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Eight Questions with Cat Winters
Lehmann said.
Humanities staff chats with author and English alum Cat Winters ‘93
Lehmann has already begun to achieve his goal by implemented several new courses offerings through the Humanities, including History 100W, “Jews in the Age of Discovery,” and History 132H, “3 Religions 3000 years.” In an increasingly difficult academic climate, especially for the discipline of humanities, the reinstatement of an ethnic studies program could seem unwise due to the need for expenditures; however, Lehmann is not perturbed. “I don’t think it is a difficult climate [for the reinstatement of Jewish studies] since the Humanities are central to any major,” Lehmann said. “It does teach certain skills, as well as to think about other cultures, literatures and traditions, which is a good way to facilitate reading and writing.”
1) Your debut novel In the Shadow of Blackbirds was released in April. Tell us a little bit about your book. How did it come about? Winters: In the Shadow of Blackbirds is the story of a sixteen-year-old girl named Mary Shelley Black who’s forced to deal with WWI-era America, the deadly 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, and the early1900s trend of turning to séances and spirit photography to cope with grief. She’s a highly educated, scientific, rational young woman whose world is turned completely upside down when she starts to see the ghost of her first love, who was killed in battle overseas.
“We have a different way of producing knowledge in the Humanities that not everyone appreciates. [However,] in order to have a functioning democracy, the way that Humanities teaches you to think is crucial because it is about the art of interpretation.”
The novel came about after I had been struggling for years to get published in the adult fiction market. After failing to sell a contemporary suburban satire to publishers, I spoke with my agent about an older manuscript of mine that also dealt with WWI, the Spanish influenza, and Spiritualism. She read the Cat Winters novel and loved the setting, but she thought I should take the story in an entirely different direction. By that point I had been immersing myself in a great deal of 1918 research, and shortly after our conversation, the plot and characters of In the Shadow of Blackbirds fell into place.
Article originally appeared in the January 29, 2013 issue of New University.
2)Tell us a little bit about the research you did for In the Shadow of Blackbirds.
The program of religious studies is an interdisciplinary program that seeks to integrate classes from different majors, as well as schools, including: Social Science, Social Ecology, Medicine and the Arts. “Religious studies allows you to explore other cultures,” Lehmann said. “We live in a global age, and we can’t escape the reality of our global environment. Therefore, religious studies is to prepare people for the world, and eliminate the ‘us vs. them’ type of thinking.” Lehmann stresses that in order to function to the best of its ability, humanity requires an understanding of different cultures in order to broaden perspectives and allow for a more tolerant approach to life. “I may not convince a science person to add a minor in religious studies, but they might end up taking a class or two. It still has a place in higher education: to enhance humanities skills,” Lehmann said.