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Walter Benjamin’s “The Storyteller,” reflects Benjamin’s sense of mourning for the lost art of storytelling. His nostalgic recollection of this past oral tradition demonstrates his discontent with the current era of information, technology, and the search for truth. He first introduces readers to the character of the storyteller with the assumption that the modern reader will never know him. We will never have the privilege of hearing a story and sharing that experience. Benjamin implies that certain advancements and changes in modern day society are to blame for this loss of “something that seemed inalienable to us, the securest among our possessions… the ability to exchange experiences” (Benjamin, 362). Storytelling is a shared experience, a connection between the teller and the listener. Without it, we lose the ability to learn from people whose lives are so different from our own. 

Benjamin’s discussion of experience connects to our exploration of knowledge in Professor Robb’s unit, specifically through John Locke and empiricism. Locke insists that knowledge is not justified by experience, but it is experience. Benjamin’s point about a loss of shared experiences could also be about a broader loss to humanity of shared knowledge. In his lifetime, civilization changed so quickly through technology and warfare. Benjamin witnessed horrors that were enough to make one question the very essence of humanity. What are humans truly capable of? Are they innately good? In that time, at the very least, stories would have brought comfort or perhaps understanding of why things happened the way they did. Instead, technological and chemical warfare were new inventions of the twentieth century that no experience from past stories could have ever prepared the world for. Benjamin described it as a world where “nothing remained unchanged but the clouds” (363). Thus, stories from the past have become essentially obsolete and inapplicable to the modern man’s everyday experiences. 

Benjamin makes a distinction between a novel and a story through the purpose, execution, and takeaway. As an avid lover of novels, particularly historical fiction novels, I was curious about what Benjamin would say about these novels that are based on real experiences. While the characters themselves are made up, they are compositions of several, maybe many, true identities to whom similar events happened to. I would argue that the author is then taking on the role of the storyteller in a way by piecing together parts of a whole and perhaps filling in some holes to construct an experience. The role of the author and the storyteller seem almost identical, so I am wondering if perhaps the experience of novel-writing and storytelling diverges because of the listener. Listeners of stories have to listen carefully to interpret the story because it is subjective. There is a moral at the end of the story, but the listener chooses how to process it.  As a reader of a novel, though, I don’t have to do that hard work. However, I acknowledge that according to Benjamin, the author is still separate from the storyteller in the way that they share the story because they are isolated from the reader– they do not directly share the experience of telling the story with readers.

These are some additional thoughts and questions I had:

• Connection to other beings, empathy– have we lost it? Through journalism/constantly being berated with news (especially dark news)– desensitized, removed geographically
  • Tamura’s unit– how far can empathy take us?
• Journalism– also very westernized, biases, single sided story, don’t get raw data– already processed
• Communication vs information– storytelling as a way of sharing information or no?
• Our need for truth and answers, objective world vs subjective
• Bad at being bored now, lost art
• Time has become our enemy/most valued commodity– take shortcuts whenever we can
• Death has become taboo, we are afraid– opposite of living instead of part of living– related to our clinging to time? Make the most of life before you die
• Industrial world and technology clearly his enemy– based on what he’s seen/lived through in the first and second world wars– what technology is capable of, what the modern man is capable of– he is himself a storyteller, telling us about the lost art of storytelling and the tragedy of his modern day– chronology of storytelling
• Historiography– central to storytelling
• Language– written vs spoken– does written language get lost in translation when telling stories? Don’t have non-verbal cues, tone, direct engagement with storyteller
  • Is written language reliable?

In Professor Wills’s unit, we investigated the intersections of sick bodies, gay bodies, and the Church as a body in the context of the AIDS epidemic. There were many parallels to the current day COVID-19 pandemic in terms of how we label ‘other’ bodies and use illness as a physical barrier. In the 1980s, it was a fear of gay and queer bodies that defied existing labels and social norms. Today, the pandemic has othered Asian bodies, black bodies, and other minority groups’ bodies. The intersection of health and race has demonstrated huge disparities in access to healthcare and vaccines. We also discussed how bodies become archives and numbers in times of crisis. Sick people simply become their disease, and we forget about the person in the body.

During this unit, I was introduced to the political philosopher Hannah Arendt. I find her theory on the banality of evil intriguing. After watching the Margarethe von Trotta film, Hannah Arendt, my mind was spinning for hours! Below is my Slack response to the film:

! This film was so fascinating. I’m very intrigued by Ms. Arendt’s philosophy, and I’m especially curious about the intersection of the “Eichmann phenomenon” and the psychology of obedience. They seem to be opposite in the sense that Arendt says by not thinking, Eichmann was refusing to do the very thing that made him human, so he lost the ability to make moral judgements; on the other hand, the psychological phenomenon of obeying authority figures and the surrounding social conditions associating with that are a very human thing, a product of the mind. Can they both be factored into the banality of evil? Additionally, there is the role of honor and honor cultures to consider, which is that if people didn’t feel the need to prove themselves as honorable to Germany, would they still have obeyed unquestioningly? Essentially, there are many psychological phenomena that complicate Arendt’s theory.

? Similarly to Ian, I’m curious about the reception of Arendt’s theories now in academia and also by the public. Are people less opposed to them now that the war is over 75 years passed? How have her theories adapted over time, and how are they applied to current events today?

On January 27th, 2021, Dr. Akshay Pendyal gave a talk for the Humanities Program called “Race, Health, and Disease: a Critical Perspective.” He opened with a narrative about one of his patients. He explained that the purpose of opening with a story was to humanize the patients and contextualize his theme to open a pathway for empathy. He then introduced us to a common practice among doctors that contributes to the overall dehumanization of patients: overlooking their “social history,” which he claims can actually tell doctors a full picture of their patient. The most important takeaway from this part of the talk was that patients are not their disease, and medical workers need to remember this fact when treating patients in order to provide better treatment and holistic care. 

Dr. Pendyal then addressed how race intersects with inequality in health and healthcare: marginalized communities, especially African American and Latino communities, are disproportionately affected by disease compared to white communities. This inequality has been starkly visible in the COVID-19 pandemic. He explained that black bodies are not different from white bodies genetically, but they are at higher risk for disease due to social ills that are largely caused by systemic and structural racism: “it is your zipcode, not your genetic code, that makes a difference.” The interconnectivity of social, political, historical, and environmental problems clearly demonstrate how society is structured to value and protect white bodies at the risk of other bodies. In the pandemic, for example, many poor black women have low wage domestic jobs that are difficult, undignified, and that put them at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19. However, they have to make the choice everyday whether to risk their health or not put food on the table for their families. 

Dr. Pendyal closed his talk with a discussion on why the Humanities are so important in education. He talked about how they give us the opportunity to ask “why” and challenge social norms by digging deeper into moments and narratives. Additionally, learning about history through different lenses gives us a better understanding of the modern world and allows us to not repeat the same mistakes. For example, we can trace health disparities and inequality in the black community to the history of racism in our country, and even further, to accounts of suffering through time and space across the African diaspora. Throughout our own course, we’ve discussed the importance of narratives and hearing from marginalized voices to gain a fuller understanding of historical events. The Humanities can help us learn empathy and how to connect with other human beings. Thus, we are being prepared to start those uncomfortable conversations about the past and present in order to make better decisions in the future.

This post from Professor Luis’s unit demonstrates how although it is more comfortable to teach a glorified/simplified version of history, we ignore important voices in this glorification, which are usually voices from marginalized groups/victims. This pattern of trying to avoid uncomfortable conversations and forget past mistakes is how we reach the point of a contructed history.

“On the day that Tenochtitlan was taken, the Spaniards committed some of the most brutal acts ever inflicted upon the unfortunate people of this land… The Tlaxcaltecas and the other enemies of the Aztecs revenged themselves pitilessly for old offenses and robbed them of everything they could find” (122). I found myself approaching the Florentine Codex with suspicion, wondering how reliable the account could be after reading that it was heavily edited by Friar Bernardino. However, I do think that it does give readers a glimpse into the other narrative of the Spanish Conquest, the one of the victims. For the first time, we are reading about the days after the battle was over— the pain and grief of the few survivors as they flee the ruins of their city that had once flourished. I thought it was interesting that the narrator also mentions other indigenous groups involved in the conquest that supported the Spaniards, for Spanish accounts rarely acknowledge these other natives. These groups had their own incentives to defeat the Aztecs, which serves as a reminder that there was a long history on these lands before the Spaniards arrived. I’m not sure if this was intended, but this description in the narrative evoked feelings of pity for the Aztecs— they were being kicked while they were on the ground. This added perspective indicates that this moment in history is much more complex than we gather from the single narrative that is told.