HOWL MANIFESTO

The Humanities in Opposition World League (HOWL) is an international collective of practitioners in the humanities: artists, poets, historians, social scientists, psychologists, actors, scholars of all disciplines, linguists, critics, journalists, and others. We believe in vibrant truth-telling, inclusiveness, racial and gender equality, right to love, environmental healing, economic justice, and freedom of the press for all writers and readers. We believe that we can improve political conditions and individual lives by sharing the information and art we have culled and created.

The nations of the world experienced a change of life in November 2016, but not a natural development, part of maturation as an international community. Rather, we experienced the very unnatural transition in the United States from a democracy to a country led by an unstable alt-right-wing president, threatening a path of isolationism, racism, environmental destruction, censorship, and oligarchic rule. This affects the entire globe.

What role do the humanities and its practitioners play in this? A major one. How we share information now can affect global politics, and the lives of individuals in a profound way.

In the humanities and the arts, we are always cool. Decorative, interesting, informative, entertaining, moving. But as Toni Morrison says, these are the times we really earn our keep. That said, we must go to work.

We seek to work now in the spirit of Frankl, Akhmatova, Anthony, Fromm, Ginsberg, Pasternak, Sartre, Levi, Brecht, Wiesel, Gramsci, DuBois, Douglass, Barthes, Genet, Baldwin, Brodsky, Chopin, Wollstonecraft, the Mills, Pavese, Pushkin, Shelley, King, Malcolm X, Angelou, Fenoglio, Stowe, Murrow, Serling, Dickinson, Pasolini, Brooks, Myers, Merini, Davis, L. Scalapino and thousands of others in the humanities, our many role models and heroes.

We signatories to this manifesto vow to fight fascism at every turn, with ideas, analysis, images. And we promise not to tell one another how that must be done. We agree to share information that is inspiring, entertaining, and/or educational. We will contribute to political freedom, whether we discuss politics directly or “tell it slant.” We vow to reach across the aisle; that said, we will have no tolerance for views predicated upon the diminution of other people. And we will bring the breath of democracy, inclusion, freedom, and human decency to our discourse.

We promise to use our brains, talents, and humor to subvert Trumpism and promote the human, and we so here sign.

Larissa Shmailo
Alice Sieve
Jonathan Penton
Annie Finch

Dean Kostos
Michael T.Young
Laura Hinton
Alexander Cigale
Chris Mansel

Fear of the Humanities (from the HOWL Collective blog)

FEAR OF THE HUMANITIES, from the HOWL (Humanities Opposition World League) Collective

by

Larissa Shmailo

This November, Americans experienced an unnatural transition from a democracy to a country led by a fascist president. Swastikas, church burnings, hate writings on walls marked with “Trump,” are sanctioned by our new president-elect; indeed, the alt-right (a sanitized term for white supremacists) is lodged next to the Oval Office. We are ripe to be pussy grabbed, placed in conversion therapy, registered, and deported. Oh, and torture is in. (If you do not know anything about fascism, don’t worry: you are about to learn.)

So, many of us in the humanities, artists, poets, writers, historians, social scientists, scholars, linguists, critics, journalists, oppose this. I know: even now, Steve Bannon is slugging down an extra shot to stop his trembling, and is telling Trump, “Mr. President, we’ve got a problem.”

Artists!!! Scholars!!! Sociologists!!! Be afraid, Donald Trump, be very afraid!

Well, yes, actually, he has cause to be. Fascists are afraid of vibrant, truth-telling humanities, which is why they arrest their makers so often. One of Trump’s earliest encounters with defiance was from the cast of Hamilton, who used their stage to confront our homophobic VP-elect. Apologize, the Donster demanded. No, the cast answered. There was more here than a distraction from Trump’s business conflicts of interest (which are actually bribery, explicitly cited in the Constitution as impeachable). 

The president-elect wanted the cast of Hamilton to obey, and the arts and humanities rarely do.

What do we in the humanities do that threatens demagogues, authoritarians, Hitler-wannabes? (“I alone can fix it” was a direct quote from Fuhrer by the Donald.) We record, parody, inspire, inform, debate, debunk, analyze, summarize, translate, abstract, respond, journal, categorize, report, opine, educate, satirize, uplift, mobilize, underscore, energize, review. We bring forth new ideas and data, show people how, when, and where to resist, and keep up the spirits of people oppressed by their selfish and erratic leaders.  

And we continue to do so in the face of the angry tweets and the red face of the Orangeman. And we are legion. So indeed, it is rational, to paraphrase National Security Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn, to be afraid of the humanities and their practitioners. So, yes, Trumpetters, do be afraid. Very afraid.