COVID-19 and the Plagued Humanities Crisis
On April 2, 2021, the Faculty of Arts welcomed Gregory E. Rutledge to join International Arts Talk V via Zoom and give his talk on COVID-19 and the Plagued Humanities Crisis: Deep Time Reflections on Teaching Literature, Race, and Critical Race Theory. In his talk, Rutledge shares with us his reflection on his efforts to use the Human as subject for literary studies of race, exceptionalism, law, and literature during the time when race is a sensitive issue and the study of humanities, especially literary study, is plummeting in America. The session graphically addresses the deep-rooted ethnic conflict that has long been endured in American society and was recently stirred up by the arrival of COVID-19. It was our privilege to hear about it from the person who is a first-hand witness. Learning about such calamity through the eyes of a literary scholar provided us a different perspective from what has been depicted by the media. Rutledge’s portrayal of the situation in the US, which although seems strange for many Thais, is what should be part of our awareness as global citizens.
Gregory E. Rutledge is an Associate Professor at the Department of English and an expert in ethnic studies at University of Nebraska – Lincoln. He is the author of The Epic Trickster: From Sunjata to So(u)l. He also wrote papers on Futurist Fiction & Fantasy: The Racial Establishment and Speaking in Tongues: An Interview with Science Fiction Writer Nalo Hopkinson.
