Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup Redefines Vermont Humanities in Turbulent Times 

During the Cold War arms race, when the U.S. government was funneling money into scientific and technological research, the public intellectuals who called themselves "academic humanists" — university lecturers, deep readers of classical texts, and other cultural ruminants — began to feel neglected. In 1964, a panel of concerned scholars presented a report to Congress to plead their case for a federally subsidized humanities agency.

Their proposal, which led, a year later, to the establishment of the National Endowment for the Humanities, asserted that it was in the country's best interests to "correct the view of those who see America as a nation interested only in the material aspects of life and Americans as a people skilled only in gadgeteering."

Among the side effects of this profligate gadgeteering, the report noted, was the dubious luxury of convenience, the sudden abundance of formless hours: "'What shall I do with my spare time' all-too-quickly becomes the question 'Who am I? What shall I make of my life?'... The humanities are the immemorial answer to man's questioning and to his need for self-expression; they are uniquely equipped to fill 'the abyss of leisure.'"

In the midst of a global pandemic that has dismantled the structures of daily life, the question of how to fill that abyss feels particularly urgent. Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, executive director of Vermont Humanities, believes that when we find ourselves grasping for a frame of reference, the stories we tend to overlook can be just as revealing as the ones we choose.