HX 2023-2024

This HumanitiesX seminar brought together a close reading of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America (published in 1835-40) with experiences of contemporary democracy.  Democracy in America is often considered to be the greatest book ever written on American politics.  Tocqueville provides a systemic tour of the American constitution, America's politics, its tensions, its flaws, and its aspirations.  Throughout he presses readers to reflect on the role that equality has played in giving shape to American culture, society, and politics -- indeed, how that commitment to equality may animate the most diverse elements of American life.  While reading the classic, students tested Tocqueville's analysis with their own experiences, and what those experiences, their reading, and their conversations tell us about the possibilities and challenges of American democracy in the 21st century. As an experiential learning course, our work culminated in a student-led public event that invited the public to learn about and engage with Tocqueville's ideas and their relevance today.   
 

This Experiential Learning course was about contemporary book bans and their relationship to the democratic role of LGBTQ+ libraries and archives in the preservation, celebration, and continuation of intersectional queer lives. Queer books represent the possibilities, traumas, and beauties of LGBTQ+ lives, often in spite of forces attempting to remove these works from libraries and schools. Course participants read banned books about LGBTQ+ lives, explored material collected in the Gerber/Hart Library and Archives, read about queer repression across time and place, and studied theory about censorship, LGBTQ+ rights, and democracy. Students worked collaboratively to create a public exhibit on banned books and learn about the administration and maintenance of a nonprofit library that also functions as a community center and LGBTQ+ safe haven.