In times of crisis, when we face complex challenges like global pandemics, we need a collaborative response that transcends disciplinary boundaries and offers novel approaches to vexing problems. In the current moment, biologists, engineers and others in fields with established pipelines for translational research have sprung into action, working together to create life-saving diagnostics and therapeutics to help with the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet it isn’t always so obvious how scholars in the humanities can contribute to the front-line response.

On March 6, 2020 an international group of artists, writers, and art historians gathered in Baltimore, MD for a workshop at Johns Hopkins University, Form Beyond the Aesthetic, exploring the politics of form. After talks by Milette Gaifman, Benjamin Anderson, Jennifer Stager, Allison Caplan, Yael Rice, and Sonal Khullar, the group visited the Baltimore Museum of Art, where Hope Mohr Dance performed extreme lyric i. This performance engaged with the fragmentary poetry of Sappho, the only female poet from ancient Greece whose work survives.

“When I walked in [the Peabody Library], I was like, ‘This is gonna go down in history.’ What I like about it so much is that it’s gonna be documented. So years down the line you’ll be able to tell people, ‘If you want to learn about ballroom, you can go the Peabody Library and find out about it,’ and it’ll be here.”

For students chasing lasting wealth, the best choice of a college major is less obvious than you might think. The conventional wisdom is that computer science and engineering majors have better employment prospects and higher earnings than their peers who choose liberal arts. This is true for the first job, but the long-term story is more complicated.