Humanities

Summer 2012

The learned observer

“We should observe first, and think afterwards.”
—The Lancet, Oct. 19, 1823

Part of the nature of a writer—but then again, perhaps I speak only for myself—is the constant reimagining of one’s self and context, the repeated immersion in myriad and esoteric subjects, all the while desperately hoping for infinite reincarnations in order to fulfill all the things one would like to understand, experience, and be. On the other hand, being a writer embraces the perfectly paradoxical satisfaction with one’s role as a learned observer.

Given the skeptical writer’s reluctance to rely on reincarnation, the only way to grasp these multitudinous desires and perspectives … » More …

Spring 2012

Gallery: Life at Heart Mountain internment camp

George Hirahara and his family, including Frank ’48, had their lives in Yakima disrupted in 1942 when they were forced to relocate with about 10,000 other Japanese Americans to Heart Mountain, Wyoming.

Frank’s daughter Patti Hirahara has shared a number of items with Washington State University from her family’s internment experience. They include about 2,000 photographs and negatives, many of them showing daily life at Heart Mountain.

The gallery below shows a few scenes from the Heart Mountain internment camp: celebrations, school days, sports events, and daily routines.

The complete collection is housed at WSU’s Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, where students, scholars, and descendants … » More …

Spring 2012

Sacred Encounters

“When I drive past this place it gives me a good-hearted, happy feeling,” says Quanah Matheson ’04, cultural resources director of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe. At what is now Old Mission State Park, just off Interstate 90 at Cataldo, Idaho, Matheson is taking a breather from the rush of last-minute details prior to opening a major historical exhibit.

A graceful, whitewashed chapel, the Mission of the Sacred Heart, completed in 1853 and the oldest building in Idaho, tops a grassy knoll at the state park, but down below, the tribe has just completed a modern museum that is now the permanent home of an exhibit … » More …

Internment camp children photo by Frank Hirahara

Spring 2012

A Hidden History

In 1992, Frank Hirahara ’48 sent his daughter Patti to Yakima to help his elderly parents pack up their home for their move to Southern California.

What had at first seemed a chore turned into a treasure hunt as Patti unearthed letters, photographs, and official records that chronicled her family’s experience as Japanese Americans who had spent World War II in an internment camp. “These things were hidden all around the house,” she says. She discovered notes in the buffet, letters in the kitchen cupboard, and photo negatives tucked into books.

Frank’s grandfather Motokichi Hirahara came to Washington from Wakayama Prefecture in Japan in 1907. … » More …

Spring 2012

The end of free will?

The wind said
You know I’m
the result of
forces beyond my control

—A.R. Ammons, “The Wide Land”

When the subject of free will resurfaced on the media horizon recently, all I could think of was that last dorm room bull session on said topic many, many years ago. But up it pops again, not just in philosophy journals, but in the esteemed science, and generally nonphilosophical, journals Nature and Science. A subject that has been fervently teased, manipulated, and debated (by scholars decidedly more rigorous than a clutch of college students with a couple of semesters of introductory philosophy under … » More …

Spring 2012

The Long Journey of the Nez Perce: A Battle History from Cottonwood to Bear Paw

Kevin Carson ’81
Westholme Publishing, 2011

In his foreword to the latest account of the Nez Perce War of 1877, Kevin Carson ’81 writes, “In my memory, there was never a time when our family was not fascinated by the saga of the Nez Perce.” Carson’s great-great-great grandfather, Levi Watrous, served as a scout during the Civil War, then moved to Columbia County, Washington, in 1872, where he made his living as a stockman. … » More …

Winter 2011

Bringing history and historian together

Historian Douglas Brinkley recently visited Seattle to interview William D. Ruckelshaus, the founding head of the Environmental Protection Agency and advisor to a variety of Northwest clean water and community groups.

Ruckelshaus first made the connection between the environment and public health shortly after graduating from Harvard Law School when he returned to Indiana as a young lawyer. In the office of the Indiana attorney general, Ruckelshaus was assigned to the Indiana Board of Health, where he noticed that many of the state’s health issues were tied to air and water pollution, he says. It was a foundation for his work a decade later defining … » More …

Winter 2011

Tolerance in an intolerant time

In 1530, a group of Lutheran princes composed a statement of faith, requesting legal recognition, and presented it to Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor. Although the Emperor rejected it, the Augsburg Confession would become the statement of belief that defined Lutheranism. Toward the middle of the century, the Catholics followed with their version, the Council of Trent. Indeed, a succession of churches that emerged from the breakup of the monolithic medieval church during the Reformation distinguished themselves through statements of faith that became known as confessions.

Not coincidentally, the Age of Confessionalism is also known as the Age of Religious Wars.

Gradually, says … » More …

Winter 2011

Building New Pathways to Peace

Noriko Kawamura , Yoichiro Murakami, and Shin Chiba, editors

University of Washington Press, 2011

The idea of “peace” in our complex and conflicted world sometimes seems out of reach or even antiquated. The authors in this collection recognize these realities and make a concerted effort to build a new theory of peace studies.

Noriko Kawamura, a WSU assistant professor of history, co-edited the volume, which includes contributions from a number of Washington State faculty along … » More …

Winter 2011

The Man Who Dammed the Yangtze: A Mathematical Novel

Alex Kuo

Haven Books, 2011

Ge and G, mathematicians in northern China and Oshkosh, Wisconsin, respectively, navigate parallel academic paths at the beginning of this unique and challenging novel by WSU English professor Alex Kuo. The two characters don’t know each other, but their lives reflect a common experience over the course of 30 years.

The Chinese woman Ge and Chinese-American man G share a disgust for the emptiness of their teaching and the revolutions … » More …