Each month, The Stone House Center for Public Humanities interviews a humanities scholar or community member and asks them everything from why they believe the humanities are important to what they're currently binge-watching. We hope that our new blog series, Coffee & Questions, will inspire you, introduce you to a variety of people and fields, as well as create new conversations.

Our guest this month is Dr. Joshua F. Drake, Professor of Music and Humanities at Grove City College where he teaches a range of music and art-related courses.  His Ph.D. research, at the University of Glasgow (UK) was on 15th century motets.  He is co-author of Art and Music: a Student’s Guide (Crossway, 2014).

What inspires you in your current position/role?
People believe beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  This would be very convenient, in some ways, because it would make our tastes unimpeachable.  We could no more be held responsible for our tastes in art or music than we could be held responsible for our eye color.  But on the other hand, we would have little reason, and even less ability, to change our tastes.  Even more alarming, we could hardly congratulate ourselves on them, as we tend already to do. No teenager who has taken an interest in a new independent rock band thinks that his delight in that music is a mere byproduct of his brain chemistry.  He thinks it is very good music and, if you ask him to, he may actually take pains to show you why.  This suggests that tastes may actually be the sort of thing that we change based on influences from outside. But not all influences are good.  My hope—perhaps a fool’s hope—is that my influence is a good one. 

By confronting my students with beautiful things with which they have had little or no experience, and demonstrating how and why these things are beautiful, I can help them like what is more likable.  This saves them from being condemned to whatever tastes they haphazardly have formed and gives them the skills to continue to evaluate their leisure wisely.  This will hopefully mean more pleasure for them since they will have chosen their leisure based on more than raw impulse or the brute force of popular advertisement. 

Why do you believe that the humanities are important to everyone, and not just people in academia?
The popular scientists are often reminding us of the narrow gap between humans and animals.  I cannot help but think that part of their incitement to do so is to lift from humans some of the terrible moral burden we expect of ourselves but do not expect of the beasts. But the consequences of these comparisons are often more harmful than might be imagined.  If we link our behavior to that of the beasts, we may forego pleasures that are distinctly human. Now, I well believe that animals have intense pleasures.  Everyone in the house knows when the dog is scratching a good itch.  But the pleasures are mostly sensual.  Of the pleasures that come when sensations combine to form meaning—of the delights of a Euclidian proof, of the return of a symphony’s opening theme, or the denouements of Aeschylus—the dog can know nothing.  Sensation offers tremendous pleasures to be sure.  No human would wish to be without them for long.  But it is the distinctive blessing of being human that we can have pleasures that come from meaning and not just sensation.  Everyone, therefore, should study the humanities because it is there that we are offered so many examples of meaning made especially to please us. 

The natural world is full of meaning too, but it is touching to meet meaning made by our fellow humans—and for our fellow humans.  Here I should be careful.  After all, the animals make things for one another too, as any bird’s nest will testify.  But our inventions are sometimes of a sort that please only us.  I too may make a nest—of blankets and sheets—but I can also make a string quartet.  The dog may nestle up in the first but he will fall asleep during the second.
 
What is something that people might be surprised to learn about you (hobby, skill, interesting story)?
I enjoy playing sailor songs on my concertina.  People imagine that they enjoy folk music when in fact they’ve likely never known it.  Folk music is the music that a discreet local group of people evolve and make for one another.  It is a music made by people you know personally, in an idiom that crops up in relative isolation, based on the various social and practical needs of the people who make it.  I should point out at once the irony:  I am not a sailor.  In fact, I have never been out to sea on a sailboat at all.  But by making a music that evolved for sailors (as opposed to a music that evolved to sell radio advertising space or to erect totemic pop stars) I feel myself a little bit more able to enjoy something that was once ubiquitous in human experience and is now nearly lost. 

What is your first thought in the morning and last thought at night?
My first thought in the morning is surprise and gratitude.  I am perpetually thankful to wake up in a world like this, next to a wife like mine, in a house full of children and a neighborhood full of life, with my books at my elbow and my work waiting for me.  It seems almost impossible, given what I know of my own wickedness, to be given such a life.

My last thought is variable and depends on whatever I was reading or doing before I fell asleep or whatever I was speaking with my wife about before we both switched off the light.  I suppose this is fairly normal.  It is the land of Queen Mab that follows, and the dreams I meet there are perhaps more interesting—though not at this juncture. 
What's a book you've always wanted to read but haven't gotten around to?
Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia.  Here is a book that delighted most of our English speaking predecessors and has fallen almost entirely into obscurity.  Sidney’s sonnets in Astrophel and Stella continue to delight, and his Apology for Poetry is a common enough text in literary criticism.  But the Arcadia is patently his most entertaining work.  I’ve taken it up several times and made it nearly halfway through but have never completed it.  It makes me wonder if there isn’t some deficiency in my literary abilities that keeps at arm’s length a work so obviously pleasant.

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Check back next month for more Coffee & Questions. In case you missed our previous interview with Dr. Jason Stuart, click here.    

Each month, The Center for Public Humanities interviews a humanities scholar or community member and asks them everything from why they believe the humanities are important to what they're currently binge-watching. We hope that our new blog series, Coffee & Questions, will inspire you, introduce you to a variety of people and fields, as well as create new conversations.

Our guest this month is Angie Settlemire, President of the board of the Grove City Art Council (aka ArtWorks). She is also the founder and director of Outta Theatre. Angie holds a Bachelor of Music in Music Education from Grove City College. She also graduated from Mimeistry International School of Arts  as a Journeyman Mime with a specialization in Directing. In 2006, Angie co-founded Tri-flections, an Imaginative Arts Organization, which performed and toured through 2008. During that time she also assisted with the choreography and direction of the mimodrama, Alice in Wonderland at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan and at the University Of Hartford’s Summer Musical Theatre Intensive.

Regionally, Angie has performed at the Barrow Theatre in Franklin and as a mime for Grove City Art Walk and Strawberry Days. In 2015, she became the GC Art & Theatre Camp Director, as well as President of the Grove City Artworks board.  She plans to continue expanding her class offerings and to create inspiring, fun, family friendly student and professional level performances for the community to enjoy.

What inspires you in your current position/role? 
I am currently the President of the board of the Grove City Arts Council, as well as founder and director of Outta Theatre in Grove City.  The latter is my full time job.  I teach private piano and voice, as well as theatre, mime, and home school music classes.  I started Outta Theatre to bring the performing arts into Grove City and I joined ArtWorks in order to network and help build relationships and bridges that will create a larger more supportive arts community here. 

My inspiration comes from both my passion for creativity and my passion for making a difference in people’s lives.  I love to see a child light up with excitement as he listens to a new kind of music for the first time. And I never get tired of seeing someone go from being reserved and fearful to being full of confidence and life – all because they learned how to break out of their comfort zone to perform on stage. That is something that changes a person forever. Art (music & theatre specifically) brings out the best in someone; it opens their eyes to show them who they truly are and sets them free. 

What project(s) are you currently working on?
The Grove City Arts Council (aka ArtWorks) started a summer Art & Theatre Camp 6 years ago.  This is my 3rd year as director of the camp.  It is a very large undertaking, but such an important opportunity for the kids in our community.  It is coming up July 17-21, so a lot of time is focusing on getting ready for that.  Last year we had over 80 kids enrolled.  This year we are not at that number yet, but enrollment is still open, so I am hopeful that families will continue to take advantage of this experience.

This year we are offering classes in Creative Writing, Musical Theatre, Kids Theatre, Physical Theatre, Ceramics, Yarn Arts, Mosaics, Watercolor, Dance, Puppet Creations, Beach Art, and SENSE-ational Art for preschoolers.  We are also offering an extension camp  the week of July 31 at Grove City High School – it’s Wheel Throwing taught by Chris Bauer, one of the district’s art teachers.  It’s an exciting time. 

On top of that, as director of Outta Theatre, I am also organizing a 3 day Piano Olympics Camp in the morning and Singing Olympics Camp in the afternoon July 26-28. It’s going to be a high-energy, fun way to explore piano and singing technique. 

Outta Theatre has been doing Kids and Teen shows regularly for almost 5 years now, and now it’s time to start branching out into adult theatre, as well.  I would love to start an annual tradition of holding a Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre weekend.  We are holding auditions for our first Murder Mystery play on June 30 for ages 16 & up.

Why do you believe that the humanities are important to everyone, and not just people in academia? 
Art is the most powerful way to open the door into unreachable places inside of someone’s heart.  I’ve seen people who struggle with self-image absolutely blossom as they discover the freedom of creative expression.  Art can help bring healing.  It is about celebrating life, exploring ideas, facing fears, connecting people, embarking on adventures, communicating truth, and coping with loss.  It makes us laugh and cry because art is at the core of what makes us human. 

What is something that people might be surprised to learn about you (hobby, skill, interesting story)?  
After my first year at Mimeistry (a performing arts school in California), we spent a month in Switzerland for a mime performance tour.  Afterwards, two friends and I decided we would hop over to Italy for 3 days. Those 3 days would make a great movie! We stayed at a monastery college in the middle of nowhere and no one spoke English. Two days in a row the monks drove us to the train station just in time for us to MISS the train.  We had to wait a couple of hours for the next one.  On top of that, the trains went on strike our last day and we almost missed the last one back to where we were staying.  We literally had to run to catch it and then we had to guess what transfers to take because it was different than the original trip.  In order to get to the airport on our last day we had to pay one of the monks to give us a ride.  We also got sick while we were there and by the time we touched down at LAX – I had completely lost my voice and couldn’t make a sound for the next 5 days.  It took weeks for my voice to fully recover.  And that is only a little bit of the story.

What shows are you currently binge-watching? 
I am in between binge-watchings at the moment.  Most recently would be The Flash. 
 
What is the worst job that you had while working through your degree and what would you tell your past self now?
My worst job was actually after I graduated from both Grove City College and Mimeistry International.  I was trying to get a theatre performance company started with 2 other friends with whom I went to school in California.  We all had 2 jobs on top of trying to get bookings and traveling whenever we could – we performed in several states, but not consistently. 

I started working as a substitute teacher AND I worked at the outlet mall cleaning the food court and the restrooms. It was a temporary job, but I thought I had descended into the pits of eternal punishment. It gave me an amazing appreciation for all of those hard working folks out there who continue to clean those places so that we can enjoy them. And I could tell you disgustingly funny stories about that time! If I could jump in a time machine and talk to myself, I would mostly say “Suck it up! This is only temporary and it will give you some great stories to tell. We all have to do whatever it takes to reach our dreams.”

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Check back next month for more Coffee & Questions. In case you missed Aksel Casson's interview last month, click here.

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