Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Henry David Thoreau and Frances E. W. Harper offer a historical model for the public humanities grounded in racial justice and moral education. For both Thoreau and Harper, the “public practice of humanity” that Thoreau identifies in “A Plea for Captain John Brown” inescapably means taking the side of justice, creating a “liberation humanities” that is analogous to the “preferential option for the poor” in twentieth-century theologies of liberation. Both authors use a mix of theologically informed moral reasoning and wit and irony to further the cause of justice, and both are concerned with the ways in which literary form and public advocacy can coalesce.
Source: Public humanities.
DOI: 10.1017/pub.2024.40
Author: Brian Yothers
Institution: Saint Louis University
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,550
OpenAlex ID: W4405690510