Humanities is a term that refers to a wide range of academic disciplines that study the various aspects of human culture, such as literature, history, philosophy, art, religion, and languages. It is for all intent and purposes, a study of the human race. The immediate question that begs to be answered is: Why bother?
In an age that is driven by ego-centric existentialism, by the ultimate importance of immediacy, speed, and in all too many cases, expediency, why would such an advanced civilization care about studying human culture? What possible advantage could there be to examining our cultural past, our historical roots, our artistic endeavors?
The 2025 Virgin Islands Humanities Showcase, supported by the National Endowment of the Humanities and Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands, not only tackles this question head-on, but examines it in such diverse detail that the ongoing continuation of exploring the preservation of our culture should not only be methodically investigated and examined, but it should cry out in the loudest of terms that there is no other way to proceed with life.
“The unexamined life is not worth living,” the Greek philosopher Socrates is quoted in Plato’s Apology. And by all accounts these words should resound and echo throughout every body, every living soul that has ever graced the face of our planet. Because, what kind of people would we be if we do not take an acute interest in learning all we can from our past and connecting that past to the present and future?
The 2025 VI Humanities Showcase not only seeks to preserve the culture of the Virgin Islands through storytelling, but turns the multi-media exploration it presents into an art form and quasi-science encyclopedia that encompasses the retelling of experiences and feelings for the sole purpose of advancing the culture from one generation to the next.
There is so much to be learned and cherished in this stunning accounting of life in the Virgin Islands. Audio and video presentations range from the Unbreakable Film Academy’s searching question of how do we get young people involved in the filmmaking process so they can create a visual history of VI culture, to Professor Olasse Davis explaining the origins of indigenous plants, to the fascinating history behind the Bamboola dance.
This showcase lays bare the question of why our students, the next generation, should even take part in the collection process of creating oral, written and video histories. It ignites their curiosity over why they should dance like the wind, touch the leaves of a tree, be fascinated by the history of a 200-plus year old building that still graces our shores.
“When I dance the Bamboola, I pray to have my ancestors seen through me…Bamboola connects me to a time, a people, an era,” a graceful dancer speaks as her flowing white gown, seems to float through the air, through time itself, to explore the stories and wonders of the past, the stories that evoke feelings of tragedy and heroism in days gone by.
“How do we build a more sustainable Virgin Islands, so in the wake of more storms, greater turmoil, we will not find ourselves on our knees again?” asks Peter Bailey from the Unbreakable Film Academy.
The 2025 VI Humanities Showcase answers this question in the most logical of terms: We look at life in its totality. We examine our past as a gateway to the present and the future. We learn about our past by listening to our storytellers, to our elders, who relate the feelings and memories of their time and the time that came before. We listen and we observe. We learn how to relate these new and old stories. And then we pass these stories on to the next generation so they become locked in the vault of time.
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