Instructions:

Observing like a Humanist:for this activity,pick a place to sit and observe, and bring something towrite with. You might choose to do the activity in your dorm room or apartment, your workplace, outside, in a restaurant or coffee shop, or at a gym, to name a few possibilities.For 10-15 minutes, free-write about all the things you see around you that could be "texts" that ahumanist might interpret. Asking Questions like a Humanist: from your free-writing,create a list of 3-5 questions that a humanist might ask about those texts (objects, people that you observed). Try to avoid writing about the actual activities people are engaging in; human behavior is more within the realm of the social sciences, not the humanities. Instead, think creatively about the kinds of artifacts that a humanist might analyze to understand and interpret human experience.

Part 1:Observing and Asking Questions like a Humanist

You probably engage every day in observation of the kinds of things studied in the humanities, but you might not be doing it in the systematic way that humanistic scholars do. When you listen to music, how do you make meaning? Perhaps you listen to the words, the chord progressions, or repeated phrases. Or maybe you look to specific matters of context such as who wrote the song, what other music the artist has performed, and when it was recorded. You might consider how it is similar to or different from other songs. In order to understand the song's meaning, you might even think about social and cultural events surrounding the period when the song was recorded. These kinds of observational and interpretive acts are the very things humanists do when they research and write; they just use careful methods of observing, documenting, and interpreting that are generally more systematic than what most of us do when listening to music for enjoyment. Humanists also develop theories of interpretation or build on the theories of others in order to help still other scholars determine how to observe and interpret texts and find meaningful connections among them.

Part II:Observing, Asking Questions, and Interpreting like a Humanist

Humanists do not just observe and ask questions about the world that surrounds them. In addition, they use this to interpret and think critically about what affects them in order to better understand the life and world they inhabit.

1. Observing and Asking Questions like a Humanist: as you watch (observe) the video and listen to the lyrics, again create a list of three questions about the video that a humanist may ask:

From Observation and Asking Questions to Interpreting: now, begin making sense of the video and the lyrics: what do the symbols mean? What connotations do the lyrics hold? What is the director trying to communicate? What artistic devices is the director using to accomplish this communication? What is the meaning of the song and the video? How does it relate to culture and history?