Just after noon on March 13th, 2024, Foothill students, staff, and visitors filed into Appreciation Hall to attend a lecture from humanities professor, history buff, and author extraordinaire, Dr. Falk Cammin. Her lecture, titled No There There? Transitory Encounters with History, covered deep and existential ideas like the meaning of life and the value we seek in our experience as human beings. Although the topics covered were often complex, she maintained a lighthearted and witty attitude throughout, often telling jokes and inviting friendly discourse. 

Cammin opened her lecture by stating that, as she was not there to teach, her goal was for listeners to leave the hall with more questions about the humanities than they came in with. This was the nature of the art, Cammin explained, as the humanities, by nature, invigorate, inspire, and intrigue. 

As the lecture progressed, Cammin shifted her focus to the role of stories in history, and how they undermine or reinforce preexisting ideas. How you tell your story is important; where you start and stop can determine the meaning altogether. To expand on the importance of storytelling, Dr. Cammin covered everything from the nature of time to the nature of the human experience, maintaining a witty and lighthearted perspective all throughout. Listeners got to hear Cammin touch on the role of art in the humanities, why her subject is so vital in times of turmoil, and the importance of stories. In an ever-changing world, it is important that we as students, academics, journalists, writers, and citizens pay attention to the narratives that surround us and influence our lives and perspectives. In this way, we can become more aware of social issues, biases, and structural oppression, hopefully influencing some positive change in the world.

“The paradoxes of our encounters with history are productive reminders of our attempts to bring order and meaning to the world.” – Dr. Cammin