If you’re feeling overwhelmed by “election overload” right now, you’re not alone. Jason Young, associate professor of history and LSA’s new director of the Institute for the Humanities, says that feeling is understandable—but he also believes the humanities can offer key perspectives as we consider the election, democracy, and the world we live in now.
Young’s academic background is in 19th century United States history, African American history, and the history of art, religion, and folk cultures. His multidisciplinary approach includes music, literature, and dance as central concerns to the humanities.
He sees the humanities as a vital part of everyday people’s understanding of a sometimes chaotic world. “I want to position the humanities as a space that has a real impact on human lives. I imagine an engaged humanities that gets to the heart of real-world issues,” he says. During this election cycle—and U-M’s Year of Democracy—we asked for his insights.
LSA: How can the past help us understand the present day?
Jason Young: People are always making and remaking culture, and contemporary questions arise from the making and remaking of culture too. I believe that questions we have about the past are very often political questions about the present we live in, so I’m terribly drawn to the ways that people remake the past to understand the present. This is why the teaching of history now has become a political issue, and people have to defend the books and courses they are teaching. A question about the preservation of a Confederate war memorial is actually a question about how we live now. We interrogate the past in order to make sense of the world we live in now.
LSA: When we think about the world we live in now, one prominent theme is that many people feel tired of or overwhelmed by politics during divisive election seasons. How are you addressing that?
JY: Right now, we’re all awash in ads, information, signage, debates, and talk radio. There’s an overabundance of information in this news cycle right now, so we’re working on cutting through some of the noise to move the conversation forward. One way we are addressing that at the Institute for the Humanities is with a series called Election Overload in which we are investigating the meanings of patriotism and country music—including Beyoncé’s country album—and asking questions about diversity, belonging, how democracy works, and what “small town America” actually means.
LSA: Can you give me a couple of other examples of how readers can “cut through the noise” in their daily lives to stay engaged with the election?
JY: Too often, voters are treated (and often perceive themselves) as passive recipients of information from candidates and political parties who try to persuade us through televised commercials, print ads, and social media engagements. I encourage everyone to think of themselves as actively engaged in the process. This means, of course, making sure that you are registered to vote and that you have a voting plan. But it might also mean attending town hall meetings, canvassing in support of preferred candidates, and, importantly, engaging in the whole ballot, from the top of the ticket down to the local proposals and issues that affect us all.
LSA: You’ve talked about how vital the humanities can be in discussions about the election. What does that say about the importance of the humanities to other issues and to society at large?
JY: This is an important time in the life of the institute and in the life of the university, and a rich time for collaboration and communication. I want to engage with the university widely and broadly to see the institute as a place of collaboration and community.
I also want to recognize and hold space for the fact that the humanities are under attack. There’s a question about if the humanities are a necessary part of the future world. Immigration and migration, citizenship, ethical questions about AI and medicine—these are all areas where humanities offer key perspectives.
There’s an absolute necessity of a humanities perspective in the debates we are currently having in the culture.
LSA: What are some ways that the Institute for the Humanities is making space for those necessary conversations around the election?
JY: This fall we’re collaborating with the U-M Stamps School of Art & Design on a conversation about writer Octavia Butler’s 1993 book Parable of the Sower, which is set in a future year that is now our present: 2024. On the day after the election we will reconsider the world that Butler imagined, and map it onto the world that we live in. The book is about building a new ethics of politics that could move humanity forward, and we will talk through that together.
And in terms of getting out the vote, the University of Michigan Museum of Art has been engaged in some excellent work, and we’ve been supporting their efforts to increase voter turnout as well.
Citizenship, human movement and migration, war, violence—humanities perspectives have thought long and hard about these issues. We can’t rely merely on market-driven solutions to these problems, or on policy-driven solutions to these questions. These questions exceed the political environment and market; they’re about what it means to be human.
