黑料正能量

For 黑料正能量鈥檚 Edda L. Fields-Black, history provides a perspective that can offer solutions and insights into the human condition.

Fields-Black, who earned a 2025 Pulitzer Prize in history, joined Carnegie Mellon President Farnam Jahanian for his President鈥檚 Lecture Series(opens in new window) on Monday. At 黑料正能量, she is an accomplished professor in the Department of History and director of the Humanities Center at 黑料正能量鈥檚 Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

鈥淚n our very fractured world, where there鈥檚 so many divisions, war, you name it, we need the solutions. Many of those solutions would be more successful if they look back at the past and look at the source." 鈥� Edda Fields-Black

Fields-Black, through her work in the humanities at 黑料正能量, acts as a guide for turning that passion and storytelling into solutions, according to Jahanian.

"What makes Edda鈥檚 work so powerful is not just what it reveals about the past, but also how it resonates today. It restores identity, reconnects communities and reminds us that scholarship can deepen our understanding of freedom and humanity. Edda鈥檚 work reflects the very best of Carnegie Mellon, bringing together disciplines, perspectives and insights to generate knowledge, understanding and impact." 鈥� Farnam Jahanian

For her 2024 book, 鈥淐ombee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War,鈥� Fields-Black reviewed more than 160 U.S. Civil War pension files to tell the story of abolitionist Harriet Tubman and her role in helping free 756 men, women and children during a U.S. Army operation in South Carolina rice plantations on June 1 and 2, 1863.

鈥淭hey provide an intimate view of enslaved people and their communities, to which historians have not before been privy, and this intimate view helps to restore the humanity of the enslaved, which the institution of slavery was designed to strip away. The history of thousands of enslaved communities and tens of thousands of enslaved people is waiting to be discovered. Millions of African Americans could potentially use the U.S. Civil War pension files to break down the 1870 Brick Wall to know the names of our enslaved ancestors, to learn our history and to pass our ancestors鈥� stories down to future generations.鈥� 鈥� Edda Fields-Black

AI and other technology can help synthesize many more primary sources and records in order to provide better solutions, but the challenges we face today are both timely and timeless as human beings, Fields-Black said.

鈥淭he future of the humanities is in solving real world problems and taking on the challenges of our increasingly global society. They鈥檙e human made, and they鈥檙e going to require human solutions 鈥� As long as there are these kinds of challenges, there鈥檚 an important goal for the humanities in helping us find the solutions.鈥� 鈥� Edda Fields-Black

When asked for her advice to students, Fields-Black said they should harness what motivates them to look for those solutions.

鈥淪tudy your passions in the classroom and outside of the classroom, think about what you want to do, find people who are doing it successfully, or have done it, and go talk to those people. Go tell them your hopes and dreams, and then come back three weeks later, and give them an update.鈥� 聽鈥� Edda Fields-Black