hispánico acts perfectly, which indicates the Ballet’s success. I also enjoyed the storytelling aspect of the performance. Ballet Hispánico at Davidson was an enlightening experience that nudged me out of my comfort zone and has encouraged further exploration into both this specific art form and other unfamiliar (to me) performances that Davidson may offer in the future. 

“Go and Don’t Be Afraid: Perestroika and the Soviet Jewish Future” was a lecture on Soviet Jews between 1988 and 1989 offered by Stanford graduate student Joshua Tapper. The lecture explained efforts to recover a sense of Jewish identity and culture during those years in the Soviet Union. The presentation started with a metaphor: the final scene of a documentary called The Jewish Cemetery in which a man named Spector wanders alone through an airport terminal. While the stereotype of the time was a mass desire of Soviet Jews to emigrate, Tapper argued that Spector, who moved back to Moscow, represented a significant portion of the Soviet-Jewish population who stayed in the USSR. He represented a shift of narrative from doubt and hopelessness within the country to one of optimism and hope. 

Tapper went on to discuss the state of the Soviet Jewry movement, centered around the idea that fully realizing Jewish potential could only occur outside the confines of the Soviet Union. While the desire to leave the Soviet Union following years of persecution was obviously present, Spector decided to stay because he saw himself as the future of a new national community: one of possibility and agency. Tapper also discussed the beginnings of Perestroika, the reformation of the soviet economic system, which emerged through grassroots Jewish activism. Soviet Jews made an effort to change the “politics of rescue” that were common at the time to a politics of rebuilding—instead of the philanthropic movement that many Jewish activists saw as paternalistic, Soviet Jews believed they could rebuild their culture and identity from within.

A character that emerged several times in Tapper’s talk was Mikhail Chlenov, a visionary of Jewish life in the USSR and one of the main opponents to the philanthropic movement. Chlenov was the founder of the Jewish Cultural Association, which became a vehicle for change during this several year period in the Soviet Union. At the end of his talk, Tapper referenced the work of a Jewish poet which appeared in the first editorially independent Jewish newspaper called The Dawn. The poem was a call for communal solidarity and action for both the local and global Jewish diaspora. 

Joshua Tapper had a few clear goals in his talk. The first (and most obvious) was to make a positive impression on listeners, as he is a grad student seeking a role in the Russian studies department at Davidson. He was successful in this regard: he was poised and knowledgeable, and offered most of the information in an understandable manner (though admittedly some of the more complex concepts did go over my head). His other purpose was to present his passion project to a group of people who volunteered to come to his talk. His research is niche, and because of the relatively unknown nature of some of the information he presented, he was eager to bring it to a new group of people. In this regard, he was successful, as his presentation was a cornucopia of information about his dissertation. 

From my own perspective, I believe that Joshua Tapper’s talk was interesting and informative, if complex. I am half Jewish (my great grandparents were Jews who immigrated from Ukraine due to pogroms in their town). Albeit at a much later date, the Soviet Jewish movement is of interest to me, as I feel like it is relevant to my own heritage. Prior to this talk, I had no knowledge whatsoever of the topic, so it was a great introduction to something which I believe Tapper could have taught a yearlong class on. This lecture was an opportunity to learn about something I otherwise would not have, and I hope to attend more like this at Davidson in the future. 

The Small Things Matter

In my portfolio conversation with Dr. Bory, I expressed frustration with this assignment. It’s so open ended, I was lost. My working theme, she said, could provide direction for my writing. After sharing my theme, she mentioned a book that could be of use–The Book of (More) Delights by Ross Gay. I purchased the book on Kindle and looked through some of the essays. Each essay presented a small experience from Gay’s life in a refreshingly positive light. The experiences, which would probably be thought of as inconsequential, all felt warm and entirely important. I thought about my own experiences–what in my life could make the cut as a “delight?”  

But I was missing the point. Gay’s delights were not warm because they were inherently extraordinary–they were normal (small) experiences that he found the beauty in. That, I think I can do. 

—

On college nights, I often found myself hungry without much access to food on campus. A few nights ago, I encountered this situation. Fortunately, a dorm hall of growing humans usually contains several hungry people, so a hallmate with a car on campus agreed to drive to the Cookout Drive-thru on the condition that I join him. A few others threw in orders and we left. 

The air outside Richardson hall was cold, so we broke into a jog, and then a sprint across campus until we reached his car. It was after midnight so nobody was there to judge how stupid we looked sprinting past commons and across the field. 

As we neared Cookout, we scanned the town of Davidson for cops. My friend wasn’t speeding, but we looked nonetheless. As we pulled into the drive-thru, an overwhelming sense of freedom washed over me. I was riding in a car to buy food and then would return to campus to work until the early morning. There was something beautiful about that. I’m sure this is a feeling many college first-years get, or just adolescents, but it was delightful. 

And while this experience was probably not an exclusive one, it gave me meaning, however short lived. I can’t describe this feeling of purpose I got from driving to get greasy fast food on a weeknight. Writing it, it sounds so stupid, so trivial. But the beauty was there. 

And while this feeling faded, a bite of my burger revived it, however slightly. This, to me, is humanity: finding meaning and beauty in life, however small. 

—

Something that I enjoy doing when in the presence of buildings (especially in my hometown of Washington D.C.) is categorizing columns. In sixth grade, during our ancient Greece unit, we learned about Greek architecture. Included in this study was a short lesson on columns: doric, ionic, and corinthian.

The columns could be differentiated by the degree of ornament present at base and at top. Doric columns had no personality. The tops were square or something; I didn’t pay much attention to them. Corinthian columns were highly ornamental, covered with stone flourishes and chiseled greenery. They were nice, but a bit gaudy, I thought. Ionic columns, however, were perfect. They were the goldilocks column–not too dull, not too decorative. Their characteristic stone spirals were wonderful to the eye. 

Since sixth grade, I always identify the columns I see in my head. I’m always a bit happier when I see those iconic (or ionic) stone curls. My younger sister, who attended the same school (which evidently kept the curriculum the same), will sometimes join me in my identification game. 

This is a small aspect of my life, and I don’t see columns that often. But when I do, my life feels just a little more meaningful. It is a delightful reminder of my childhood, of my fascination with ancient Greece and Greek mythology. 

—

One of the most emotional delights that I encounter very infrequently is the smells of my past. Sometimes, as I move through the world, my nose will pick up a scent that instantly brings me back to another time, another place. It’s funny how smell is so closely linked to memory. 

This happened to me once in eighth grade. I remember it well. My class was walking down a sidewalk near our school when I was hit with the scent of a family friend’s house in Massachusetts. I hadn’t smelled it in years. My family tells me that their house smelled of mothballs, so perhaps that is what my nostrils were encountering. 

Regardless of the smell itself, it was delightful to be transported back in time so swiftly. I returned to my childhood in these few seconds. As life moves forward, memories fade. But smell has the ability to bring back vivid emotions that you would not otherwise experience again. 

—

These three essays are little things that came into my mind while I was pondering this assignment. There are many more. Through these little things, I have been able to find meaning. It’s an outlook that I strive towards instead of negativity. Now, I’m going to finish The Book of (More) Delights and think more about what I have to appreciate. 

Works Cited

Gay, Ross. The Book of (More) Delights. Algonquin, 2023.

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