Winter 2018 | National Endowment for the Humanities

Portrait of Ulysses S. Grant

Photo caption

In this issue, read about the motivation behind Ulysses S. Grant's penning of his memoir.

Sara Tyson

Winter 2018

Volume 39, Issue 1

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HUMANITIES: The Magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities

In This Issue

Portrait of Ulysses S. Grant, done in sepia

What Drove Ulysses Grant to Write about the Civil War

On the motives of a reluctant memoirist

Meredith Hindley

Texting in Ancient Mayan header image

Texting in Ancient Mayan Hieroglyphs

What Unicode will make possible

Students protest at Southern University in the 1970s

A New Documentary Casts a Light on the 1972 Tragedy at Southern University

Two students were shot dead for protesting

Also in this issue

The Voice of Shirley Jackson Was Unnerving and Full of Foreboding

In a rare audio recording, the author revealed what her writing sounded like to her

Peter Tonguette

The Thinker Who Believed in Doing

William James and the philosophy of pragmatism

Over a Career Spanning Six Decades, American Poet W. S. Merwin Transformed Anger into Art

New Museums Confront Mississippi History, Coming to Terms with Tragedies, Celebrating Triumphs

“New Orleans Has Been a Wicked City for a Long Time”

An excerpt from New Orleans & The World: 1718–2018 Anthology

Students in Tuscaloosa Learn All About the Blues, and How to Sing Them, Too

A Bhutanese Folktale Becomes a Children’s Book in New Hampshire

A pumpkin marries a princess and then . . .

Laura Wolff Scanlan

Before James Bond, a Hidden Camera Inside a Watch Was a Gadget for Royalty

The Many Alexander Hamiltons

An interview with Joanne B. Freeman

Humanities Staff

Executive Function with Julie Fry

Listening to the voices of California’s people

Editor’s Note