Discovery & Inspiration
Discovery & Inspiration
National Humanities Center
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.
Between People and a Place: Cindy Decker
As executive director of Tulsa Educare, Cindy Decker leads one of the nation’s premier early childhood education programs which aims to break the cycle of poverty in Tulsa.
Feb 9, 2025
30 min
Between People and a Place: Jim Hightower
Writer and political commentator Jim Hightower has garnered a national following as a radio personality, syndicated columnist, and author speaking to the concerns of everyday Americans in much the same way as Woody Guthrie, the artist and activist who inspires him.
Feb 9, 2025
41 min
Between People and a Place: Chuck Hoskin Jr.
As Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, Chuck Hoskin Jr. has not only helped improve the economic and physical well-being of his fellow Cherokees, he has also secured the largest language investment in the tribe’s history to expand Cherokee cultural preservation.
Feb 9, 2025
43 min
Between People and a Place: Jeff Stava
Jeff Stava is Chief Program Officer of the George Kaiser Family Foundation, Chief Operating Officer at the Tulsa Community Foundation, and Executive Director of the Gathering Place, Tulsa’s 100-acre, riverfront park which was named USA Today’s top new attraction for 2019, and one of Time Magazine’s 100 Greatest Places in the World.
Feb 9, 2025
29 min
Between People and a Place: Michael Wallis
Best-selling author Michael Wallis is a leading chronicler of the American West and its place in the American imaginary—with books on everything from Billy the Kid, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, and Wilma Mankiller to the legacy of America’s “Mother Road,” Route 66.
Feb 9, 2025
43 min
Between People and a Place: Onikah Asamoa-Caesar
Community activist and entrepreneur Onikah Asamoa-Caesar is the founder and CEO of Fulton Street Books & Coffee, a retail business and gathering place in the heart of Tulsa’s historic Greenwood neighborhood.
Feb 8, 2025
48 min
Bill Leuchtenburg: NHC Board of Trustees Keynote Address, June 8, 2016
Bill Leuchtenburg speaks about presidential history at the National Humanities Center Board of Trustees reception at the Morgan Library, New York, NY on June 8, 2016.
Jan 31, 2025
45 min
Elena Machado Sáez, “Activism and Resistance in Contemporary Latinx Theater”
Theatrical productions allow playwrights and audiences alike to engage with historical and contemporary social realities. But what are the consequences when particular types of dramatic texts and performances are inadequately disseminated and preserved? Elena Machado Sáez (NHC Fellow, 2022–23) is analyzing the ways that Latinx theater in the United States depicts forms of activism and resistance while building shared archives and communities.
Nov 3, 2023
22 min
Gregg Hecimovich, “The Zealy Daguerreotypes: Confronting Images of Enslavement”
In March 1850, five men and two women were photographed in the studio of South Carolina artist Joseph Zealy. When these daguerreotypes were uncovered in 1976, they quickly became some of the best-known pre-Civil War images of enslaved African Americans. Gregg Hecimovich (NHC Fellow, 2015–16; 2022–23) is asking important questions about why these images were captured, how they were lost for so long, and what they might tell us about legacies of white supremacy and enslavement in the United States.
Nov 3, 2023
21 min
Naomi André, “A History of Blackness in Opera”
As an art form, opera has proven to be simultaneously entertaining and relatable to diverse audiences, even though it has also been characterized by associations with whiteness and elitism. Naomi André (NHC Fellow, 2022–23) is working to tell a more comprehensive and inclusive story of this genre by constructing a history of Blackness in opera from the nineteenth century to the present.
Nov 3, 2023
19 min
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